Page 22 of Fae Exile

I met her grateful stare but said nothing. She’d betray me to the queen in a heartbeat if she had reason.

Crunching on glass, crystal, plaster, and stone, I wound my way between huddles of bodies. Now that the queen was gone, a steady stream of nobles were exiting through the front double doors.

“Rush!” It was Ryder’s voice.

I spun, searching.

“Over here,” West called, and I found them crouched around several women, two of whom clutched their arms, one of which hung limply from its socket.

Quickly, I scanned their company, recognized only my cousin Tula as an ally, and said, “We have to get out of here. Tula, lead the women out. You three, follow me.”

Hiroshi, Ryder, and West nodded as if they already knew.

We wouldn’t be heading outside and to safety. Whatever was roaring and rocking the palace ... we needed to find it.

West slapped a hand to my shoulder. “We’ve been waiting on you. Let’s move.”

Before Tula had made much progress leading the females toward the double doors, my brothers and I were heading toward the throne—and the tunnels behind it.

9.THAT’S NOT HOW THE QUEEN DOES IT

~ ELOWYN ~

I didn’t pass out, though once it became clear the disgusting, tentacled monsters weren’t attacking us anymore, a part of me wished I had. I was forced to lie on the mucky ground, covered in shuddering creature parts and slick gore, to wait until my body processed their poison so I could move again.

My eyelids still too heavy to lift, my heart thundered as the beasts’ hissing ceased but their chittering continued, syncing up. Their cyclicalch-ch-ch-chhh, all of them at once, revealed just how many of them hid in the darkness. My chest was flat to the ground, and the constant chirring vibrated against my breast, igniting an agony along the wound in my heart.

When my fingers had been unable to clutch my weapons, the torch had fallen somewhere beyond my sight. I’d held on to my dagger the longest, but it rested flush against my thigh, gathering slop, where my stiff fingers couldn’t even reassure myself with its presence. Not that any of our weapons had done much to protect us against the dangers of the Sorumbra...

It had once more been a mysterious power that had spared me—and this time my friends—from the clutches of imminent death.

A birthright I didn’t fully understand had granted me the desperate wish for our survival.

With agonizing slowness, the heaviness that weighed down my body eventually began to lighten. My fingers, toes, and nose twitched, and I managed to blink open my eyes.

As I suspected, my skin was glowing. Unable to move my limbs to properly examine the effect, all I could make out was the diffuse light wafting off my face that prevented my eyes from focusing well beyond it.

My throat bobbed, and I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs as best I could, pulling in the tangy scent of blood and the acrid stench of ... I didn’t know what exactly, other than that I hoped I’d never smell the beasts’ putrid flesh again. Their bitterness coated the air, conjuring images of deep, murky, stagnant bogs, where the living went to die and rot.

“Everyone okay?” Reed asked, his usually friendly voice now a croak like it was dragging itself across hot coals to reach us. He’d been the first to fall prey to the poison, so also the first to shake its hold.

For another long minute, no one answered. I tried, but my lips flopped against each other without sound.

Finally, Finnian replied, “The goblin, dragonling, and I will live.”

Experimentally, I cleared my throat. “Xeno? Roan?” My voice strained and cut out.

From somewhere nearby, the dwarf grunted.

But then there was only the eerie chittering, snaking across my skin, making me clench with the need to swat at it, to push it away, to flee from the reminder that we were so very far from safe.

As the seconds ticked by, thech-ch-ingseemed to solidify in the night air, until it was one with my mounting panic.

“Xeno?” I repeated weakly.

When he still didn’t answer, I pushed up onto my hands, partially collapsed into one shoulder, splashing my face with inky gunk as my arm slapped the ground, then rasped, “Xeno!”

My lungs squeezed as all at once I seemed to recall every instance in Nightguard when he’d been the only one to smile at me, how he’d sparred with me when no one else would after Zako’s death. How he’d laughed with me even when there wasn’t much reason for it, and how he’d been the only one to fight for me when Dougal had abducted me. He’d taken an arrow to the heart for his efforts. The ghost of his kisses tingled across my lips—he’d wanted to be more than friends.

---