Page 51 of Disillusioned
Na, who’d lingered behind, suddenly giggled. “My, my. Fate is a fickle thing, isn’t it?”
“This is not her fate,” Garin snapped. “Not as long as I’m alive.”
Feiyan returned, her footsteps heavier. Something large clunked with each one, the sounds of wood against metal. “This is for you.” She set the item down with a grunt.
Lilac’s heart fluttered.The chest.
“What’s in it?” asked Adelaide.
“We weren’t told.”
“What do you want for it?”
“It’s yours. The vampire’s, I mean,” Feiyan said. “Bring it to your faerie king in good faith. Normally, I would charge a string or two of copper coins for something that does…nothing. But your servant’s life is collateral. And it doesn’tsurprise me Kestrel wants it back. What would that faerie like more than a gift that was supposed to go to someone else?”
Even with her mind clouded by the rush of adrenaline, something didn’t seem right. They were giving the chest to them for free? With nothing in exchange? Garin and Adelaide were speechless, but if they felt the same suspicion they didn’t dare express it.
There were sudden hands on Lilac’s chest, and Garin lurched back. “Take your hands off?—”
“Silence, vampire.” Feiyan’s soft demand sounded just as lethal.
“Lay her back down,” Adelaide urged.
“Yes, place her against the earth.”
Garin bent his knees and gently did as he was told. Theguàibent with him, her hands in contact with her abdomen. Without any warning, Lilac’s body suddenly went cold—frigid, as if she laid in a tundra—then warm, her skin tingling. Then, Feiyan’s nails dug into her, pressing her ribcage together.
Lilac let out a bloodcurdling scream and felt herself seize involuntarily.Movement.Her shoulders jerked up toward her ears, and she breathed through the unimaginable searing pain flooding her chest.
“There we go. Roll her over,” Adelaide directed, and Garin’s hands pivoted her body onto its side.
Lilac coughed, bile and vomit shooting up from her esophagus into her nose. Garin began rubbing her back, patting it while she emptied her stomach.
“Consider it a favor,” said Feiyan.
“And this,” Na added.
Behind her was an enormous creaking and scraping of wood.
Mutedgolden light flooded her vision, and Lilac blinked against it. Everything was hazy, as if she observed the scene from underwater. There was Lorietta’s bread basket demolished in the dirt, and beside that, a bloodied pale foot peeked out from worn robes.Emrys.
Large hands gripped her and ripped her toward the surface. Toward the light.
She started to struggle, but Garin refused to put her down. “You’re weak. You’ll need to rest.”
She itched to reach up, to brush the hair from his forehead and put her lips to it. He looked pained, like he ached to do the same. But she pushed and eventually he gave in, setting her down gently. Her legs were shaky, her thighs feeling like she’d trekked leagues, dark spots marring her vision.
Once she supported herself, she was instantly dizzy. Lilac looked down and saw her neat, clean kirtle and leathers from Garin. Her glamorwasgone.
Their carriage was also upright, their horses grazing the tall grass off to the side.
Adelaide stood behind her, hovering over two bodies. Two men, Emrys and Giles, lay side by side.
Giles looked like he’d rolled. There was dirt and debris in his hair, his eyes softly shut, chest almost imperceptibly rising and falling. Emrys laid on his side, tangled in his own beard, a red glowing arrow buried in his chest.
Adelaide offered a despondent smile, her face streaked in grime and tears. She was dragging a large wooden chest—Kestrel’s—to the back of their carriage. Those women, their large creature and the market, were nowhere to be found.
Lilac opened her mouth to ask, but a startling cry escaped instead. “What happened?” she sobbed, turning away from Giles and Emrys, feeling like she might collapse.
