Warlord, girl. Fucking dark fae warlord who may or may not decide to murder you after he gets what he wants…
The cool Midnight air was a relief on my hot skin, and I sucked it down in big gulps, clearing my head. One of the gargoyle guards was already waiting for us, just like Keradoc had promised.
“Where are we going, exactly?” I asked Keradoc when the guard wrapped his arms around us both. It was the same gargoyle, I realized, who’d tracked me down the night of Elian’s disaster at the facility.
The same one who’d shot at us the first night we’d tried to escape.
“To the wall,” Keradoc said.
And with that, we were off, the breeze whipping through my hair as we sailed out across the city.
10
HALEY
Soldiers,” I gasped, my eyes watering with awe and wonder at the sheer magnitude of Keradoc’s forces. “So many of them.”
The drawbridge was lowered across the moat, and Keradoc and I looked down from the top of the wall as thousands of troops began their long, slow march into the city.
Fae. Demons. Vampires. Witches, even. Most of them were on foot, but there were several supply wagons pulled by the fae-tamed Mares of Night, their eyes glowing red in the darkness. Standing all the way up here, a cold breeze buffeting me, I couldn’t hear the din below, but I could imagine it. The thunk of heavy boots. The creak of the wagon wheels. The soft nickers of the mares.
The moans of the wounded as they limped across, desperately trying not to fall into the moat.
My wonder suddenly turned to disgust as I remembered again what Jax had told me about Keradoc’s infamous parades.
“Are you going marchthemthrough the streets of Amaranth City tonight, too?” I asked, dragging my gaze away from the soldiers to glare at their cruel commander. “Let your vicious Midnight nobles tear them apart until the streets run red with blood and the mourners throw roses at their feet? Or better yet, command your guards to pick them off with flaming arrows as they cross the bridge, taking bets on how fast the ghouls will rise up and devour them?”
Something that looked like regret flickered in his eyes, but then it was gone, his cold demeanor sliding back into place like a shutter slammed over a window.
“The ghouls will not feast tonight, Haley. And these soldiers will not be harmed. Not unless they fall upon the swords of our enemies.” He sighed as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’ve called them back to the city to defend the wall. Some of them will be transferred to the northern border as well, once the Fog of a Thousand Knives recedes.”
“To fight the Darkwinter fae,” I confirmed. Of course that’s why he wouldn’t harm them. He needed them alive so they could defend his castle. His home.Him.
“They’re crossing the Sea of Tranquility in droves,” Keradoc said. “An attack is imminent.”
“From the north though, right? Why are you also fortifying the wall down here?”
He watched me a beat longer, another sigh slipping from his lips. Then he said, “Come with me.”
I followed him to a curve in the wall a bit further down, far enough from the torchlights at the moat crossing that I could see more clearly across the dark obsidian below. The guards in the tower behind us moved away the moment they spotted Keradoc, giving us some privacy.
“Do you see that?” he asked, pointing far out into the distance.
A series of strange starbursts illuminated the night sky, dancing and flickering before quickly fizzling out. It wasn’t like the deep red lightning I’d gotten used to seeing here in Midnight, but a pale indigo that reminded me of cheap fireworks—the kind that never quite burst large enough or bright enough, dying in a puff of smoke before they even reached their zenith.
“What is it?” I asked. “Another storm? Starshowers?”
“The southernmost reaches of the realm are home to the Boiling Glass Sands,” he said, coming to stand close behind me. “Far, far in the distance. What we’re looking at is happening over those lands. A magickal reaction to something dark and unnatural. Something that shouldn’t be, but is.”
With a gentle hold, he took my hand, lifting it to point to the next burst of light, then the next, as if he could predict where each would appear.
Here on this dark, lonely stretch of the wall, his touch was reassuring. Comforting, even, despite our earlier arguments. And when he leaned in over my shoulder and spoke again, mouth close to my ear, I couldn’t help but shiver at the touch of his warm breath on my skin.
Damn. Even his scent made my heart flutter now.
Images of our earlier kiss flooded my mind again, but I blinked them away. Fast.
“The guys told me about the desert before we came here,” I said, my hand still wrapped in his as another starburst glittered to life. “Too hot to handle, right? No one can cross it.”
