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Whispers struck me from the wall. A feeling burned in my chest. If I could simply step through and . . . and be where we wanted to go. It would give us an advantage. We might find them sooner.
Could the others follow me? I didn’t know, but my mesmer drew this out unconsciously. I always told Malin to trust her power. I would trust mine.
“You going to shadow walk?” Hagen asked.
“It took me to where I wanted to go in an instant back in Skítkast.” I needed to get to Malin. The same as it’d done when the skyds attacked, the wall of dark fears built the moment I desired to find where Malin had been.
I rolled my shoulders back. “There isn’t time to overthink it. I’m going through. Follow me or do not.”
I closed my eyes and stepped into the frigid darkness. Half a breath, half a moment, and my next step crunched over broken twigs, the tang of blood and death burned my nose.
In the next instant, Raum was at my side. He let out a shaky breath. “By the hells, that was, well, that was unsettling.”
The others started to follow.
Valen. Sol. Tor. Niklas was the only one who walked through with a look of fascination. The others were disoriented for a few breaths and a little pale.
“It was like a waking nightmare,” Herja whispered.
No mistake, the fear was worse for others than it was for me. I scanned the clearing. From the trees and distance from the river, I’d say we’d traveled at least three lengths deeper into the grove.
The burn of unease on the back of my neck hinted there were unseen eyes watching. Waiting to strike, perhaps.
Let them come.
Valen did not hide his darkness the same as me. He wore it like a mark of power, of madness, of his unwavering devotion to the wellbeing of his queen. Me, I buried the wickedness in the shadows. It did not lessen the constant ache to shred the kingdom to pieces until Malin was in my arms once again.
There was a piece of me that wished more folk would attack, all so I could dig into their flesh with fear until they begged for the Otherworld.
“Here.” Raum held up a fist. “This is where we found it.”
A massacre had occurred here. Four bodies of strange, slender fae were scattered around the clearing. Dark blood stained their lips. Some bite marks marred their pale skin.
“Sluagh.”
I turned at the sound of Eryka’s gentle, trembling voice. The fae princess covered her mouth, taking in the gore.
Gunnar stood at her back, a constant sentinel for the princess, much the same as the woman had become for him.
“What did you say?”
“They are sluagh folk. Part of the underground dwellers. Dark fae.” She blinked and a tear fell onto her cheek. “Why are they here?”
“This makes you feel a certain way,” I grumbled. “Why?”
Eryka knelt beside a dead sluagh. “These are younglings. What a cruelty to bring them here. Why would my aunt allow it?”
“Explain why this distresses you in words, not riddles,” I snapped.
Gunnar glared at me, but he was wise enough to hold his damn tongue. We did not have time for seer prophecies.
Eryka shook her head, a look of distress on her face. “The High Court fought tirelessly to bring peace to the underground realms of our kingdom. The dark fae signed peace with the light fae only a mere century ago. To allow younglings to run wild in a foreign land, it would be an act of the gods if they survived. This was a death sentence.” The princess sniffled. “As if they were nothing. As if their folk did not matter.”
“If they hurt my wife, they do not matter,” I said.
Eryka sighed. “That is the other troubling thing. Sluagh are soul drinkers. They take power from the souls of other living creatures. But they were forbidden during the peace signings to drink from fae folk or mortals. They were to hunt animals and forest creatures.
“If they attacked the queens and the ambassador, the treaties would have been dissolved. Kase,” she said my name softly, a first time for her to address me so personally. “I do not need the whispers of the stars to know this battle, if won by our enemies, will alter the fate ofeverykingdom. There is something dangerous at play here, and I do not know what my aunt has planned. I do not know what deals have been made, but there is a heaviness in my heart that power is being used we do not understand.”
