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But how many weeks had passed now? Surely six?
Bruises covered my arms, and the queen’s scarlet-flecked vines scored my skin. Bizarrely, the queen had left the stains on the floor where Ava’s sword had pierced my heart, a burgundy smear across the moss andstone. It was all part of her pageantry, a display of power.
But what had they done with Ava?
She’d promised that if Ava killed me, they would let her go. That had been her oath. That had been the entire reason I’d thrown myself in front of Ava’s sword, so she could return to her normal life as if she’d never met me. As if I’d never dragged her from the safe world of the humans into the brutal and bloody world of the fae.
But as the days wore on, I started to doubt Mab’s word. Somehow, I could sense Ava’s presence still here, a breath of life in a barren world.
Sometimes, I imagined I could hear her, smell her. Right now, I felt her presence moving closer.
Mere fancy? Perhaps, but I shouted, “I’m here!”
But where the fuck was the queen as someone smashed and shattered their way through her home? Because she controlled every little thing that happened here.
My heart started to race, and I ripped at the plants, not caring that they were shredding my skin. But the soldiers were not looking at me, and not a single one of them noticed. They drew their swords and stared down at their own feet.
And while they were distracted, it was the best possible moment to kill as many of them as I could.
I must be delirious, though. Because now I could have sworn that I heard the Sword of Whispers speaking to me from the other side of the hall.
31
AVA
From a leafy alcove, hidden from view, I peered into the hall. Queen Mab had a small army guarding his body, at least two dozen.
I could easily hang each one of them, except my magic was no longer working.
Shielded from view, I’d been trying to gain control of the dark, purplish vines that hung from every column and wall in the great hall. But it was as if another, sinister mind already controlled them. When I tried to seep into the consciousness of the plants, I felt a dark and unsettling power already there, a feeling that set my teeth on edge.
But I supposed I didn’t have to stick to the easy plants. Every stone here was alive with the magic of the forest, with the power of the life-giving tree. And maybe there was another, less obvious way to get these soldiers out of my way.
I glanced down at the flagstones, my gaze landing on the tiny sprigs of weeds growing between the cracks,fragile, with delicate leaves. I compelled them to grow—taller, larger, winding around the feet of the soldiers. They slithered upward like hands rising from a grave, grasping to drag the living beneath the soil with the dead.
My gaze moved to a man with long silver hair. His white wings beat the air wildly. My weeds crawled up him, a tourniquet of roots, and pulled him to the floor, trapping him. They slipped around his belly, his ribs, and his wings, restraining them. The fallen soldier called out for his queen.
Swords clanged to the ground as the weeds dragged soldiers to their knees. Every time they hacked through a plant with their swords, another would grow in its place, a cocoon of vegetation wrapping around their thighs, pulling their swords from their hands.
My concentration was broken by an attack on one of them, hands that gripped a soldier’s skull, snapping his neck with a sickening crack.
As the soldier fell to the ground, my gaze lifted to the face of the most beautiful fae I’d ever seen, and the world went still.
It was Torin, moving and breathing, looking for all the world like a god of vengeance with his blazing blue eyes and battle-battered body. Ribbons of blood streaked his arms and his torn white shirt. My heart clenched tightly.
Was I drunk on ambrosia?
For a moment, I couldn’t move. From the shadows, I stood immobile, hardly breathing, while he wreaked hisvengeance on Mab’s soldiers. Molten heat cracked through the ice beneath my ribs.
Dimly, I was aware that I was shouting his name as I burst free from my hiding spot, gripping his sword. And as I ran toward him, Torin turned to see me, and our gazes met.
The smile on his lips was heartbreaking in its beauty. With his deep blue eyes locked on mine, he staggered back, away from the soldiers trapped by my weeds. My blood throbbed in my veins, pounding in my head. I leaped over the soldiers, slamming into Torin’s iron chest.
Gently, he pulled his sword from my hand, then wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly. I pressed against his blood-soaked chest, feeling the thunder of his heart under the thin white material of his shirt. I slid my hand up, feeling that beautiful heartbeat, his warmth.
His voice rumbled through his chest. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Morgant healed you.” It came out as hardly a cracked whisper. There were, of course, a million other things I wanted to say, the powers I’d developed and the havoc I’d wreaked. The plan to get out of this place, to find the mirror in the abandoned temple. But my thoughts were a wild tangle of words that I couldn’t quite unravel, not when I was lost in the euphoria of his perfect, living scent. The feel of his body against mine made the rest of the world melt away, his muscles moving against me as he tightened his arms around me.
