Page 85 of The High Mountain Court

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Remy woke, Hale was not there. Her sweaty clothes had dried. Her body felt mostly healed. She drank half a skin of water, her throat so dry. Sitting up, she combed a finger through her hair.

She needed to talk to Hale.

Remy grabbed her bow and arrows, in case the lions still prowled, and followed Hale’s scent into the forest. Finding him downhill in a little grotto, he knelt before a fae fire. He had pulled up the hood of his charcoal gray cloak, obscuring his face. The base of the flames glowed green with fae magic instead of their normal blue. Remy winced at the green flickering light, the same shade as the lake that had nearly killed them both.

Hale crouched over a small fire, speaking to someone. A guttural male voice spoke out of the flames.

Remy waited at the edge of the clearing, camouflaged behind a tree. This was not a conversation to be interrupted. She willed enough of her magic into action to hear Hale’s soft voice from the distance ahead.

“Yes, Father.” She heard him say.

He communicated through the fire to the Eastern King as he had on their treks through the Western and Southern Courts.

A distorted voice spoke out from the flames, “My patience is growing thin. Every day Vostemur’s power grows stronger and closer to unlocking the Immortal Blade. We need that blade in Eastern control and to do that we need the High Mountain Prince dead.”

It took all her strength not to gasp.

Dead?

Remy was certain the Eastern King would say they needed the High Mountain Prince to wield the Immortal Blade and restore balance to the turbulent kingdoms. Wasn’t that the goal they had been working toward all this time? The Eastern Court had been allies for centuries with the High Mountain Court.

The truth smashed into Remy all at once. They had never wanted to help the High Mountain Court. Norwood wanted to find the last High Mountain fae and kill him. With the last living prince dead, it would release the Immortal Blade from the magic tied to that bloodline. Whoever then possessed the blade would have unworldly power over the other kingdoms.

King Norwood was making a play for the blade. And Hale knew. He knew all this time, and he didn’t tell her.

“We are getting closer every day,” Hale said in a dark voice. Remy didn’t know that voice. It was like he was speaking a different language.

“You are being too soft to that little bitch witch.” The voice from the flames spoke again. “Make her bring you to the prince. Now. If you are not up to this task, I will send one of your brothers to do it for you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hale snarled. Who was this man before her?

“Good,” the voice crackled as the flames shrank. “Don’t disappoint me. Kill the prince and bring me that blade. And son, the moment you find the prince, you put a knife in that bloody witch, no loose ends.”

“Yes, Father,” the Eastern Prince said, and the flames flickered out.

Her spine snapped straight at those last words. He was planning to kill her. She couldn’t wrap her brain around that thought. Had it all been a lie? Had she come back to life for Hale only to die by his hand? How had she not seen it? Had she been so blind? She knew giving in to Hale’s gravitational pull might lead to her death, but she never thought it would be by the prince’s own hands.

Her blood was boiling. She was ready to nock one of her arrows and put it through Hale’s back. She needed to get away.

Remy ached. The witches who died for her to live would be so deeply disappointed in her now, trusting their enemy. Each breath felt like a punch to her chest. She had fallen in love with a man who wanted to kill her.

* * *

She started to run, but a twig snapped under her foot.

Dammit. She was not paying attention.

Hale stood, spinning around.

“Remy?” he said, scanning the trees. “Is that you? How are you feeling?”

He was going to lie to her even now. He did not know she could hear him from that far.

She heard his feet crunching through the leaves with that fae speed. He moved toward her until he was standing downhill, only a few paces away. One glance at her face and he knew she had heard everything.

They stared and stared at each other, neither one ready to call the other’s bluff.

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