Page 6 of Fae Reckoning

Three tentacles, which resembled those of the umbracs save for their orange hue, wriggled back and forth from the center of the flower. Their tips opened and closed to reveal tiny, viciously sharp teeth.

“Every fucking thing around here has teeth,” I spat as blood trickled along my cheeks and nose.

“Tell me about it,” said Xeno. “You’re bleeding.”

“I know,” I growled, glowering at the flower. Beautiful but deadly. Wasn’t that the theme of this awful place?

The tentacles bunched together. When I thought they were tucking themselves back away into the flower’s center—because they sure as shit hadn’t been on display when I’d leaned in to sniff its fragrance—they lurched in a sudden stretch toward my face.

I dropped the bloom and ground it with my boot until the tentacles were pulp, growling at the flower’s remains before stomping back onto the trail. “Come on, X. Let’s head back so we can get the hell out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Who would’veguessed time in Nightguard would seem like a vacation after this?”

“Does that mean you’re going back there?” I asked as I dabbed at my face with my sleeve. “I mean, once this is all over? It is still home, right?”

He studied me while we walked. We were close to the cabin when he finally said, “I’ll be wherever you are.”

Unsure how exactly to feel about his devotion, I contained a sigh and blurted, “Did your wings fully heal?”

No answer.

“Can you fly?”

“Yeah, I can fly.” But he didn’t sound happy about it. His footfalls were harder when he added, “Finn did his best.”

“I’m sure he did,” I offered gently. It was obvious Xeno and Finnian had become close in their time in the Sorumbra. “How did he die, then?”

Xeno’s jaw clenched as he trained his stare straight ahead. “Dunno exactly. He died in his sleep while I was on watch.”

“Oh no. Oh, X, that’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“Again, not your fault. If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine.”

“It most certainly isnotyours. What happened?”

“We don’t know. A bite, maybe? Some kind of poison? Reed looked him over from head to toe and didn’t find a mark. But guys don’t just up and die, not oneslike Finn.”

I wove my arm through Xeno’s and squeezed. “I’m sure there was nothing any of you could’ve done.”

Xeno’s jaw remained hard. “We had to leave ‘im. The dragon wouldn’t wait any longer, not even for a fast burial. We left his body in the Wilds for the monsters to eat.”

The image of monsters rending Finn’s flesh and feasting on his bones assaulted me. Weakly, I asked, “Well, what else were you supposed to do?”

Neither one of us had an answer for that or enough of anything else, so we picked up our pace, until Reed ran out the door of the hovel, spotted us, and bolted up the trail toward us. Without even asking what was the matter—because something wasalwaysthe matter—we sprinted to meet him.

3.AN AWFUL PLAN, PRACTICALLY NOT A PLAN AT ALL

RUSH

What had to be the sole barrier separating Larissa and me from the queen’s guards burst open with a violent crash. Too loud—which meanttoo close—the demolishing of the wall that Larissa had sealed behind us told me that we weren’t yet safe from our pursuers.

As if there’s any such thing assafetytrapped inside this fucking palace… And we were only heading deeper into its putrid, belching guts. Now that Braque’s spell was broken and Irememberedeverything, I anticipated all too well what awaited us once we reached its bowels: a host of tortured dragons I’d vowed to free—and no way out for them or for us.

Larissa was several steps ahead of me, her lithe form illuminated by her lumoon, which kept pace with her as she darted down the slim tunnel, its walls tightening the deeper we went. She’d knotted the second tablecloth she’d snatched around her torso as we ran so that she was now more or less fully clothed.It would take a great deal more than covering her nudity to get me to forget how the queen had stripped my precious sister naked, pierced her nipples with fuckingdecor, and commanded her to perform for her audience.

“Just keep going straight?” Larissa tossed over her shoulder, not slowing down.

As well as I had, she’d heard the queen threaten the guards on our trail with punishment if they didn’t catch us. The guards would be driven by self-preservation as if the queen herself were at their backs, flogging them for every passing minute that didn’t deliver her quarry.

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