Page 88 of Fae Reckoning

“I can try something else,” El suggested. “I could connect to them?—”

“No,” Xeno and I blurted in unison.

“I have to at least try,” Elowyn insisted.

“No,” Xeno and I once again repeated.

“Then let’s see what happens when we try to walk through them. Maybe they’re more roar than chomp.”

“Okay,” I said. Before any of my friends volunteered for the job, I leapt forward, aiming between Tula and Sandor. The instant I attempted to pass, they whirled on me, nails hooked like talons, teeth bared like beasts. Their barbed fingers latched on to my flesh. My eyes rolled back, my jaw tensed unbearably. Every muscle in my body railed against what they were doing: draining my own essence.

I thrashed against their grip. The more I pulled, the more they held. The draining continued in a siphon that would only end one way.

When Elowyn reached for me, I tried to warn her off. All that came out was an incoherent grumble pushed between clenched teeth. Her hands were on me—no, El, by the Ethers, no!The draining effect might channel through me to attack her.

She tugged. My feet lurched out from under me. Icareened backward into the others, bowling Roan down before everyone helped us back to our feet. I blinked in a daze and whirled back toward Tula and Sandor. They sissed and rocked, snarled and growled—but didn’t advance.

Reed cleared his throat. “My powers allow me to, uh, corral creatures?”

I spun toward him and wobbled. Xeno’s hand shot out to steady me. Reluctantly, I leaned into him for several moments until I could stand on my own, then nodded my thanks.

“Well?” Ryder pressed. “Whaddya mean, Reed? Don’t keep us hanging.”

“Just that, well, that’s all I can do. I can get creatures to stay inside the boundaries I set for them.” He tucked his head down and looked at us from under messy short braids, partially hiding flushed cheeks. “It’s all I can do. It’s why I work in the stables. I can keep the horses where they’re supposed to be. Not sure, but maybe it’ll work with these, uh, people, creatures? Things?”

Roan palmed him on the back. Reed’s stare jerked toward him, making his frizzy braids bounce. His eyes were wide.

“Well, lad,” Roan said on a grim chortle. “Why don’t ya get to it, then? Wastin’ time’s for those with time to waste.”

“You … you think I can do it?”

“By a dragon’s fat balls, laddie, I think ya can do any damn thing ya set yer mind to.”

Reed blushed all over again.

“Okay,” Reed said.

“How’s it work?” I asked while Reed studied Tula and Sandor.

“I just…” Reed lifted his arms to shoulder height. “Draw out a boundary.” A flash of magic lit up the opposite side of the room, on the other end of a massive wooden table designed to seat dozens at once, and sketched out a large rectangle. “And then, I mark everything I want to corral…” Bringing both hands together, with his pointer fingers extended side by side, he tapped the image of each of the undead in the air in front of him. Tula suddenly glowed, then Sandor, Millicent, then a pygmy ogre.

“This is great, Reed,” Elowyn encouraged. “You’re doing an amazing job. Keep going.”

Reed grinned beneath bright pink cheeks and continued selecting our adversaries. But when he whirled to face Yorgen, Idra, and the others behind him?—

“Fuck,” Ryder exclaimed with a low grunt of despair. “We’ve got a massive problem. Make thattwomassive problems.”

As if any of us might miss them…

Two dragons, already sissing menacingly, even as they finished solidifying, hunched between the wall and the other undead. Their tails lashed in a whipping, lethal arc. Their eyes blazed a bright, glowing red.

Sorrow yanked my heart into my feet.

“We were supposed to save them,” Hiroshi said softly, voicing precisely what I was thinking.

Appearing every bit the predators they were designed to be, the green and burnt-orange dragons he and I had last seen in the dungeons—chained up, mutilated, and brutalized, though still defiant, still prideful, still resisting Talisa—crouched, ready to attack. Even in death, their injuries wept green blood, the color that was supposed to indicate vibrant nature and life.

29.CONTRADICTING LAWS OF NATURE AND ALL THAT

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