“Reyna,” he said in a muffled voice. “I’m fine. It hasn’t hurt me.”
“What?” Reyna leapt off of him. He pushed up from the ground, brushing the flakes off his armor. What was left of it. The Ruin hadn’t harmed an inch of his skin, but it had burned through the leather. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know, but we need to do your thing and draw this storm away.” His voice cracked. “So many have already died, Reyna. Regardless of how I feel about my father, I don’t want to see all these warriors gone forever.”
Reyna nodded at once. She understood how he felt, and she did not wish to see them die either. Having known Nollaig, and Segonax, and even Tarrah, she had realized that not every shadow fae was the terrible monster she’d thought they were.
That the entire continent thought they were.
There was good and there was bad, but she had seen quite a lot of good. Most of the fae in the camp would be ordinary warriors, just doing the bidding of their king. A king they had to serve, regardless of what they might think. It wasn’t as though they had a choice.
High King Bolg Rothach did not allow choice in his great court.
Reyna and Lorcan raced through the storm. The swirling darkness pecked at their skin, but it could do nothing more than melt when it hit them. When they reached the edge of the camp, they kept their feet moving forward. They would draw the Ruin down the hillside and toward the Forest of Thorns, giving the warriors in the camp a chance to escape.
They reached the tree line just as a powerful blast of wind knocked Reyna off her feet. The ground rose up to meet her, and she slammed onto her shoulder, wincing at the flash of pain and the crack of a bone breaking. Shaking her head, she climbed to her feet, only to feel Lorcan’s strong hand press firmly against her back.
“You all right?” Lorcan whispered as they watched the storm inch across the horizon. Their plan had worked. The Ruin had left the camp behind, and now it was coming straight for them.
“It threw me off my feet,” she said, wincing. “It wants me dead. And I think it’s realized the ash isn’t doing much.”
“So, it’s going to try another way.” Lorcan swore.
“By throwing something else at me instead. Wind, lightning, and whatever else it might have…and I don’t know what all it can do. I’ve only ever seen it kill with ash.”
Lorcan’s jaw clenched. “What should we do? We can’t just stand out here and wait for it to kill you. You’re immune to the ash, but you’re not immune to wind. And no amount of dodging arrows can win against a storm.”
Reyna risked a glance over her shoulder. The Ruin was close now. Too close. “We could go into the forest. That would give us some cover since it looks like the fires of Oxgrove didn’t spread this far east.”
“Until it destroys all those trees with its ash.”
Reyna frowned. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes, I can dig a hole in the ground, throw you inside of it, and keep you out of harm’s way for the rest of your life.”
She gave him a bemused smile. “Only if you’d join me down there. We could start our own little underground village. And we’d never have to leave.”
The wind battered her face and hair. There was no more time. The clouds were seconds away from reaching them, and once they did, Reyna was certain the Ruin would have far more in store for her than just ash.
Together, they raced into the forest. The colossal trees loomed all around them, the dense canopy hiding the churning sky from view. They crunched through the thicket at the edge of the trees, and then ducked inside the woods. Instantly, the rushing sound of the Ruin vanished, replaced by chirping birds and the gurgle of a nearby stream.
“That’s eerie,” Lorcan murmured. “It’s like it’s not even there.”
“Oh, it’s there,” Reyna insisted. “It won’t go away that easily.”
Lorcan tipped back his head to stare up at the peaceful canopy. “What should we do? Go further into the forest?”
Fear burned through her veins like poison. “We aren’t wood fae. We’ll be too slow through these trees. We won’t be able to outrun it.”
Lorcan growled. “We can’t just let it—”
The entire forest began to shudder. Trees were ripped from the ground by their roots and tossed into the building wind. Lorcan wrapped his arms around Reyna and pulled her to the forest floor. Without even considering what she was doing, Reyna punched her ice dagger deep into the dirt, holding on for all she was worth. The ground crackled beneath them. Ice shot down from the blade, burying itself into the earth itself. It stretched outward, freezing the ground where they huddled beneath the storm.
Reyna buried her face in Lorcan’s chest, shivering against the strength of the cruel wind. The Ruin continued to pound at the forest around them. Every branch snapped beneath the strength of it. Every leaf was ripped to shreds. Ash piled high all around them.
They stayed that way for what felt like hours, clinging together as the storm whipped up a fury over their heads. Every moment that passed, Reyna was certain it would be their last.
But after ages had come and gone, the Ruin vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving behind nothing but pure and utter destruction.
And a strange patch of ice.
29
Thane
“We must go to war.” Princess Iona Leaghan of the Sea Court stood over the ancient map and pounded a fist against the table, rattling the wooden mugs that held some of the finest wine found in all of Tir Na Nog. Her eyes flashed. The sapphire in them matched the color of the waves that crashed against the jagged rocks below the open window.
Thane merely sat and listened to his mother’s family bicker over their next steps. Some frothed like the sea, desperate to sink their swords into air fae necks. Others wanted to continue what they had done the past several decades: hole up and wait things out.
“They killed Imogen. We cannot allow them to get away with this. We need to go to war.” Princess Iona turned his way. “Thane agrees with me.”
That wasn’t exactly what Thane had said.
His grandfather, High King Emrys, sat back in his chair, fingering a bushy white beard that matched his shoulder-length hair. “Is that right, Thane? It is your court after all. Is going to war on your own city truly the right step?”
“Of course it isn’t,” Uncle Calder, the heir to the throne, snapped. Just like his sisters, his hair and eyes were a brilliant blue. “If Thane’s goal is to sit on that damn throne, he merely needs to stride through the city gates. This Aengus is nothing more than a Grand Alderman. He doesn’t hold the power of the seat.”
Princess Iona chuckled. “It won’t be as easy as that, brother. Aengus will have prepared for Thane’s return.”
“It is not our court to reclaim,” Uncle Calder said through gritted teeth. “We’re the Sea Court. This is not our war.”
“But she was ours,” Iona hissed, her eyes flashing. “We ought to rip him to shreds for what he’s done to her.” She tossed a letter onto the table that had arrived the day before, stamped with a very familiar yet surprising seal. “This letter could be our hope. A strong alliance could come of it. If we’re going to war, then we need this, Father. We need to answer this call.”