Page 10 of Fae Champion

Braque opened his mouth. I pushed my blade into the groove I’d already opened in his skin, causing thecut to drip a new trail of blood down his neck, sopping into the collar of his shirt. He clamped his teeth shut, sucking air through them with a hiss.

Keeping his feet rooted, the guard with a conscience twisted his torso so he faced much of our audience. Then he yelled as loudly as a bear, “Forever as one in the light. Forever divided in the darkness.”

A few stunned moments passed before those in the stands began to repeat his call. There was no cohesion, but there was no mistaking that a significant minority joined in his sentiments.

“Bring down the queen before she’s the end of us all,” the guard shouted.

A few isolated cries of “Death to the queen” rang from the bleachers, and the queen, whose voice was still being augmented, gasped her affront, then cried out, “You ungrateful traitors. Braque, kill the guards.”

And though only one of them had openly defied her, Braque raised his stubby fingers in their direction and dragged them through the air in front of him before I realized he was doing magic, and kicked out at his hand.

But the whirling pit tilted on its axis to point its suction their way. Though their feet didn’t move of their own volition, the guards slid along the earth, churning up the grass and flowers beneath them with futile resistance.

The rebellious guard, his eyes morose, angled his face upward, bellowing once again, “Forever as one in the light. Forev?—”

The pit ate him up.

“Forever divided in the darkness,” completed some fae from the stands as the rest of the guards disappeared behind him.

The whirling mist, now with a diameter twice the length of my body, sucked flowers, grass, and soil into it. The ground stretched and creaked before yielding, dirt circling in the air above it before descending into its depths.

“Are we safe from it now that it’s pointing the other way?” I asked Braque.

“Maybe. Probably. Safe from it anyhow. But you’ll never be safe from Her Majesty, not after what you’ve done.”

I chortled darkly. “I was never safe from her to begin with.”

“True. My queen’s reach is long, her power mighty.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” I answered distractedly. Giving a wide berth to the gluttonous hole, Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West were making their way across the field. Ivar, no longer on the balcony with the queen, stood where they had at the edge of the dugout, watching their approach with a ferocity that suggested I’d insulted him instead ofherwith my little speech. Lennox and the surviving members of his band of bullies stood in a line behind the queen’s attendant, broadcasting their alliance.

The dwarf, Roan, stood apart from them all,leaning on his ax and looking as if he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. For what though, I wasn’t certain.

“Back us away very, very slowly,” Braque whispered to me.

“It won’t suck us up?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped. “This is chaos. I don’t do chaos. My magic is organized. But if you’re threatening to kill me anyway, I may as well take my chances.”

“You can’t close the pit?”

“No more than you can right now.”

“Will it stop on its own?”

“Not likely.”

“Then what?”

He snorted, his throat bobbing against my blade, causing him to shrink back against me to ease the pressure. “That’s the problem with you. You don’t think before you act. You don’t care what havoc you wreak.”

“Hey! I didn’t ask to be here. Your precious rulers brought me here. Blame them, not me.”

“You were supposed to obey,” he said.

“Sorry to disappoint,” I quipped, though I obviously wasn’t sorry in the least.

Rush and his friends were coming up behind us. Their weapons were sheathed, and Rush had his hands out in front of him as if he were approaching a spooked dragon.

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