Page 60 of The Forbidden Fae King

I stagger away from him, while he lets out a low laugh at my back.

The sight of the canopy snags my attention. I expected nothing but branches up here, but there is a flat, woody ground that stretches out and is covered in spongy moss and wildflowers. Pools of water collect in the crags and ferns grow in soil collected in nooks.

The treetop appears like a sparse forest, the topmost branches reaching up from the ground in long appendages that explode with sprays of emerald leaves.

The canopy of the nymph’s trees forms a great platform in a ring, and its foliage creates a defensive barrier around the outside edge. There are slits in the woven branches of the walls for archers and viewing balconies with a hint of a vista visible beyond.

The diffraction of intense orange light under the rays of the evening sun catches my attention. I turn to find a massive plinth, then another and another. There are five ‌evenly spaced across the platform, so similar to the jade plinths we use to open the portals.

They are double Aldrin’s height and as wide as him. I walk up to the closest and run my hands across the runes carved into the orange stone veined with red and brown.

“The jasper plinths are beacons,” Aldrin says beside me. “Thistower is one of many that watches over our border with the Winter Court. If an invading army crosses into our lands, the nymphs light up the jasper plinths. They send out a beam of red light and magic, which sets off every other watch tower in the Spring Court. The alarm lets us know of the threat immediately, and the signature of the magic tells us where it comes from.”

“That is ingenious,” I murmur.

“Come.” Aldrin takes my hand and pulls me toward one of the balconies. “The view is breathtaking from up here.”

The vista stretches out before us, all the way to the horizon, where the forest thins, then finally gives way to a stark white plane of snow. There is very little leaf canopy on any of the trees here, but as the land inches toward winter, the skeletal branches become more prominent and the flower buds disappear.

“Is there a physical divide between courts?” I ask.

“There are magical wards,” Aldrin says. “But those are more deterrents than fortified barriers, with plenty of gaps in them. It would take considerable effort to get an army through, but it won’t stop an invading force. It's just another obstacle.”

A silence grows as I take in every detail of the forest, noticing the outline of another distant Watchtower Tree.

Aldrin shuffles beside me. “Come. The sun will slip behind the horizon in an hour. It gets dark fast so close to winter. I brought you up here so we wouldn’t have an audience when you try to steal my dagger.” Aldrin taps the blade at his belt.

“I appreciate that.” A nervousness rolls through me.

I must be insane. The man is a head taller than me, full of taut muscle and built broadly for strength. I’ve seen how lightning-fast his movements are. I am grateful for the fact he took off his spiked armor.

He is fae and I challenged him.I am definitely losing my mind.

Aldrin leads me to a clearing of sorts that is encircled by a bit of a thicket. He stops in its middle, and a sly grin grows on his lips and fills his face.

“It’s not too late to back down, Keira.” He pulls a blindfold from his pocket and lets it hang in an outstretched hand.

I take the strip of fabric from him and stand on the tips of my toes to tie it around his eyes. My fingers brush the lines of his face, gliding over his freshly shaven skin and threading into his pulled back hair as I knot the fabric. The masculine tang of sweat mixed with the floral notes of spring hits me.

A strong urge overtakes me to run my hands across his cheek and down his chest. The motion would distract him and I should use every weapon at my disposal with this man. My stomach tumbles at the idea, but I force myself to step back.

Aldrin lifts part of the blindfold and catches my eye. “Walk back to the lift. When you get there, it will begin. I will remain in this spot, only moving to defend myself. You have until sunset to take my dagger.”

“You’re going to regret going easy on me.” I pinch the blindfold and pull it back over his eye. The man grunts in response.

I do as I am told, lingering at the lift to think. This is no deer that I hunt. His other senses will be far stronger than my own. I have spent hours thinking on how to mitigate each.

I creep through the thin brush littered with twigs, carefully picking each silent step and gently pushing between ferns so they don’t make a sound.

Golden rays of sun fall upon Aldrin’s tanned skin, as he stands incredibly still in the clearing, his nostrils flaring as he tries to catch my scent on the gentle breeze.

I approach the edge of the trees, spans away from him, and pull off my shawl, tying it to a branch. The site I selected is downwind from him. I make noise, enough to be believable, and he turns straight to me with a smile on his face.

“You’ll have to do better than that.” His tone is so arrogant, so self-assured, I can’t help smiling.

I grasp a long limb from a tree and turn a segment of the woody flesh to ash, breaking it away from the trunk. My magic whittles the limb until I have a staff the same height as myself.

I slip away on silent feet. I collect leaves and bruise them in my hand, rubbing the sharp scent of the vegetation on myself, then send asteady air wield rippling through my shawl, wafting a breeze straight at him.

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