Page 16 of The Fae King's Labyrinth

Five

Calypso

Azulin’s sword glowed in the darkness. I twisted and strained to keep an eye on him as the pooka carried me back toward the wall we had entered through. The flame above my head dimmed as the magic in the air grew denser. The sensation of a coming storm tingled across my skin, and the vine tattoo winding up my left arm warmed and pulsed, causing my magic to hum in my veins.

“What did he do to you?” the pooka asked as he turned around so we could both watch Azulin.

“Nothing. Oh, you mean to my foot?”

“No.” He snorted. “I meant the clear connection between the two of you. It wasn’t there when I first met you, but now it’s as though your magic is entwined somehow.”

I fisted my left hand, closing my fingers over the vine crossing my palm. “I don’t know.” It was the truth.

Sitting straighter, I wrapped the tattered sleeve around my arm, further hiding the strange tattoo-like marking. I didn’t understand what it meant, but I trusted Azulin enough to take his warning about the pooka seriously.

Azulin yelled something in a language I didn’t understand. His sword flared brightly, casting light on a great creature rearing up from the middle of the deep end of the room. A greatmaw opened from the midst of a writhing mess of tentacles, displaying row upon row of glinting razor teeth.

The pooka yelped and danced backward.

I dug my fingers into his mane and squeezed his sides with my calves to keep myself upright. Pain lanced up my right leg, making my head swim, but I held on, craning my neck to see Azulin’s form outlined against the fierce glow of his sword.

Time appeared to slow. The creature’s tentacles moved sluggishly. It lashed out, missing Azulin by a ridiculously large distance. It roared in frustration.

The air thickened even further with the electrical sensation of gathering magic. Every hair on my body tingled in anticipation of the release of a spell. Yet, the magic continued to build. My jaw ached, my ears buzzed, and my skin crawled. My injured leg throbbed painfully. The creature or Azulin or both of them were gathering magic.

Then, as suddenly as time had slowed, it sped up. Azulin let out another shout. This time, a glowing circle of sparks surrounded him in light and what appeared like fire. Then suddenly he was gone, and all the light in the space disappeared with him.

I blinked in the sudden darkness, the afterglow of the brightness still creating phantom images in my vision.

The pooka stilled.

A great deal of splashing and thrashing came from the direction we had last seen Azulin. My stomach twisted. What if he died? Fae could die, right?

“Pooka?” I asked softly, almost afraid to voice my fears. “What happens if he dies?”

“I don’t wish to find out.”

The splashing stilled. We waited with bated breath as the lapping sounds slowed. The pain in my leg intensified, and I tried to convince myself that wasn’t an indication of Azulin’sdemise. Would his magic continue to work on my injury after he was gone?

Then with a great heaving splash, something emerged from the depths. Both the pooka and I jumped. In the complete darkness, we could only guess the sound’s origin, but it didn’t sound as messy as I would expect from a tentacled creature.

Abruptly the flame that had gone out reappeared above us, revealing a drenched Azulin grimly regarding the two of us. “It is dead. Its offspring will discover the corpse soon and pursue us. We need to cross to the exit now.”

The pooka danced in place. “Do we need to swim?”

“No.” Azulin indicated that we should follow him. “Keep directly behind me. The way is narrow, but we should be able to get across without her needing to get off. Then I can deal with that bite, and we can rest before the moon gains strength again.”

He sounded so weary. For that matter, I felt a bit exhausted myself. Laying down along the pooka’s back, I closed my eyes.

“No sleeping.” I opened my eyes to find Azulin’s face inches from mine.

“But isn’t sleep good for healing?”

“Not when your body is pumped full of nathair poison.” He narrowed his gaze. “Fight it. I am deathly serious. Don’t sleep.” He nudged my shoulder. “Sit up.”

I groaned attempting to sit up, only to find my arms unwilling to obey my commands. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

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