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Pushing forward, my feet slipped on the icy ground. The witch's body lay as it had been in my dream, stretched out over our steps. A stench stronger than I remembered greeted my nose. Some mixture of old, molding books and an acidic scent of toxic herbs managed to cover the smell of the Fae blood that had been spilled.
An icy breeze lifted her holey cloak. Even though I knew what she looked like, had heard stories of their death-like appearance, and had seen them in the dream, the shock of it still hit me. Her skin was gray, every vein that ran underneath was black and bold in webbed lines.
The familiar feeling, the desire to run in the other direction, coursed through me. The unwanted urge to flee made my fingers quake. I struggled to keep them steady. I was a prince, I reminded myself; nothing should scare me like this. My powers rivaled so many.
Shavarra’s question repeated in my head as I bent and pressed two fingertips against the witch’s throat.What if this was the witch that had caused whatever was wrong with Daethian?A heartbeat still pulsed under my fingers.
Wind swirled snow around us in tornadoes of white, it picked up her torn hood and pushed it away from her face. Strands of her long black ponytail lifted with the breeze. The black veins that ran over her cheekbones were particularly unsettling. I tried to breathe through the panic that wanted to grip me. This was the burgundy witch. A real, no longer extinct species was right in front of me.
Even with the blood that covered her mouth, and the sharp teeth extended for breaking through Fae flesh, I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to save the witch. She would help us with Daethian. She would tell us how she was still alive. For all I knew, she was the last of her kind and I couldn’t be the one to end their entire race, even if she was dangerous.
“Guards?” I called. Cold, wet snow clung to my forearms as I scooped her up into my arms.
The front door opened, and the dark blue helmet of the attending guard appeared. Warning flared in his eyes as he tried to take in the sight.
“Should I sound the alarm, my Prince?” he stuttered.
“No, no,” I shook my head. “Quietly, I need you to scour the castle to make sure no one else has been harmed. No need to cause a panic.”
But panic was already settling on his face. The guard inside next to him leaned over, pushing the door open farther, and gawked at the mess of bodies behind me. His eyes cut quickly to the witch in my arms, all color draining from his face.
“What is that?” the second guard said.
“Something straight out of your nightmares.” Pushing forward between them, I stepped into the hallway. “Go,” I growled at the first guard. Pulling himself from his fixation on the witch, he stumbled backwards to gather others to help search the castle. I prayed he wouldn’t spread fear and hysteria with him. The other guard walked next to me.
“What do you plan to do with her, Prince Dace?”
“I plan to ask her questio—” But I couldn’t finish my sentence. A deep, stinging ache didn’t register in my mind until after the guard next to me quit screaming. My body froze in shock as the teeth of the witch sank into my neck. The squelching sound of flesh and blood being shredded and sucked was a distant noise inside my ears.
She was meant to be out cold. Instead, she was pushing off of me. Her long bony fingers with sharply pointed nails laced into the guard’s hair as she yanked his head to the side. His blade had been drawn and caught in the witch’s hand. Not a single drop of her blood was spilled. But his was.
It was all I could do to remain conscious. My fingers rose to the gnarled skin on my neck, the warmth of my own blood covered it. Pain radiated through my knees and up my legs as I fell forward.
My guard was already dead. I was well on my way. The black cloak of the witch blurred in my vision, the distance between us growing as she darted down the castle halls.
Get up, Dace. Get up.I screamed at myself.
Had I only made it through the front hall I would have had the magic binding cuffs that would keep her from doing the most damage. I needed them now, even more. I just needed to make it there.
Grunting, with the taste of blood on my tongue, I pushed myself up to stand. My legs wobbled underneath me, the muscles fatigued. To this day, I had lived a mostly easy life. I hadn’t fought on the front lines of any prominent wars. My life had never been at stake, nor something I had to often fight for, though it was becoming oddly more regular since I announced my support for the Nymphs. Was this struggle to stand, to focus through the pain, what it was like to be injured during combat? To use your mental strength to force your body to move despite its instinct to be still?
Blood dripped down my arm and off my elbow onto the floor behind me. Screams began to echo down the hall. They all ended nearly as abruptly as they started. The walls around me tilted, the floor sloped, and the lights danced as my head felt light and my body heavy.
Focus on your magic, Dace.
Pinpricks dotted my skin, power that grew to cover me from head to toe. Every blink felt like it was too long, and if I closed my eyes while I manipulated my travel, I feared I wouldn’t open them again. A rush of colors streaked my vision, everything going out of focus, then a new room appeared.
My stomach lurched. One hand held my neck and the other held my throat as I bent forward, blood and the remnants of dinner in my stomach spewed onto the floors. The mess didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I had the handcuffs.
Taking a ragged breath, I ripped them off the wall. Screams continued to meet my ears. The direction of the sound stirred me to forget about myself. She was heading for my parents’ room.
The chains were heavy and long, but not larger than the chest that I could have easily moved with me in my practice with Ryker. It would work now. It had to.
This time the surge of my powers washed over me, burning as it went. It extended through my fingers but stuttered over the magic-stopping cuffs. I stuttered, letting go of the tendril of powers that I had extended. I wouldn’t be able to manipulate travel with these.
Somehow I was going to have to make it to her before she made it to my parents, on foot. I blinked trying to clear my spotty vision. My boots scuffed against the ground, my legs not picking them up. Turning down the hall, my eyes fell over three bodies. Blood pooled around them, just like the men who had died in the snow.
