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A horn blared.
So deep and resonating, its sound echoed through the caves. It was loud enough that I yelped at first, nearly toppling to the side, as rocks and crystals began to break off from the ceiling and crash around me into tiny shards. The very ground vibrated under my palms, little rocks dancing and hovering just above the surface.
I remained on my knees, eyes flitting back and forth, trying to understand which direction the horn was blowing from, but it was impossible to tell. It was everywhere at once—inside of me and crawling over my skin, leaving tingles in its wake. I knew the feeling well, even though I’d tried for so long to ignore it.
Magic. Not just any magic, though. Faerie magic—the oldest kind of magic there was, magic from the dawn of existence that built this world and everything and everyone in it. Each blow of the horn called to something deep inside of me, and some latent part of my being reached toward it, desperately seeking it out.
This was what the humans feared so much. The call of the faeries was said to be nearly irresistible, the lure of them potent and all-consuming, and many a human had fallen for their tricks. Faeries were known to be cunning and quick-witted. They were beautiful and monstrous, yet alluring enough to make you lose yourself.
As a halfling, I was most of those things, too. I was curious and intelligent, and had a knack for mischief, much to the queen’s ire. It was a part of me, as much as my human penchant for never abiding by the rules. Still, my faerie allure was nothing more than a speck of light in the darkness compared to the unfathomably beautiful, yet horrifyingly monstrous faces that appeared out of the shadows of the cave.
Kyre
The horn had stopped, but its echo lingered in my head as shadows began to take form. Faces appeared, along with fangs, scales, claws, and fur. There were so many of them moving all at once, I couldn’t count, and they converged on me in seconds.
There was no time to escape and nowhere to escapeto, even if I could manage to move fast enough. I remained on my knees, my hands trembling as I wiped away the lingering tears on my sleeves. The echo of hundreds of footsteps had the ground shaking still, and the high-pitched shrieks of dark creatures sounded in the distance. The horn blew again, and my blood ran ice cold.
I’d never seen a full-blooded faerie in my short twenty-six years. Halflings like myself were fairly common in Karn, even if the humans were ignorant of us.
So, I was used to halflings—creatures born from the taboo unions of humans and rare faeries who’d crossed the veil between worlds. Now, I was surrounded by real faeries, the kind that haunted the dreams of human children the world over.
There were wolf-like faeries with silver fur that bristled as they stalked closer to me, eyes burning silver with no pupils and thick saliva dripping from their snarling maws. There were seven of them in total, ears flat to their heads, growls slipping between those sharp teeth. Lycinians was what they were called. As intelligent as any human, they were primals, and had a reputation for their viciousness and lust for the hunt.
Between them, crawling on all fours, were five erasu. Their bald heads were three times too large for their boney bodies. They were spider-like, with limbs that bent the wrong way. Each of them smiled with too human mouths full of blunt, gnashing, and broken teeth. They whispered to each other excitedly in a language I could not understand, like hissing, gossiping snakes.
Erasu were spies, able to blend in with the shadows and slip into almost any crevice. If I looked close enough, I wondered if I’d be able to make out the millions of tiny obsidian scales that were said to cover their bodies—scales that could flex and move, creating a camouflaging illusion.
My skin felt itchy, and I fought the urge to flinch away when two of the erasu reached out their spindly arms, one of them grazing the side of my face, a hooked nail scraping through my hair and pulling it from my braid. Bile churned in my stomach at the contact. Erasu weren’t known for consuming flesh, yet I could practically feel their hunger. Though, hunger for what? That was the question.
More fairies came into view, many of them I had no names for. Some of them were humanoid in appearance, with lithe bodies that walked upright and intelligent eyes that pinned me in place. Some of them were perched atop horses, bears, or wildcats, holding bows, spears, and daggers at the ready.
My heart began to pound so hard that I wondered if it would kill me on this spot. I began to realize that I might have made a mistake. This wasn’t what I’d meant to do. My blood was supposed to summonafaerie—asingle,pure-blooded Sidhe faerie, one with whom I could bargain, even if I eventually paid the debt with my life. I’d been prepared for that sacrifice if, in exchange, they would save Drystan’s life.
But this… I knew what this was. I knewwhothese faeries were.
Dread had me by the throat as another horn sounded, this one longer and lower than the rest. My bones vibrated with it, my teeth rattling painfully. Something was coming. The erasu stopped whispering, settling back on their haunches, wearing sickly smiles on their shadowy faces. The lycinians rumbled and whined, stamping their paws through the dirt and leaving deep scars along the cave floor.
Taking deep breaths, I forced myself to my feet, fighting the tremor in my legs as hard as I could. Summoning every bit of strength I’d gathered for this impossible task, I squared my shoulders and held my dagger firmly in my grip.
The crowd of faeries, even the ones atop the beasts, began to part down the middle. The pit in my stomach grew heavier, and the crackle of magic in the damp air raised the hairs on my arms.
Then I saw them—three male faeries atop three black horses. Wait, no. Those horses… Something was wrong with those horses. Red eyes stared back at me as the riders broke through the shadows. The beasts were five times the size of any horse I’d ever seen. Their velvety black manes matched their muscled bodies, gleaming in the torchlight. Each step they took was like a blast of thunder, and I could feel it rattle my bones.
They weren’t horses at all. They were elhorns—the ancient war beasts of the faeries. It became clear the moment they came to a halt just outside of the mushroom circle. Atop their heads were two massive bull-like horns that rose up into sharp points, and then a secondary set that curled downwards. Around their necks were manes of black hair, and their back hooves were curved into talons that could shred my body to ribbons.
Except the elhorns only held my attention for so long. There were three males perched atop the war beasts, one with long, midnight hair braided down his back. His uptilted eyes were the purest onyx, no whites to be found. Those eyes stared back at me from a harsh, angular face, with skin the color of tree bark. Long, pointed ears pierced with dozens of golden hoops marked him as a faerie, but the elongated canines when he grinned told me that he was one of the primals, as was the one next to him.
Faeries came in all shapes, sizes, and species. For thousands of years, they’d mated and changed, evolving into creatures of nightmares, but some were still beautiful in their strangeness. The primal faeries, like the two in front of me, were a species whose ancestors had mated with monsters.
I supposed they were halflings, too, in a way. Primals possessed the qualities of both faeries—who were regal, beautiful, and entrancing—as well as the monsters they descended from. Some of them had wings of feathers, or batlike appendages with leathery, bony talons. Some had fur or scales or even shifted into another form altogether. They were wild and dangerous, and these faeries were no exception.
The second one had the same features as the first. They almost looked like they could be brothers, if it weren’t for the fact that his skin was several shades lighter and his hair was a shock of silvery white, reaching his shoulders. My hand shook around the hilt of my dagger as I met his bright eyes, which were just as white as his hair and glowed in the darkness. Gaze dipping to his hands, I wondered if his gloved fingers were clawed. They tightened on the reins of the elhorn.
It was the third faerie who had me feeling slightly more grounded, less likely to sprint from the cave this second. His face was kinder than the previous two, with warm, golden eyes, deeply tanned skin, a thick, brown beard that covered his defined jaw, and elegantly pointed ears. This one was one of the pure blooded Sidhe faeries—an undiluted descendent of the gods who used to walk this world. They were the ruling class—kings, queens, and all of their nobility. His eyes didn’t hold the same animalistic qualities as his two friends, yet there was incredible cunning and curiosity behind them as he studied me.
It was he who spoke first, but his words were foreign to me. I could pick out some of it, but only because I’d heard the old language spoken in passing.
