Page 105 of Fae Champion

Rush yanked the blade upward, and Gorko shrieked like a saw grinding through wood.

Swiveling, I caught sight of Cambo, his features twisted into a horrible promise of retribution, now thundering toward West—and Braque behind them all, clutching two vials and wearing a matching grin to the queen’s.

Faster than Braque could register my presence, I rose, drew a blade, and threw it at his throat.

My aim was true, and I anticipated watching metal slice through his jowly flesh—but, just inches from his body, it hit another of those invisible shields and dropped to the floor with a harmless clatter.

Braque snapped his head around, seeking the source of this new threat … and saw me.

His eyes widened in affront, but then, even worse, his grin grew, stretching his puffy cheeks.

I clutched my final throwing knife. And as he uncorked the first of his vials, I spun and launched it at Cambo.

It lanced through the pygmy ogre’s thick neck, his bellow choking out on his blood.

When I next turned toward Braque, tendrils of festering green and black snaked toward me, Xeno, Saffron, the rest of the guys, Rush … everyone.

“No,” I whispered without any idea what, precisely, Braque’s spell would do to us.

“Oh yes,” Braque said as if he’d heard me over thebraying, grumbling, and grunting of the gravely wounded pygmy ogres.

Streams of green and black magic wove together, bands of smoke braiding themselves into one before drifting toward me.

I backed up, my steps crunching, a shard of crystal slicing through my useless satin slippers, before I knocked into something large and fleshy. I stopped and stared at the smoke as if it were a viper and I was unwilling to make any sharp moves.

It undulated, as if considering, then pulled back to attack.

“No,” I snarled at it.

It hesitated, oscillating in the air directly in front of my face.

Again, it drew back to strike.

“No,” I repeated, more strongly this time, with more authority. “You shall not attack.”

The vine of Braque’s magic stood still as if sentient.

“Enough of this,” the queen said from her perch, though I didn’t dare break my stare from the magic to study her. “Braque,” she added, “end it.”

“It will be my pleasure, my queen,” he answered, beginning to chant, low and steady, in a language I didn’t recognize.

The green and black magic stiffened like an adder … and followed the commands of its charmer.

Its jaws widened, then snapped onto my face.

It was the last sight I saw … until I found myself blinking back to awareness, slumped against the wall beneath the line of windows, pressed against the chunks of crystal that remained in my back.

Biting down on the waves of pain, I turned to lean against my side instead, and discovered Xeno, Saffron, Hiroshi, Ryder, West, Rush, and Larissa—who must have hidden behind the curtains she sat against, I realized—in a long line. We were spaced out far enough away from each other that we couldn’t touch, not even if we stretched. Everyone else appeared to sleep.

Rush and I were now shackled like the rest of them, though Larissa still wasn’t. I supposed they really meant it when they said females in Embermere didn’t fight—not even when their lives were endangered.

I tested my limbs and discovered them able to move, but barely, as if I were swimming against the torrential current of a waterfall. I could wiggle my fingers but not make any real progress.

Not that I’d felt my power—whatever source my occasional glow had—before, but with the manacles shining black like luminous shadows around my wrists and ankles, I felt hollow—empty.

Powerless.

Devoid even of my usual strength and skill.

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