Page 29 of Heart of Night
“We need to get out of here.” Royad is the voice of reason, and he’s right. But my body won’t move, and it has nothing to do with Astorian locking me in place. It’s something more. It’s like every cell in my body is determined to stay here where there is at least hope of finding her. Where I have people to interrogate. People who have Ayna’s blood on their hands.
“Looking for this?” The woman’s voice is husky like she is partly made of black smoke and crackling fire. The little flames dancing at her fingertips inform me that it just might be the truth.
This is a Fire Fairy female. A powerful one, judging by the air of magic and suppressed heat swirling around her.
“Shift,” Royad orders. My cousin never orders me, but he is right to do it now. He is right; we need to get out of here.
“We can take her on,” Silas says from my other side, bloodlust in his tone. He’s eager to sink his blade into someone, be it not in revenge for what the Fire Fairies did to us or for Ayna.
“Perhaps we—” Astorian is cut off by a blast of fire shooting up at us. Our shields take the brunt of the impact, but the roof isn’t stable, and four massive males are too much to support for the singed beams crumbling away under our boots. I don’t have time to shift before I fall. The fire would only take my feathers like it did Ephegos’s, so I choose to take the impact on the hardwood floor with my shoulder instead.
Astorian is the only one not to groan at the impact, his site-hopping abilities keeping him from falling alongside us. When he hits the floor beside me, it’s by choice and on his feet. In his hands, he holds two fistfuls of rocks, and they are already melting at the touch of his power.
“Seize them,” the female shouts at the doorway behind the fading fire.
Before I can wonder how the room remains untouched by the fading flames, at least ten Fire Fairies charge the room. Ignoring the throbbing pain in my shoulder, I’m on my feet in a heartbeat, ready to meet an attack with my shield or with my magic while I fumble for my sword.
Silas is the first to attack. He leaps at the nearest Fire Fairy with a battle cry, slicing clean into the male’s shoulder. He was right. There are over ten of them, but we’re fighting in closed quarters, and the four of us have magic of our own. One fairy and three Neredynian fae. Power surges in my chest like a thunderstorm, straining for release. I hold it until I find a target close enough. The female has moved toward me as if expecting to grab me and restrain me herself. In her hand, she holds the fabric with Ayna’s blood. It’s fucking burning.
Everything inside me revolts as if it were Ayna burning between her fingers, and my blood boils with all-consuming rage.
“I will end you,” I growl. “With my claws and beak, I will break you apart.” It’s a promise.
The female merely smirks at me as she halts just out of reach. “I’d like to see you try. I have something you want, and you won’t risk her, will you?”
It’s torment to fight the need to eviscerate her with that storm of magic brewing inside my chest. She’s right, and she knows it. I will never risk Ayna. Never again.
A glance at Royad tells me he knows it, too. He’s locked in battle with a Fire Fairy, his shortsword driving back the elegant silver blade of the male he’s facing. He’s holding the male off but not going for the kill, making himself vulnerable as he waits for my order.
Astorian’s liquid rock has melted a hole in a Fire Fairy’s chest, leaving the female splayed uselessly on the ground, and it is aiming for the next enemy. His mind is clearer than mine with Cliophera’s scent missing in the equation. For a heartbeat, I wonder if he’d act the same if it was her blood instead of Ayna’s. If the seemingly stoic fairy general would lose control the way I just did.
My gaze lands on the smirking Fire Fairy again. “What did you do to the Crow Queen?”
The female has the nerve to smile—wide like Ephegos would. My stomach turns.
“What. Did. You. Do. To her?” Menace laces my tone. The pain and fear and anger of millennia accumulating at the thought of being too late.
“Your queen is fine, Myron. Don’t worry.” She knows me. And she isn’t surprised in the slightest that I’m alive. I tuck that thought away for later.
Royad has disengaged himself from battle by knocking out the Fire Fairy at the tip of his sword and has stepped to my side, while Astorian is wielding liquified rock from my other side.
“If I were you, I’d hand over the woman he’s ready to destroy the world for or he might let you live just long enough to see the rest of it crumble to pieces before he takes you out slowly and painfully.” By Shaelak, Royad is a master at being visual when it comes to threats; I’ve always known that. But he isn’t being visual right now; he’s being literal. I am ready to do just that.
“Wolayna is safely on the way to Meer.” The female waves her hand in the general direction of the door, and I think she means Ayna is just across the threshold. The storm of magic strains to break loose.
Not yet. I need to know where to find my queen first.
When I take a step forward, drawn by that same blind need to find her, something wet hits my back, and I gasp as all strength leaves me. Astorian’s curse is the last thing I hear before two Fire Fairies grasp me with brutal hands and kick my legs out from under me.
At least, the floor isn’t marble. My kneecaps scream at the impact anyway.
“What’s goin’ on?” Silas is the first to ask from beside me where he’s being forced to his knees as well. “Why can’t I?—”
“Use your magic?” The female stalks toward us, lowering her dark brown eyes to meet mine even when she’s speaking to Silas. She reads the questions on my face as well as I try to pull up the unrelenting power that threatened to burst me open at the seams a moment ago.
There’s nothing left. Not one ounce of magic roiling or coiling or even slumbering.
“What did you do to us?” Even my growl is less threatening without the reassurance of that power at my disposal. It’s like someone took all air from my lungs and all that’s left is a wilted leaf in the Fire Fairy’s wind.