Page 99 of Crown of Slumber

“Please,” I begged. “Please let me go. I can pay you. I can?—”

But the ogre shook his head. “No gold. Only power.”

Horror pooled in my stomach. These ogres weren’t going to feast on my flesh. They were going to feast on mymagic.

Tyrone had said I was the most powerful fae in his castle. Did these ogres agree? Was that why I was tied down to this rock, as if in preparation for a ritual sacrifice?

In a flash, an image appeared in my mind of several figures in blood red cloaks, chanting in a foreign language as blood dripped down their palms. I was among them, my own cloak billowing in the wind as I uttered the ancient and powerful language of the gods. Power swelled around us, magnifying the spell.

Just as suddenly, the image vanished, and I was back on the stone, tied down, forced to accept my fate.

I was delirious. Delusional. Perhaps the ogres had fed me a drug that made me hallucinate.

It didn’t matter. I was going to die either way.

“Please!” I screamed, my shrill voice echoing. Several ogres cringed, covering their ears from my outburst. I screamed again, hoping I could weaken them, cause them painso I could escape. But the ogre who spoke to me shoved a putrid cloth in my mouth, cutting off my cries.

“Be silent,” he grunted. “Over soon.”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. My only hope was for Fenn to find me. But he had worn himself out. He was probably unconscious in the forest somewhere. Meanwhile, these ogres with their supernatural speed could be anywhere in all of Valora by now. They could have taken me all the way to the Shadow Court, for all I knew.

I was utterly and completely alone.

A muffled sob burned in my throat, and I crammed my eyes shut, waiting for the end.

“Let us begin,” said the ogre, and the chanting resumed.

Something warm pressedinto my face, jolting me awake. My eyes flew open, and the first thing I saw was a pair of bright golden eyes, one of them scarred and milkier than the other.

With a yelp, I scrambled backward, thinking it was some unseelie beast come to finish me off.

Then I realized it was Mal. Aurelia’s dragon.

My heart still seizing from panic, I stared at him, uncomprehending. His wings were outstretched, as if he had just landed, his eyes wide, his ears pulled backward in distress.

“Mal,” I breathed, rubbing my chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He nudged my arm with his nose, then growled low in his throat.

I looked around, surveying the empty woods before me. When the memories came back to me, my stomach hollowed, and my blood ran cold.

Aurelia. The ogres had taken her.

I jumped to my feet, then swayed, my head still fuzzy. Mal stepped in my path, catching me with his head before I fell.

“You can tell she’s in danger,” I said, massaging my temples.

Mal huffed. I took that as ayes.

“Do you know where she is?”

Another huff.

A pulsing urgency filled my veins. Was I too late? Had the ogres already drained Aurelia’sblood?

I looked into Mal’s frightened eyes. She had to still be alive. If Mal knew where she was, that had to mean she wasn’t dead.

“Can I get on?” I asked.

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