Page 3 of Fae Reckoning

West loomed over one of the beds. His shoulders were rounded, his mouth agog, closing only to gape open again. He slammed to his knees with a crack against wood and a shudder of his back that took me a moment to identify as a sob—from the drake who’d been raised to lead an entire clan and stoically shoulder its burdens. He clutched the leg of the person in the bed so fiercely I worried he’d crush their frail bones, then bowed his head, dropping his forehead to the dingy mattress.

Saffron trembled in my arms as if he sensed the potency of West’s emotions. Like lightning crackling, they electrified the spot where we stood, building up for a momentous strike. Goosebumps pebbled up and down my arms, the fine hairs along my nape stood on end.

Ryder and Hiroshi slowly approached, each eventually resting a hand upon their friend: Ryder upon West’s arm, Hiroshi against his neck.

“I can’t believe it,” Ryder murmured.

Reverently, though I didn’t comprehend why, I crossed the room, avoiding the gaunt and haunted bedridden faces I passed. I felt the presence of others behind me but didn’t turn to look, captivated by the scene unfolding before us.

“How?” Hiroshi whispered, withdrawing his hand from West to cup his mouth. “How is this even possible?”

West was the only one to answer, a lone word like an answered prayer.

“Ramana.”

2.BEAUTIFUL BUT DEADLY; WASN’T THAT THE THEME OF THIS AWFUL PLACE?

ELOWYN

“We’re gonna have to leave soon. Ya know that, dontcha, lassie?” Roan asked me a day later. He sat beside me on a rock of his own, a brook trickling melodically beyond our boots.

When I continued to stare into the water, he brought his elbows to his knees and leaned closer. Eventually, I tore my gaze away and met his expectant stare. His eyes were such a piercing green, made all the brighter by the contrast with his thick dark brows and overgrown beard.

“Ya know we can’t keep waitin’.”

I sighed and looked back to the water. The forest was dense around us, an idyllic picture. As peaceful as it appeared, it was an illusion. The queen could get to us here. She could, apparently, get to us anywhere in the whole, wide, cursed Mirror World.

I bent to pick up a palm-sized pebble, worn smooth by time. I ran a thumb along it. “Yeah. I know.”

“If she found ya before, she’ll find ya again.”

She, of course, was the queen, always the damn queen. The woman who governed nearly all our actions and yet none of us liked to name.

“And now she’s got Azariah with ‘er,” Roan persisted, “there’s no telling how fast she’ll get ‘im to find ya.”

I smiled grimly, though none of this was news.

“Never seen the pegicorn look so broken,” Roan continued before he, too, turned his gaze to the flowing water. “Never imagined I’d see the day when such a creature would bow to the likes o’ her.” His voice was hard and bitter.

“I’m sure he didn’t want to.” As dominated as Azariah had been, the worst of it was the sadness that had welled in his big, dark eyes. Such a majestic and magical creature…

“Aye, I know he didn’t. But that makes it even more dangerous.”

I waited for him to continue.

“That means Az’s got no fight left in ‘im. He’ll do whatever she asks of him. And he—all pegicorns, really, but ’specially him—is more powerful than maybe even she knows. He’s probably been dragging his hooves so as not to locate ya too fast-like. But if he wants, his magic can home in on yours faster than a dragon can flick its tail.”

“Meaning we should have left already,” I said with a rolling grumble deep in my chest.

Roan kicked out his squat legs in front of him. Thewater licked at the soles of his boots. “Aye, lassie,” he said with his own roll of lament. “We shoulda left already.”

Truly, though, we couldn’t have. Not really, or at least, not easily.

West hadn’t left Ramana’s bedside for all of yesterday, and then he’d wedged himself alongside her on the narrow, musty mattress and slept the night with his arms clamped around her thin frame as if he feared she’d disappear if he released her for even a moment. I hadn’t seen him step away to so much as pee since he’d laid eyes on her.

Just witnessing West’s relief etched across his face so starkly that it resembled pain sent a wave of desperation crashing through me. When would I next see Rush? How would I find him when he was likely at the palace, the center of the queen’s power and dominion? And how would he and I both survive her until we found our way back to each other?

I all too readily understood why West’s relief was akin to pain. He’d come to terms with Ramana’s death. Rush had told me it had broken him. But now that he had her back, West was terrified he’d lose her again, that finding her alive by mere happenstance was too good to be true, that she’d crumble to dust in his arms and reveal she’d been a cruel illusion all along.

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