Page 6 of Faerie Trials

We dropped down next to Selene, the reporter who’d hounded me my first semester at the Elite Academy, now the woman I looked to as leader of this ragtag group. Bronwen transfigured on the way down so that when she landed, she did so in her normal form.

Exhaustion made it impossible for me to do the same. My crow feet clawed against cold stone. A focused thought and a final push of magic had me changing form. Slower than I should have, yeah, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I followed Bronwen toward one of the natural stone outcroppings, lichen covering the surface even during winter. The others were already gathered around a small crackling fire, their hands outstretched for warmth, waiting for the two of us to arrive.

These people, though we were few, had opened their doors to me once I arrived in Faerie. They reminded me what it meant to have a community and a group of like-minded people sharing the same kind of messed-up bloodline. I’d had that sense of community once with my wolf pack, under my uncle’s rule as alpha, but things hadn’t been the same since he’d announced my betrothal to a murderer.

So I’d run away. What choice did I have?

I sat cross-legged next to a fellow member and let out a labored sigh. “How are you tonight, Lisbet?”

She smiled and inclined her head. “As well as can be expected, Tavi. Thank you for asking.”

Selene paced beside the flames and greeted me grimly the moment our eyes met. Gone was her normal sly smile and the snarky attitude she affected when she was reporting. She stood several inches taller than me, and more when she donned high heels. Tonight, her chin-length black hair curled beneath her jaw, pointed ears hidden beneath a fluffy red cap. A long black coat hid most of her honey-colored skin from view. Selene gave us precious few seconds to settle in before launching into her speech. The flames reflected off the odd silver hue of her eyes.

“I’m sorry for dragging you all out of bed on such short notice,” she stated in an oddly somber tone, “but this was an emergency. It left us little time to prepare and even less time to wait until our regularly scheduled meeting.”

The air stilled around us. The tension thickened until it mingled with the wood smoke from the fire. “What’s going on?” one of the older shifters finally asked, a grizzled gray-haired man with a long beard.

“Well…” Selene trailed off and for a moment I almost thought she was nervous.

No way. It didn’t work with the image of the reporter I always kept in my head. The woman who dogged my every move during the Summer Games, like a shark in the water going after wounded prey. But tonight was definitely different.

At last, she let out a breath. “There’s no sense in wasting more time trying to find a way to put this mildly. A body was found about two hours ago. A pure-blood Fae ripped to pieces by a wild animal.” Selene let her words hang for effect before declaring, “This is the third pure-blood found dead this way.This week.”

Thatgot the desired effect. As a group, the ten of us leaned forward. Bronwen cried out, “What do you mean the third one? Thisweek? Impossible! We would have heard about this.”

Selene shook her head. “No, you would not have. The king does not want anyone to know about the discovery. He’s been working overtime to keep these deaths a secret because he knows the general populace of Eahsea will be thrown into a panic. Only a select few around him, and now us, know about these deaths.”

“Thisweek?” Lisbet clarified.

“This week. Sadly, it’s true.” Selene’s expression turned even more grim. “I was there. I saw the last one before the guards rushed the body away.”

It didn’t seem to surprise anyone how the king was working hard to cover up the murders. I stared around the circle at my fellow half-shifters.

“I’m sure no one wants to hear the gory details,” Selene stated, walking around the fire. “However, trust me when I tell you this is cause for concern.”

The gray-haired man harrumphed. “If the pure-bloods want to kill each other, then let them have at it. It’s no business of ours. Better for us to stay out of the way and let the monarchy chase its own tail.”

Selene clearly had more to say, and she silenced the man with a sharp look. “It is most certainly our business, Reginald, as there are those who think it’s a half-shifter committing these crimes. And I’m inclined to agree.”

4

My intestines tangled themselves into knots and the rest of me froze. At once the exhaustion dropped away and I felt painfully awake. Craning forward, my palms flat on the stones, I stared at Selene as though she held all the answers.

“Wait…you saw the last one?” I asked. And how would she know there was a half-shifter involved?

She avoided making eye contact with me, addressing the group at large, arms loose at her sides. She looked scared. Scared but resolved.

“The three Fae found by the court were mangled, girls roughly between three and six hundred years old. They were all slender, with reddish hued hair. High cheekbones.” Selene clapped her hands together and a puff of magic had the condensation in the air gathering until it solidified like a screen hanging above our heads.

And there on the surface were images of the girls. Not as they’d been found at the time of death, thank goodness, because I might have lost my dinner if Selene showed us that.

Bronwen shifted to whisper in my ear: “Tavi, they look like you. Like, weirdly similar to you.”

I swallowed hard, shivering. Definitely nauseated and more than a little freaked out. The girls did look like me. It didn’t matter that I was nineteen and these Fae were approaching six centuries, because fairies aged differently. Their eyes might have all been different colors but the hair…it was unmistakable. Shades of red too close to mine for me to feel comfortable sleeping tonight.

Damn. Double damn.

My mouth dry, I had a hard time forming my next question. “They were all killed the same way?”

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