Page 53 of Queen of Ever

I released him and he fumbled for his chest.The idiot had actually taken the time to lock the goblet back inside, where it stood upright, still full.I swiped a trickle of blood from my forehead and my fingers were red when I snatched it up.They were even redder when I lifted my arm and swung the chalice against the ground with asmash!I repeated the move, denting and warping it as Eochaid moaned and the blood of the oath sprayed through the air.There was a flash of blinding white light as it finally split.The breath was kicked from my lungs for a moment and a bitterness burst in my mouth as the spell lifted, before I thrust what remained of that ancient artefact back at Eochaid.I was already on my feet before he could do anything other than grab it.There were more bodies on the floor, now, and furies feeding on them, greedy mouths pressed to bleeding wounds.Panic spiked as I launched myself back across the room, loosening my hold on my sanity in the face of the shrieking creatures.

‘Imogen!’I bellowed.I pounded the stone, weaving between the crowd, launching myself at a fury because I caught a flash of white-blond hair in her grip, the cold burn of magic already at my fingers.Ducking beneath the rapidly flapping wings, I caught the creature, one hand on her arm, one on her face.She screamed, the sound grinding at my grip on reality, making my mind scatter and my panic fill my head like a swarm of bees as the magic began to eat away at her, eroding the skin I’d touched with rot and spreading further.She released her captive and crumpled to the ground, dissolving.

I pulled Ethan to his feet.His eyes were wide with terror.

‘What are you waiting for?’he yelled.‘Get the rest of them!’

‘It’s too chaotic.I’ll hit anyone in range.Where’s Imogen?’

Bright flashes slashed through the dark as someone from the Seelie court used light to disorientate the flock of vengeful attackers.

‘I don’t know!’Ethan flinched as we were dived again.I drove a blast of magic at a close enough range that I struck the creature in the shoulder, quickly eating into flesh.Destruction churned at my fingertips, pushing and railing against my restraint as fear fed its ravenous hunger.Fear because I couldn’t see her.

Until I did.

A fury was climbing up, up, up, wings buffeting the air as she tried to keep a hold of her captive.Imogen dangled as limp as a loose ribbon from the creature’s claws, head lolling, eyes closed.I bolted towards her faster than I’d ever run in my life.She slipped lower in the fury’s grip as they approached the ceiling, the creature struggling against her weight.It was going to fucking drop her.

It was going to fucking drop her.

I skidded to a halt beneath her, craning my neck, ready to catch her as she slipped again, the fury only just gripping her by the hand.My heart hammered against my ribcage.Her body swung.Then another fury was there, taking hold of her other arm while another grabbed her shoulder and all three were flying her up and out one of the chasms in the ceiling, up and away, and I couldn’t attack them, couldn’t hit them with magic because I might hither,and even if I didn’t, hitting them would mean she’d fall.So I had to watch, burning with fear and impotent rage as she was carried into the sky and away from me.Until she was swallowed up by the night.

I caught the remaining furies before they reached their escape.In a blast of explosive, corrosive rage, destruction poured out of me, wisps of black darker than the gloom writhing in the air, devouring all it touched, targeting the fleeing wings, grasping at leathery membrane, gnarled feet, clawed hands, inciting a cacophony of maddening shrieks to unspool my sanity as flesh shrivelled, curled, rotting away until the creatures fell from the air as writhing corpses, decomposing while still alive.But it didn’t matter, because Imogen was already gone.

Rubble was streaming to the ground.Cracks eating through the floor.Eochaid stood with arms spread before Oberon’s throne, like he was trying to protect the relic from the veins of destruction magic still eating in haphazard arcs through the air and stone.I doubled over, tried to draw the magic back, wrestling with my spinning mind, with the despair that whispered it would be easier to just let the madness take me, easier to come undone, to free the destruction in my blood and let it obliterate everything until it didn’t matter that they’d taken her.But a wisp of light shone through the turmoil, a hope, a faint thrum of a bond between me and the woman who was right now in the clutches of those who would hurt her.I had to control it.Because I had to go after her.This time, Iwouldgo after her.

With a great, shuddering breath, I settled back into my body, slowing the whirl of my mind, calling back the magic, binding it with the willpower it had long learned to bend to.A wave of vertigo struck me as I straightened to survey the aftermath, pain thudding through my head.But I didn’t have time to nurse the aftereffects of magic or to catalogue and regret the damage I’d caused.

I didn’t falter as Ves called after me, running to catch up.‘And where do you think you’re going?You think you might want to sort out what the fuck just happened before you go trouncing off somewhere else?’

‘No,’ I said, my tone final.‘I’m going after her.’

Chapter 21

Imogen

Myeyesopenedslowly,blinking against blurred vision.My body ached, my shoulders and arms felt bruised and stiff, like they’d been held at a strange angle for too long.I tried to focus around the dull ache in my head and piece together the events that had led me to this state.We’d been at the signing ceremony, and...I shook my head against the fog that seemed to have settled there.Something had tried to grab me, a terrifying creature with leathery wings and sharp talons, but I’d fought back.I’d tried to make my way to Tarian, opened my mouth to scream and then...a blow that had knocked me out.

I’d been kidnapped.Again.What, did I have a neon sign above my head sayingbaitor something?But who the hell had taken me this time?And more importantly, why?

It didn’t matter.

I knew he’d come for me.It was only a matter of time.

But in the meantime, where the hell was I?I tried to move but my wrists were bound, as were my ankles, to an acutely uncomfortable wooden chair.I was surprised to find I wasn’t gagged, but that only told me that screaming would do me no good, so I kept quiet as I looked around the dank little room I was in.Other than a couple of lamps on the walls and the chair I was sitting on, there were no other furnishings.As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, I realised what a strange place it was.The walls and even the ceiling looked like compacted dirt, as if they had been carved out of the ground, which I supposed would explain the cold.The idea of being underground sent a shudder through me.Being buried alive wasn’t exactly high on my wish list.

I tested out the bindings, pulling against them, but they didn’t budge.I wondered if I could use magic to get myself free?Perhaps I could form some kind of blade out of ice to cut through them.But I also couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t cut off my hands in the process.Or accidentally flood the room or something else that would just cause more trouble.That was if I could even conjure any magic at all.I should have worked harder in my lessons.

Before I had time to come up with a plan that would allow me to keep my fingers, the door opened and a few lesser fae walked in.I could tell they were lesser by their appearances; one had scales running up and down her arms and neck, which shone beautifully in the torchlight, and her eyes were a brilliant blue to match.Another was a male with leathery wings and horns that curled back from his face and into his hair.

But the third was the one that caught my attention the most.

His hair was short and dark, his skin pale, but the shape of his face was familiar: the same jaw, the same nose, the same flecks of golden scales scattered across his skin, and the same eyes.He was almost the spitting image of Ethan.He turned his gaze to me, locking our eyes for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

‘No, you don’t know me,’ he said finally, as though responding to my expression, to a question I hadn’t asked.

‘You look like someone—’

‘My brother.’He turned his attention to the male next to him.‘I told you he was a turncoat.’

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