Page 3 of The Fallen Kingdom

I remember how I threw back my head and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Staggering at the memory, I hurry away from that damned dock before I can do something worse than freezing the water and bringing a storm.

Just what the bloody hellwasthat? What am I?

My thoughts whisper a word. A horrifying suggestion that makes me go still with dismay.Fae.

No, I’m not fae. I stare down at my feet, swollen and cut up from walking through the forest. Fae don’t bleed this easily. The realization is a small comfort. A memory comes fast: me curling my fingernails into my palms to recall what pain felt like.

Pain that saidI’m still human. I’m still me. Bleeding is what mortals do.

I’m still mortal.

The sharp beat of horse hooves draws me out of my thoughts. The rhythm is a faint, steady staccato against the earth. It isn’t just the sound—I canfeelit. In the rocks, the same way my power connected to the water. It’s coming from the living forest at the far end of the loch.

Three horses. Each with a rider and...

Power. It has a weight to it, the way air does on humid days. A heaviness accompanied by a wild, earthy scent that’s vaguely floral. It calls to something inside me thatknows—with certainty—that those riders are my enemies. Their power grows closer, gliding across the land in tendrils as dark as shadows cast by trees.

They’re searching for someone.

I flick a glance down at my hands, still cold from the water. They must be looking for the source of power. For whoever burned the forest to the ground. For whoever froze the surface of the loch.

Me. They’re looking for me.

CHAPTER 2

ITAKE OFFrunning. My bare feet slap against the smooth beach rocks and up the bank until I reach the soft, charred dirt of the dead forest. Power barrels out of me in a burst through the branches, bending them in an arched path to let me pass. I sprint toward the towering trees farther up the beach, where the forest was left untouched by my destructive abilities.

The riders are getting closer. As if they sense I’m nearby, the rhythm of horse hooves grows faster, louder. It matches the beat of my heart, the roar of my breath.

The living forest is full of tall Scots pine, the perfect kind of place to hide—or attack. The trees have grown so densely that little is visible beyond the first line of the thicket. The canopy of lush, vibrant leaves greedily absorbs the sunlight before it can touch the ground, leaving the trunks shrouded in impenetrable shadows. The branches creak and groan, the air growing colder as I approach.

I run for the cover of darkness, an inexplicable thrill going through me. This is comforting—the familiarity of it, the way setting up an ambush is second nature. I’ve done this before. Many, many times.

As I near the line of trees, the sticks and rocks in the soil here are sharper against my bare feet. I speed up and leap the last few feet into the thicket as if I were diving into a cold stream. With no light to reach the ground, even the air is frigid and harsh against my skin.

I find a dark space between the pines, then wait for the fae to come.

The horses are right behind me at the entrance to the woods. One of the fae riders lets out his power in a soft, searching stroke as they dismount and head through the trees. A tendril of it brushes the hair along my neck, followed by a voice at the back of my mind saying,Found you.

I hope he hears my silent challenge:Then come and get me.

I move against a tree, pressing my back firmly to the trunk and slowing my breath. My power recedes into my veins and I tamp it down further, ignoring how much it hurts. It pulses in my chest, unsettled; the space where it’s being kept is too small, too confining. It longs to be freed.

Not yet. Soon.

In this dense thicket with my power contained, they can’t see or sense where I am. I’m invisible. I smile at the excitement building in my chest. Almost. They’re so close now; I can feel them.

I peek around the trunk to see the riders. Their skin shines even in the shadowed grove. Though their faces don’t trigger any memories, my power senses theirs and identifies it easily.Daoine sìth, the most powerful fae in the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, capable of controlling the elements. They specialize in entering humans’ minds, and are able to manipulate them with a single thought.

These are Unseelie. I can tell. Even as they search for me, their hunger for human energy is insatiable, a demanding roar at the backs of their minds. My power can sense it.

“Here,” one of them says. From my hiding place I can glimpse the blood red of his hair, the slope of his strong jaw. “The trail ends here.”

“Is it the Queen?” says another.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” the first says in a low voice. “But she might have sent someone to kill for her.”

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