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A movement flickered in the corner of my vision as I adjusted the weapons at my waist. “Don’t go down there.”
Maisri caught herself on the middle stair. “I want to see if the Gremog will respond to a flower,” she said.
Ancestors save me.
Osheen had insisted on bringing her along—the orphaned daisy fae was his distant cousin of some degree.
She’d originally come with our delegation from Wolf Bay to help with cooking and laundry. A relatively safe journey. But into the human realm… none of us knew what awaited. Still, she was Osheen’s ward. He’d insisted that she went where he went, and I wanted his powerful magic in our traveling party. So the child came as well.
I cast a long look at the desert around us. Not a single plant to be seen. “There are no flowers here.”
The child grinned, her dark curls bobbing as she reached into her pocket and opened her small fist to reveal an even smaller flower petal. Not even a full petal. A torn scrap of one.
“The Gremog will eat a wee thing like you for its breakfast in one gulp,” I advised. I hadn’t seen the storied monster, but I had seen the reverence the elementals showed the thing. That was enough to convince me to stay well away.
But Maisri was undeterred. As we watched, she wrinkled her brows, eyes narrowing. The tiny flower petal in her palm erupted in a burst of color. Bright pink striped with even brighter red, folds and layers of petals expanding and curling until the bloom took up her entire hand. A rose.
I cocked an eyebrow at Osheen, but he was grinning now as well.
I understood why he did not want to leave her, at least in part. She was more powerful that I’d realized, and still only a child. Osheen was right to keep her close.Without parents to protect her, less powerful fae would try to take advantage.
Even with parents, such terrible things could happen. I was walking proof.
“Well done,” Lyrena laughed, voice glowing with admiration. “That ought to be big enough,” she said, nodding. “Give it a toss.”
Maisri paused only long enough to glance my way. Waiting for my approval, I realized. I straightened my already upright posture. Whether she looked to me as the Brutal Prince, respected by all terrestrials, the High King of Annwyn, or merely the oldest and meanest among the group… I jerked my chin in a nod.
She turned to face the strip of sand, remaining on the safety of the goldstone stairs, and tossed the bloom as far as she could into the middle of the sandy expanse.
For a moment, nothing happened. Her shoulders dipped with disappointment.
I used it for what it was—information. The bloom, oversized as it was, was too small to entice the Gremog. It could be useful to know, if it ever came to defending Baylaur from an invading force.
A second later that nugget of information had to be completely discarded.
The Gremog surged out of the sand, high enough into the sky to blot out the early morning sun. Maisri stumbled backward, up the stairs, Osheen already there to drag her upward.
But the huge monster veered to the side, staying within its strip of sand.
Its body was similar to the snakes that slithered through the Shadow Wood, scaled and strong, muscles rippling. But instead of a snout and fangs, its mouth was a gaping hole. If it had eyes or nostrils, I couldn’t make them out. There weren’t even teeth.
The inside of its mouth was lined with hundreds—maybe thousands—of circular suckers that undulated in constant motion. I caught a glimpse of the rose bloom, caught against one, its delicate petals dissolving against the sucking pressure.
But it wasn’t those suckers, which promised to hold its victim tight while it sucked the life from them, that were the most eerie. It was the silence.
The only sound was the swish of sand.
The Gremog was a silent death.
But the second the monster surged back into the sand, disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared, the others erupted. Maisri jumped up and down, whooping in victory from beside Osheen, who’d only released her once the Gremog had burrowed back into the sand. Lyrena’s boisterous laughter filled the air, bouncing off the goldstone palace—
“I’m glad to see I haven’t left you waiting,” Veyka said, her voice slicing through the mix of awed laughter and cries of surprise. “If you wanted to play with a monster, you needn’t have waited outside. I promised Arran he could come along.”
I got one eyeful of her, and my monster—my beast—growled in appreciation.
Cyara followed a few steps behind, her usual delicate white gown traded for a long, flowing dove gray tunic that reached midthigh and a pair of matching leggings beneath. She’d belted it at her waist, and even had a knife tucked into the belt.
I’d never seen the handmaiden do more than use her fire to light the hearth. I knew she’d battled Gawayn along with her sisters. But still, the weapon at her waist felt ominous.
