Page 38 of Atop the Faerie Throne
Bodies press around Caed, who’s farthest from me, obscuring him from my view. His pain radiates down the bond, but I can’t tell what’s happening.
An iron spear thrusts too close to my throat, distracting me. My lungs seize, and I almost slip and fall in my effort to dodge.
“Haor, Hogart, to me!” Elatha shouts.
Two Fomorians try to extract themselves from the rabble. In doing so, they draw attention to themselves, and Lore takes that as a personal challenge, collecting their heads and blinking them to the base of the throne like an offering.
Almost all of the uncharmed Fomorians are heading for me now. Single-mindedly crushing Drystan and Jaro as they strive to eliminate the threat. I still can’t see Caed, and Lore is little more than a red blur, his gleeful cackles echoing above the snarls, curses and cries filling the air.
It’s pandemonium.
This isn’t going to work. I need to do something. Anything.
Suddenly Wraith is here, alongside Jaro’s wolf, snapping and chomping at the blue limbs still reaching for me.
“The king is escaping,” Lore calls, sounding more put out than panicked. “And the idiot Fomorian is giving chase.”
“Púca, follow them!” Drystan snaps with all of the urgency that my redcap is missing.
Bree nods, disappearing through the crowd of fallen soldiers like liquid darkness. They fall as he passes, but his departure leaves me down two protectors.
“Maeve, any ideas?” I ask, not really expecting an answer.
I haven’t been able to see any of my guides since we entered the palace, which means my chances of summoning any spirits are close to nil.
My best hope of being helpful is finding somewhere that wasn’t affected by the Fomorian weapon.
Prae and Gryffin have Florian. Elatha is no longer present. If we’re lucky, there might be less iron away from the palace.
“We have to get out of here,” I call to Drystan.
I expect him to point out that we’re surrounded, and that it’s impossible, but instead he shouts, “Lorcan, get your arse out of the way.”
An arc of flame bursts over the room.
A scream builds in my chest as it heads straight for the blur of blood that is my redcap, but he just backflips over it—his cap shrinking to his head at the very last second. The fire causes the dust on the floor to ignite, clearing a path from the throne to the terrace, but the main door is still blocked, leaving no way for us to follow Caed, Bree, and Elatha.
“Move,” Drystan orders, the growl of Jaro’s wolf punctuating the snapped word.
Heart racing, I reach for Wraith, my hands shaking as they dig into the barghest’s fur. I swing my leg over his back, scrabbling to hold on as my connection to Danu snaps closed the second he starts running, leaving my insides stinging and raw from the rebound.
Thankfully, the Goddess’s magic being sealed away by iron doesn’t seem to faze my mates. Lore, Jaro, and Drystan keep close to my barghest as we make a mad break for it.
Getting free of the close confines and the Fomorians is a struggle, but we make it outside mostly unscathed. I drag in a breath, only to choke as I inhale some of the dust swirled up by the chaos. My lungs burn, but I don’t dare cough and distract my Guard.
We make it away from the terrace and into the woods beyond before the Fomorians manage to surround us again. There are just too many of them, and the sight of the wall looming beyond the withered trees only adds to the sense of being trapped.
Wait.The wall.
Hundreds of warriors are buried beneath the great walls. A literal army of the dead. My eyes light up even as I’m forced to duck as a sword slices through the space where my head just was. The whoosh of air over my nape is too close, and my fear only adds to the iron-induced nausea burning in my throat.
My idea is useless if I’m too dead to do anything about it.
“Drystan, the wall,” I yell.
“What about it?” he calls back, thrusting his sword through the skull of an enemy.
“They buried warriors on the wall! If there’s no iron, I can?—”
