Page 19 of Fae Reckoning

He stared into my eyes long enough for me to believe the entire cosmos might actually be contained within those moonlit irises of his. Then he said, “Larissa and I have the queen’s guards on our trail. They could show up at any moment.”

“Larissa’s here too?” I eventually spotted her standing next to what appeared to be a darkened stairwell. She seemed to be dressed in … two lopsided swaths of satin, maybe? The top was bloodstained in patches, one across each of her breasts. Despite the oddity of our situation, she waved. I waved back.

“Plus, we need to deal with the dragons,” Rushwas saying. “I don’t want to have to abandon them a second time. Already the dragon Hiro and I freed seems to be”—he sighed forlornly—“dead.” He searched the cavern behind me, perhaps looking for Hiro.

“What dragons?” I asked. “You mean the ones that came with me? Of course I won’t leave them behind when we go.”

“No, I mean these dragons.” Rush spun me toward a hulking shadow. It took me a few moments to realize it was an adult dragon, smaller than the black one, hunkering in the dark recesses of this huge cave, whatever it was.

I spun back on Rush. “Wait, where are we? Is this the … dungeon beneath the palace you told me about?”

His face was grim. “Yes.”

“Which means…” I turned again, squinting in an attempt to make out the cells filled with dragons he’d told me lined the walls. I couldn’t see anything past the shapes of our friends. I faced Rush again. “There are lots of dragons here that need to be freed?”

“Yes. Lots. And if you recall, pygmy ogres live somewhere in this tunnel system.”

“Shit.”

“Yup.”

“Tell me you’ve figured a way out,” I said.

“I can’t even begin to express how very much I wish I could.”

“That’s not the only problem we have,” West said. “Rush. Lari. Brace yourselves.” A lumoon surged to lifeabove West—revealing him with Ramana draped in his arms.

Rush’s face froze first, then the rest of his body. His arms slid lifelessly from around me to slap against his thighs.

And from the stairwell, already running toward us, Larissa screamed when we were supposed to be quiet.

7.JUSTICE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A SINGLE LIFE

RUSH

Entranced, I gaped at West and the familiar woman he clutched to his chest.

Ramana?

But … Ramana was dead—had been dead for two long, miserable years. I watched her die. I’d been there as West had cradled the love of his life across his lap and the essence faded from her eyes. I’d been the one to close her eyelids after they no longer contained my sister. A piece of my heart had splintered away in that moment.

It can’t be her. It just can’t. Can it?

Ramana was tall and strong bodied. She hadn’t learned to fight, not as Elowyn had; no female in the Mirror World ever did. But Ramana had possessed the essence of a fighter nonetheless. She’d rebelled against the queen’s regime, insisting that seeking justice for all was more important than any single person’s life.

The woman in West’s arms only vaguely resembledmy dead sister. She was tiny and frail. Her face was tucked into my friend’s chest, a thick sheet of dark hair concealing most of her features, when Ramana's hair had been a dazzlingly bright blue.

“It can’t be,” I mumbled, my inner thoughts spilling over.

Larissa was still running toward us, slowed by having to weave her way around littered remains.

The woman in West’s embrace wore a filthy nightgown that clung to the many sharp bones pushing through her skin. She seemed little more than a skeleton—too weak, too thin, too eerily still.

Chest heaving, Larissa stumbled to my side. Automatically, I reached out to catch her. The other had curled its way back around Elowyn without my notice.

“It’s really her,” West told us, his voice a disbelieving croak.

When my eyes shifted to his, it was then that I knew—really knew. West’s eyes were vibrating, more alive than I’d seen them in two years. I read his immense relief and ball-numbing fear of losing her now that he had her again. It was exactly what I was feeling, and not just for Ramana, but for Elowyn too.

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