Page 20 of Royal Lies

As if sensing or knowing this the girl, Everetta continued, ”Oh come on, I’m sure you must have seen something by now. Like~, our pasts? Or~ Oh! I know maybe the future, really not sure how it works, which is why you gotta just tell me!” I nearly sucked in a breath at the chills crawling up my spine from her words. She was always like this. The crazed look in her eyes as she drew even closer. Causing me to pull back a little more.

I kept my mouth shut knowing if I told this girl anything she would probably try and twist it to her advantage. Use it as blackmail or something.

With or without her memories this girl wasdangerous.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I looked away trying to ignore her, focusing on ripping my feet off the ground one by one.

Honestly, could the ground be any more wet? It might as well be quicksand at this point.

The girl sighed, “Oh come on, it couldn't possibly hurt to just tell me a little of what you've seen.” She sing songed ignoring the sudden chill in the air.

The only sign I felt was the rise in energy around us.

Werehounds.

I looked up at the moon. A full-blood moon and it was at its peak, a perfect night for hunting. The girl, following my gaze, looked up at the crimson sky. She frowned, then turned back to me.

“Strange, don’t blood moons only occur once a month, it’s already happened a few days back. Maybe the Summer court has something else going on.” She cocked her head in that eerie way of hers, causing my frown to deepen.

I was locked in a windowless dungeon so I wasn’t aware the blood moon had already occurred. Looking beyond I spotted the mass of werehounds stalking toward us. There was much more than normal. The girl, Everetta, didn't take long to move. With one fell swoop she was already slicing the neck of a werehound. Her tiny dagger cut through the thick neck of the beast. Slashing it clean off. Its body as if not sensing the action held firm for a whole second before blood suddenly gushed out of the open wound like a geyser. The girl didn't waste time to watch the spray of red before she was throwing herself back; she swung her leg out, knocking the werehound beside her and crashing against the body of an Iron Red Tree, one of the toughest wood to cut down. In another instant she was in front of the beast stabbing her blade into its middle eye, the only other true way to kill a werehound besides tearing off its head. The werehounds are notorious for their impenetrable skin. Her eerie golden eyes glowed like the red light of the moon.

Something was definitely wrong. There shouldn't be this many. I frowned brows drawn in confusion as I stared out into the army of werehounds, their razor-sharp fangs ready to tearyour flesh from your bones. The acrid smell of their breaths as it fogged the night air. Their tufts of midnight navy blue fur spiked as they readied themselves to attack. Their giant paws alone could crush a human's head with one stomp of their lethally sharp appendage.

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to fight?" Sneering down his nose at me I rolled my eyes. As arrogant as ever I see, giving out a command like he owned everything.Excuse me for trying to take in the situation before jumping into action.The girl at least wasn’t as arrogant. I'll have to give her that.

His hands clutched the nape of the hound. With a squeeze, the head popped off. The boy wrinkled his nose peering down at his blood-soaked clothes. With a flick of his hand, he cleaned the pool of blood and small splatters of tissues that stained his precious fabric. Behind him, a trail of ice and organs lay splashed on the blood-soaked ground.

Rolling my eyes I allowed for the fire in my heart to burn beneath me, extending the flames out, shaping and molding it like a pierced arrow to aim straight for the hound charging towards me. Its jaws snapped in the air as if it could already taste my blood. I suppose even the boy knows when to help, for I could sense his magic reaching out to me; giving me some of his energy. With a flick of my brows, I ignited the ground beneath the creature's feet. In an instant, the hound howled engulfed in bright purple flames. Its body instantly charred before the flames slithered like a snake to another victim. Wincing I tried not to look, I'd rather not touch the creatures. I tried making their deaths as quick as possible in the flames but I'd rather not have my hands covered in their blood.

We’d faced these hounds in our past lives and had helped to suppress them. If these werehounds were left unchecked then most of the wildlife would be destroyed. Judging from things itappears they have. These hounds prayed on anything moving, they didn't have a specific set of prey like most normal creatures. Which was why the Shadow Lands were nothing but monsters and predators.

As I finished off the last of the hounds I turned noting the sudden quiet. The girl looked down at a specific dark spot. At first glance, it just looked like a black splotch on the ground. Upon closer inspection, one could tell it was a shadow, which meant it was a dark fae, one of the fae kinds that controlled the shadows. In other words, a corrupted fae. In the past, they had been under my brother's rule, so did this mean that my brother was the enemy as always? Typical. I scoffed.

Holding up a hand as if to halt us from attacking, the boy watched the shadows carefully observing their movements. In the next minute, it formed into a being, like a crawling mass of spiders shaping into a person. I watched as the shadow tilted its head to us and smiled, leaving a big wide gap in the shape of a grin.

“Found you.” Its voice, like chalk screeching down a blackboard, echoed in the empty night sending chills down my back and goosebumps crawling up my arms. As if this night wasn’t cold enough. I scowled down at the almost translucent form with its pitch-black body and hollowed-white eyes. It didn’t have facial features per se, it was more like they had a black outline of where their nose and mouth should be but that was it.

It was definitely my brother, no doubt about it. He probably sent this scout to find me and report back to him so that he could kill me himself. But in an instant, a dagger cloaked in light magic sliced through the fae, which should have killed it. Light magic was the only thing that could touch these types of fae or anything cloaked in light magic.

In the past, to kill a shadow fae or injure them, a weapon needed to be made of light or embedded with light. But,this shadow remained intact and whole, letting the dagger fly through its body.

That-that shouldn’t have happened.

Did my brother grow more powerful?

I felt the slithering icicles crawling up my spine as I fought to hide my fear. Clenching my fists so tight I felt my nails drawing blood from my palms as I tried not to shake from rage and horror.

Smiling one last chilling smile it slithered away leaving a feeling of dread in my stomach as I frowned.

Did my brother find a new way to extend the shadow fae's powers?

"Hey, umm doesn't this shadow seem a bit different from the past? Ah-" All of a sudden the girl was dropping to her knees, her nails digging into her skull as she screamed. It was like a banshee crying out in the pitch-freezing darkness.

Great another problem.

Pushing me aside the boy, Eli, hurried towards the girl, his hands immediately glowing in the blue halo of his ice magic. I rolled my eyes as always as he rushed to rescue her. In the next moment, the girl would be fine.

It was probably just one of her memories coming back.

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