Page 10 of Fae Reckoning

“That sounds bad,” Larissa said. “What are we doing?”

If Larissa hadn’t been here too, and it had been only my life I was risking, my hand wouldn’t have shaken as I hastily wiped Gadiel’s crusted blood from my blade and tucked it into my waistband, the steel cold against my thigh. My weapons belt had been confiscated by the queen until the ruse of her Nuptialis Probatio was over. The throwing knives I’d stashed against the small of my back were little reassurancewhen at any moment the guards might convince the pygmy ogres they were supposed to be working as part of the same team—and against Larissa and me.

After a quick look of my own, I wiped my hands along my breeches and slapped both to the wall. Surprise: it still felt as solid as it looked.

Larissa groaned. “Please tell me this isn’t our only way out.”

I ignored the thumps, slices, and cries of pain reaching us from the other side of the prison, at most a hundred and fifty feet away. “I thought there was a good chance Ry’s magic would still hold and it’d let us through.” My explanation sounded pitiful even to my own ears. I’d gambled my sister’s life on afeeling? A near impossible hope?

Larissa had both fists akimbo, staring down the wall like it was a person she might force into doing her will. My baby sister had always seemed so delicate, ethereal even, too precious for the hardness of this world. Now, with her rose hair free from its usual queen-imposed updo, cresting in savage waves around her face and shoulders, dressed in tablecloths for fuck’s sake, her eyes blazing with intent, I was realizing how little I really knew my sister. With the queen ordering me to do her occasional bidding even before she’d summoned me permanently to her court, I’d spent more of my recent years away from the family estate than there in Larissa’s company.

I sucked in an unsteady inhale. “Can you transformthe wall the way you did the door upstairs?” If not for her unexpected ability to seal the entrance to the tunnel, the queen’s guards would have been upon us long before we reached the dungeon.

“Don’t know,” Larissa answered, keeping her glare pinned on the wall. “I’ve never done anything like this before. Nothing spelled. And Braque’s magic is strong.” With a regretful grimace, she flicked a look at me. “He’s been keeping me alive all this time, after all.”

Aye, he had. It was another unpleasant reminder of all I was risking by choosing this path. Should I have sucked it up and remained behind to perform for the queen as she’d demanded? Then at least my sister’s treatments would have been guaranteed.

“No, Rush,” Larissa scolded, whipping her attention back ahead. “I know what you’re thinking, andno. We shouldn’t have stayed. What the queen wanted … just, no.”

I didn’t have the heart to confess that the queen had already taken my dignity and my sacredness and incinerated them to ashes between her legs.

A great, thundering crash snapped my attention back to the stairwell. Something large rolled down, hitting step after step with loud thumps, before knocking against the stone wall. A few seconds later, a pygmy ogre—the one whom I’d mind-manipulated, I thought—tumbled from the opening and landed with a heavyplop. Though distance obscured the finer details, I could make out one of his massive, meaty legshanging from exposed bone at the wrong angle. Three of his fingers were sliced off. And a pair of dents the size of my forearm distorted his skull into an even more misshapen lump than usual.

The ogre wasn’t likely to be getting to his feet ever again.

A keening, enraged roar made my thigh muscles twitch, like I should either be running away from the sound or toward it, sword pointed at the surviving pygmy ogre. From the screams of men, he was attacking with renewed ferocity.

I spun back toward my sister. “We don’t have much time.”Perhaps we should hide among the prisoners until I devise something better to do…

She didn’t look at me. “Hold on to me until we’re through. Whatever you do, don’t let go. I’m not sure this will work.”

Nudging aside the knot of the tablecloth to make contact with her in case that might increase our connection for her magic, I lowered my hands to her shoulders?—

A low, menacing snarl shuddered along my spine. Slowly—so slowly that an animal might not spook—I twisted around.

Not an animal, but a changeling. Just as bad. Probably worse.

The feethle’s eyes glowed red as it pinned them on my unprotected torso. With a louder, more vicious snarl, it bared blackened gums and sharp, spindly teeth,coated in pink—blood, surely, since the queen had fostered a taste for the ichor in her pets. This particular pet of hers had thick, ash-blond fur, and was being extremely mindful not to meet my waiting stare.

“Hello, Millicent,” I said with a disgusted gnarl of my own.

Before Larissa could turn to face this new threat, I squeezed her shoulders in silent reassurance. If she didn’t get us to the other side of the wall, Millicent’s petty vengeance and desperation to please the queen would be the least of our troubles.

The stairwell emitted a shrieking whine, and then a handful of other feethles bounded over the pygmy ogre’s felled body, spotted Larissa and me, and charged toward us. In the low light like twilight, it was easy to see their eyes glowed red too. Whoever these changelings were in their person forms, one thing was clear: they were all under the queen’s thrall.

If they were here and their mistress wasn’t, then I had to assume Ivar had pulled the queen away—most likely to go after my mate, dammit—or the queen would probably be down here herself.

As feethles sprinted toward us, I ducked my head, keeping both palms touching my sister’s shoulders, and fought to catch Millicent’s eyes. The female had done her best to feed Elowyn and my brothers to the queen.

Look into my eyes, you sniveling bitch. Look at me!

With the first of the second wave of feethles skidding to a stop behind her, Millicent opened her jaws and lunged for me. I kicked out to halt her. My bootcracked against her jaw just as Larissa dragged me forward. Off balance, I stumbled and nearly released my hand to catch myself—nearly. My heart pounded as my fingers clenched to hold on. My last sight was of Millicent jerking her head forward and lurching after us.

Larissa and I slipped through the wall, the sensation like walking through a waterfall, the water pounding against our bodies from all sides but not causing real harm.

I was still staring backward when I noticed a wave of pink wash across the wall. For a few seconds, the stone was fluid, the entire wall undulating like a wave.

Next, the pink began to fade, the stone to harden.

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