Page 3 of Fae Champion

Russet’s body crumpled into a heap, glancing off my back before sliding to the ground along with his sword.

The dragon head dissolved into a pile of ash. An otherworldly breeze picked up its remains, and the ash sprinkled across me and Russet’s corpse.

All at once, the pain overwhelming me dulled, the force preventing my moving eased, and the thumping through my ears transformed into a sharp ring.

At last sliding my palms free, I collapsed to the ground. Russet’s blood seeped across my neck, beneath my armor, and into the woven strands of my hair, slick and already growing sticky.

I lay there, waiting for life to begin making sense.

CHAPTER TWO: A Merry Band of Gruesome Stagers and Spies, and a Friendly Queen Makes my Asshole Clench

If not for the unrest overwhelming the entirety of the stadium, and its increasing volume, I might have convinced myself I was either dreaming or dead. But our audience was too vocal with its shock over the result of my match and its demands for “death to the dragons,” as if they’d somehow missed that the beast who’d come to my rescue was already dead—obviously. I didn’t know where the head had come from, but as faras I knew, the only live dragon in all the mirror world was Saffron.

Dazed, I lay sprawled on my stomach, much of one cheek plastered to the ground in the spreading pool of Russet’s blood. Nearby voices had roused me to open my eyes, and now that I had, all I could do was blink as I attempted to distill what exactly it was that I was seeing.

A handful of fairies, all the size of the ones I’d first spotted replenishing decanters and food platters in the Hall of Mirrors, flitted around Russet’s decapitated body, fussing over the scene. One with hair as bright and pink as the flesh of a ripe watermelon, and another with a head capped in grass-green strands, landed toward the edge of the puddle of blood, fanning it with pumps of their wings. Two other fairies, these with short hair in cherry red and blackberry violet-black, blew on the liquid, seemingly joining the long-haired fairies in their efforts to … expand the blood’s reach along the ground. Already, Russet’s blood coated the short grass and stubby flowers for several arm lengths around his body. Another couple of fairies stood jumping up and down atop Russet’s chest.

“Yeah, now we’re getting it,” said one of them. She had golden yellow hair the same shade as Saffron’s scales. Every time her diaphanous wings and gauzy skirt bounced, precious life liquid squirted from Russet’s neck in a red arc.

Her companion in the task, with hair and dress as white as freshly fallen snow, giggled maniacally,pounding on his chest with focused intent. “You think we can draw more from his heart area?” she asked.

“We’d better try,” Yellow answered as her landing sent a gush of more blood to join the growing slick beneath Russet’s body—and mine. “You know she won’t be happy till it’s as gruesome as it can get.”

“What’s she think we are?” Cherry asked from his spot on the ground next to the spreading puddle before sucking in a huge inhale and blowing along the edge of the liquid, forcing it to spread. “Magic makers? We can only work with what we got.”

“That doesn’t matter to her and you know it,” said Blackberry between breaths. He blew, then added, “You better save that hot air of yours for doing your job.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Cherry grumbled.

Fully decided that I wasn’t dreaming or dead, and that the merry band of gruesome stagers of the scene was indeed real, I asked, “What in the name of dragonfire are you all doing?”

As if they were a single organism made of separate parts, they jerked and swiveled, searching all around them. Their scrutinizing gazes skipped over me as if I were no more than part of the scenery.

“Where’d that come from?” White asked in a panicked pitch. “I don’t see any mouths. Or ears. Oh by dragons, do you thinksheheard us?”

“I don’t know,” Yellow said in an agitated rush. “She’d better not’ve or it’ll be?—”

“Off with our heads,” several of them finished in unison.

“Then what was it?” Green asked.

I peeled my cheek off the mess beneath my face and pushed up onto one arm. “It was me.”

The six of them gasped and spun toward me. Yellow slipped off her perch, landing in goop with a red splatter. Pink’s pumping of wings faltered and she lost her balance, landing butt first in blood.

“I would’ve thought that was obvious,” I added. “It’s not like he’s”—I inclined my chin toward Russet’s remains—“going to be doing any more talking.”

The fairies were the size of hummingbirds, their eyes no larger than grape seeds, and yet their eyes grew wide enough that white rimmed their irises.

“You … can hear us?” Green asked, half reverent, half disbelieving.

“Uh, yeah. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

They exchanged looks that said far more than they were telling me.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

Again, they shared a look between them.

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