Page 137 of Court of the Fae Princes

The moon emerges from behind a cloud, and the woods brighten. I finally see the wolves for what they are. They’re dead like the crow, undead, flesh hanging off of bones, eyes dangling from heads. Some even have their organs spilling out their sides.

“Stop! Get away!” I shout.

They don’t listen, just close in tighter.

Sweat rolls down my back. No, no, this can’t be happening. I’m on my way to save my princes. I can’t be killed out in the woods before I can even reach them, leaving them and my family helpless.

“Nova!” I shout again, desperate, my hand clenching my dagger, ready to fight to my dying breath.

A ball of flames explodes through the clearing, smashing into one of the wolves. It shoots back, hits a tree, and I watch in horror as its flesh burns away, leaving nothing but bones. I turn and watch as Nova strides from the trees, a sword in one hand, her other outstretched.

“Run for me!” she shouts. However, wolves still stand between her and I.

Moonlight flashes across glinting teeth. Do I run? Stay? Terror consumes me, and for a moment I'm not myself. I'm above me, watching tangled threads connecting me and the wolves, and darker black threads running from them and disappearing into the trees.

Balls of fire come exploding all around me. I hear the sound of a sword striking bone. Nova’s war cry, and the crackling of flames.

I blink, still not feeling like myself, but I see wolves watching me. Eerie. Dangerous. Poised to kill.

One leaps at me. I cry out. Nova shouts my name. My blade slashes the beast as I dive to the side.

Stop! Stop! Enough! I feel a familiar rush of energy, then nothing.

Every wolf goes down, collapsing to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

I scramble to Lady Nova. She catches me in her arms, her sword at the ready, but nothing moves.

Is it… over? That's impossible.

“What is this? What does it mean?” Why would undead wolves suddenly attack us? And why did they stop?

She steers us backwards until we're in the light of camp. Breathing hard, her eyes lock with mine. “It means the House of Death knows we're coming.”

“But they stopped the wolves? Why?” None of this makes sense.

Her expression changes to one I can’t read. “I don’t know. But I do know… we’re in trouble.”

SIX

Sulien

It’s dark, but the dark isn’t nearly as bad as the cold. The cold creeps into my bones, making me shiver uncontrollably as I push the boulder towards the pile of other boulders in a corner I can only find by touch. As the Summer Prince, I’m not accustomed to the cold, however, I’ve experienced it in the Winter Court, and it’s nothing like this. This cold radiates from beneath the ground… it comes from a place surrounded by death and darkness… it’s a kind of cold I never imagined I would experience.

I shift my direction a little, pushing up the sudden incline. Even though I can’t see in the pitch-black darkness, I’ve learned where the pile I need to reach is, and that the footing is uneven here. Unfortunately, the movement pulls at my back, and I cry out in the darkness and fall to my knees. My teeth clench together as I fight the urge to scream again.

When the pain is manageable once more, I release a slow, shaky breath. The stinging lashes on my back seem to be taking forever to heal, and every time I move, they burst open again in a way that makes me feel vulnerable and weak.

And I hate feeling weak.

I bet the Keeper of Death used a whip of iron.

“Fuck you, House of Death,” I whisper, but my words seem loud in the deathly still place. "And fuck this task."

I suspect all of this useless work was designed to break me down, and I hate that it’s working. Many see us fae princes as fancy-pants spoiled pricks who have never known a day of hard work in our lives. But there's a reason all of us are miserable shits who grow up and pawn our responsibilities onto our children. In order to strengthen our bodies to fight the iron demons, we're put through hell. To have the mental fortitude and ability to strengthen the boundary with our mind, we're put through hell. We know, in a way no other fae or human alike could possibly know, pain and hard work. Not that the humans don't break their backs for us. But they don't know what it's like to have demons crawling inside their minds, feeling their anger and pain. Feeling every drop of death and destruction they’re able to create until we can force them out of our kingdom with our minds.

I remember waking to find my tutors trying to pry my hands back from my face. I remember my tutors cleaning the gouges I carved in my own face. And I remember staring at myself in the mirror wondering how it was that the pain on the outside didn't resemble the pain I was experiencing on the inside.

All that's to say, I know pain. Despite what I let others think of me. I thought I could handle whatever games the Lady of Death wanted to play with me until I humiliated myself enough to satisfy her.

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