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By noon, the mountains had emerged on the horizon like ancient sentinels, their craggy peaks shrouded in clouds and mist.
We passed by rocky outcrops, dappled with lichen and moss. Tenacious wildflowers clung to stony crevices.
By nightfall, the temperature had dropped sharply, enveloping us in a chill. The air grew thinner, carrying a subtle tang of minerals and rock as we passed deeper into the mountainous expanse.
The landscape was beautiful but forbidding. As we set up camp that night, the wind whispered through the valley we sheltered in, carrying with it the murmur of a cascading nearby waterfall.
Soon the valleys would become deep ravines. The terrain would grow more steep and treacherous.
And we would draw ever closer to my father and the Black Mountain.
A summit one could see over the clouds, the man we had met on the road had said. A mountain that had appeared as if from nowhere.
I shivered. No fae could do such a thing.
But then, as I had refused to acknowledge to Draven, my father was no true fae, was he?
He had been worshiped as a god.
And me? I wanted to think about that part of things even less.
CHAPTER 28 - MEDRA
My Aunt Sarrasine had lied.
She had brought more than two guards.
As I wound my way slowly down the tower steps, I passed more dead fae guards in their distinct, menacing, dark armor.
All had broken necks. I felt a flicker of pride. Odessa hadn’t even bothered to draw her swords.
At the bottom of the tower, I walked down a long corridor that seemed too quiet, even for this time of night.
Every now and then, I would pass a body. Servants who had been running and mowed down by merciless blades.
A few were black-armored fae. In one case, a knight of Camelot lay beside a dead fae from Sarrasine’s court. They had run each other through with their weapons and collapsed upon each other as they died.
I passed the stable boy who had flirted with me weeks ago. His eyes were still open. There was blood pooled around his head.
After that, I stopped looking at the bodies.
I moved by instinct, slowly, towards the center of the castle. I felt a strong compulsion to tell someone that Odessa was dead. To have someone other than me know what had happened. And besides, someone had to see to her body.
When I reached the Great Hall, it was still quiet.
Somehow, I had expected to come across more people. Sir Ector with a contingent of knights. But perhaps the fighting had moved outside. Or perhaps Sarrasine’s invaders had delivered their blood and chaos and then left as quickly as they’d come.
I stepped into the Great Hall, letting my eyes become accustomed to the shadows.
There were bodies here, too. More of them. A few servants. A number of knights.
I walked slowly between the columns.
Then I saw him. Kneeling on the other side of the hall with a bow on the floor beside him. A few dead fae guards lay on either side, arrows protruding from their chests.
It was Crescent. He was cradling a small figure in his lap.
A child.
