Page 68 of The Lord of the Labyrinth

“Dress Kate at once and take her to Rath and my sister.” Roan glanced between Kate and Babbitt, his blue eyes burning with kingly rage. “Tell Rath that Kate is his mission now. He must see her safely out of danger.”

“Roan—” With the sheet wrapped around her body, Kate ran to him as he stopped at the bedchamber door. “Roan, please, tell me what’s happening.” She grasped his arm, feeling the taut muscles beneath her fingers.

“The war I have dreaded has begun. We are about to engage the Seelie army. Follow Rath’s orders and remain by my sister’s side.” He pulled Kate into his arms, kissing her one last time. A moment later he was gone, leaving her and Babbitt alone. The brownie snapped her fingers, and Kate was back in her jeans and sweater, clean and untorn.

“Mistress Kate, come with me at once.” The brownie tugged on Kate’s arm. “We will find Lord Rath and Lady Eudora. They will know what to do.”

* * *

Calls to armsfilled the palace as the Twilight Court fell into chaos. His soldiers met him in the throne room, where Roan instructed them to fortify the palace and prepare for an assault. Dozens of Fae women joined his warriors. They were dressed in slender but strong battle armor, and many carried bows with elf shot arrows or blades. Even though they were ladies of the Twilight Court, they were not defenseless. He commanded them to guard the windows and the key entry points of the castle.

“My lord!” One of the ladies pointed to a shooting star of light that, rather than fall to the earth, was flying upward into the night sky.

“Hagni...” Roan recognized the distress call of his trusted friend. He reached out, opening a single Fae road in the direction of that light. The air shimmered around him, and a figure burst into being before him. Hagni fell to his knees, an elf shot arrow buried in his back. Roan knelt beside the loyal warrior who had fought alongside him over the centuries. Hagni looked up at Roan, his eyes full of sorrow and pain.

“My king...” Hagni swallowed hard as he struggled for breath. “The dwarves are fighting, and the Lady Kyma has been taken to safety deep in the keep. But they cannot hold the line.”

“Hold still. Let me remove the arrow.” Roan tried to get a better look at the arrow embedded in the guard’s back, but Hagni shook his head. “Too late... my king. Too late. Andvari said to use the ring. He said... you’d know what he means.”

Impossible. He couldn’t use that cursed ring. The battle could not be that lost already, could it?

“Defend... the court... Roan.” Hagni’s eyes clouded with death as his last breath drained from his body. Roan stared at his old friend in shock. Death was so foreign to a Fae. It was unnatural. It wasagonyto even consider.

“Rest in the starlight, old friend,” Roan whispered as he lowered Hagni’s body to the ground.

“Lord Arun, the labyrinth is burning!” a maiden shouted from a window. Roan rushed over and stared out into the night. The distant boundary of the labyrinth to the south glowed with a vermilion edge that stood stark in the night. A swarm of pixies burst into the throne room, fluttering around the ceiling, their tiny voices crying out what they had seen.

“Fire sprites aid the Seelie,” they shrieked. “They will burn us all!”

Fire sprites were not creatures that Roan guarded his labyrinth against. Sprites of all kinds were considered neutral in the battle between Seelie and Unseelie. The labyrinth would not keep them out, just as it did not keep out the pixies that roamed the passageways. But the fire from the sprites should not have been able to harm the labyrinth. Something was wrong with his wards and spells.

Roan bellowed orders to those nearest him to guard the palace. Then he rallied his Shadow Guards to follow him. He opened a Fae road and leapt out of the window, instantly reaching the southern part of the labyrinth, his guards right behind him. The acrid smell of smoke choked him as he landed a quarter of a mile from the burning walls.

“What are your orders, my lord?” Toran, the new head of the Shadow Guard, asked as he unsheathed his sword.

“Defend the land. Kill if you must.”

“Even the sprites?” Toran asked in a low voice.

“Even the sprites,” Roan said. “They have chosen their side and will feel the consequences. Somehow they have helped break apart the very enchantments that guard our lands.”

Toran gave a solemn nod and spread the orders among the Fae. Roan stared out across the vast walls that were lighting up with fresh flames. Somewhere behind those fires was Culan.

Roan tightened his grip upon his sword as a flurry of fire sprites rounded the nearest tall ivy-covered walls. He threw a bolt of power from his palm, sending the majority of them careening backward until they crashed into stone. A sudden cry had Roan and his men spinning around to face a battalion of Seelie warriors, flanking them from the other side.

“To me!” Roan roared and plunged into the fray.

Screams arose from Roan’s right as a massive snakelike creature slithered out of the nearest passageway and barreled into the Seelie fighters. Several of them turned to stone the moment they gazed upon the basilisk. It whipped its tail, lashing out at others before striking out and biting those in front of it with its long, venomous teeth. It charged left after half of the Seelie soldiers.

“To the right!” Roan roared. The basilisk would kill the Seelie in front of it, leaving Roan and his guards free to attack the right flank of Culan’s army.

The labyrinth was fighting back.

ChapterFifteen

The king of the dark woods paced his moonlit palace, fearful that his bride would be hurt in the dark world that he’d brought her to, but she dared to shine on in the shadows, defying every evil curse that lingered in his woods.

—Anon.,Tales from the Twilight Court

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