I move toward the ward line.
“What are you doing?” Pherix demands.
“Helping you with whatever you are doing. If I stand still, I’m a problem. If I move, I’m a different problem. At least this way I get to pick which kind.” Giving Pherix a vulgar gesture, I step across the ward.
For a moment, the air hums with faint magic, a thrumming tension that makes my teeth ache and then… then me and the two fae males are suddenly the only living being on the field. The draken, the overhang, Lethara and her egg--all the things that I know perfectly well are only a few feet away—are just gone, replaced by an untouched sweep of sodden meadow and empty forest. Just storm and rain and the relentless gray of the world.
“This is… impossible.”
“No. It’s skill,” Ilian says.
I want to ask where the nest and draken disappeared to exactly, but then realize the grass at my feet matches the grass on the other side of the wards. The scattered logs, the contours of the mud, the shallow puddles—they all echo each other.
The field inside the ward isn’t gone, it’s mirrored.
“Kyrian’s orders are to tolerate your presence, not rescue you from your own stupidity,” says Pherix. “Don’t expect our help if you get yourself in trouble out here.”
“Honestly, I don’t expect your help in there either.”
Pherix shrugs.
“Look, fortifying the protection around the nest is currently in both our interests. So you want to keep hating me or get over yourself for the thirty seconds it will take you to tell me what needs to be done?”
“I’ll keep hating you,” says Pherix.
“The illusion does best when it has unique input to work with,” Ilian injects. “The raw muddy ground is too repetitive for it to hold under strain. We are giving it more texture. Look for where the marriage breaks down and add more input to the source.”
Right. Obviously. Pushing my hood back, I survey the ward encasement. Honestly, it looks damn good—at least until the next flash of lightning, which reveals half a raised draken wing for a heartbeat before the illusion snaps back into place. “That’s unsettling.”
Finding the matching spot on the ground where I think the illusion is drawing its source from, I start gathering branches and wet reeds to break up the monotony of mud. Building a narrative arc for the illusion ward. It feels surprisingly good to be moving about. To be doing something physical. Useful.
“How much time do you think we have?” I ask.
Pherix gives an irritated sigh. “I don’t know. I hope all the time in the world, if your princelings are doing their job keeping your extended family occupied elsewhere.”
“Eryndor soldiers don’t actually want to hurt draken, you know,” I lay down an armfull of wet bark I just hauled in and start arranging the rain slicked pieces in the mud. “They just don’t know the draken are intelligent. Intelligent in a people way, I mean.”
Pherix’s head tips to the side and he snorts a moment later. “Rhaegor says comparing draken to people is an insult to draken, but he expects nothing more from primitive beings.”
“Tell him I said I admire his humility and restraint. Quietly. From far away.”
“I think that does it,” Ilian calls. “Let’s get inside.”
Pherix surveys our work carefully before nodding. “Agreed.”
“Wait,” I pointed to a spot farthest away from the ward-line. “I don’t like how uniform it is just there. I’m going to grab one last piece.”
“Get inside,” Pherix orders. “No one is coming out to get you whether you sprain your ankle or get mauled by dark wolves.” He steps over the invisible barrier and the temperature seems to drop a degree, as if the illusion takes a tithe in heat. Or maybe that’s just my courage.
“Understood. I’ll be a minute,” I call over my shoulder as I turn toward the forest and the freedom that lays beyond it. The trees breathe in and out with the storm, and I match my steps to their rhythm. One. Two. Three. Go.
It’s ironic that after all the worries over how impossible the escape from the fae would be, the reality has come down to the opposite.
Chapter 27
Kai
The storm hates us. That’s my first thought as Ulyssus climbs into the clouds, wings laboring against air so thick it feels like soup. Rain needles down, sharp enough to sting even through my leathers, and wind slams against us from the side like it has a personal grudge.
