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I clenched my fists by my sides and nodded. “We’ll meet and all share what we know.”
The prince sped off in the direction from which we came. He kept a wicked pace, but earned no complaints from any of us. Those walls were the only safe place left on the isles.
I was a frenzy of dips and knots in my belly. Calista kept glancing about, a pinched expression on her face as she studied the trees, the landscape, even the sky seemed to unnerve the girl. Stefan was the most at ease of us all. He only discarded his herb roll to hide the red glow of the end, but had an unlit roll between his teeth.
Glamour warmed my blood; I called to the trees to shield us, for the shadows to encircle us. My breaths were ragged from the exertion by the time Gunnar held up a fist, bringing us to a halt between two dead aspen trees.
He looked side to side then cooed like a dove in three different tones. Moments later, two mounds of sod shifted.
“Frey, Stieg,” I whisper-hissed. The two warriors emerged from their position, dirty, painted in dyes of pitch and forest green. Atop their heads and pinned to their gambesons were patches of dried grass and twigs.
“Ah, you caught the tracker. Good.” Stieg beamed at the sight of us. “Welcome back to the hells, Saga. Calista, always an unwelcome pleasure. Junie, gods, woman it is a relief to have your delicious tongue with us.”
“Odd choice of words, warrior.” Niklas frowned.
Stieg laughed and took the Falkyn’s forearm. “You know I merely mean her lie tasting, Nik. You think I’d want to cross you?”
“I’d hate to see what would happen should you try.” Niklas smiled, but wrapped a possessive arm around his wife’s shoulders.
She grinned and pinched his ribs.
“All I know,” Frey said, “is if Calista is nearby, it likely means blood and curses are as well.”
“Try again.” Calista huffed. “It’s whenever you folk come sniffing around me that I get dragged into nonsense.”
“We can blame each other later,” Stieg said. “The Borough guards will be back around soon. Gunnar led them off when he caught sight of you, Saga, but it won’t be long before mesmer wears off.”
They took us to a shadowed space, and between two logs was the opening to a troll burrow. “Hodag’s spell makes it so anyone who is friendly to you and Ari may enter,” Gunnar explained. “She thought it would be simpler in case armies of Northern and Eastern folk arrive.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yes, but dangerous,” Frey insisted. “That creature can shift into one who’s friendly to you. How do we know he can’t slip through in their body?”
Frey shuddered. He knew better than us what it was like to have Davorin take hold of his body, like a leech drawing the blood away.
“And that sly trick of his of melting into the ground,” Stieg said. “Gorm has wardings all around the blood court. So far they’ve held, but we never know when one might fail and he mists his way inside.”
“We’ve been standing guard since you left,” Gunnar explained.
“The prince is rotting his brain with all the ale he must drink to turn watchers and guards away,” Stieg told me.
“We will need to have someone take over for you,” I said. “You cannot exhaust yourself. We need you in this fight.”
Gunnar’s smile was strained, but he gave me a nod of agreement.
Darkness wrapped around my throat when I slid into the burrow. It was hard to catch a breath. Hodag dug deep, but with Dunker’s help, the burrow went into the rocky soil. The air was heavy in damp must, and I could not make out a hand in front of my face. We all clung to each other in a straight line until, at long last, a glimmer of a torch cast ghostly shadows against the packed soil walls.
“The trolls have been burrowing all over the Court of Blood, to Whisper Lake, they’ve tried to get one to the Court of Stars,” Gunnar told me as we approached the light. “We haven’t made it yet. The center isles near the townships and borderlands of every court are smothered in the battle lord’s corrupted armies.”
“What about to the shore? Can we leave, or are we trapped?”
“There are three different burrows that lead to hidden coves where Gorm and his blood fae watchers have several longships at the ready.”
“Davorin hasn’t found them?”
“Not yet,” Gunnar said. “But they are surrounded by blood glamour. Cuyler, as it turns out, is incredibly skilled at warding with blood rites.”
“He is?” I cursed myself. I’d raced away without discussing any real strategy but walls and the need to find a cure for Ari. I knew so little of what we had at our disposal. I touched Gunnar’s shoulder and offered a grateful smile. “Thank you for leading. I don’t always know how.”
