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61

VEYKA

I counted the breaths around me, even as I heaved in my own. Arran, Lyrena, Cyara, Osheen, Maisri, Percival. All safe, all accounted for.

But maybe safety was an illusion, because we weren’t the only ones there in the dark cave. The only light should have come from the outlines of the narrow opening far above. But not a yard ahead of me, flames danced.

Pale, white flames I’d only seen in the middle of a candle, just around the blue center. And those white flames illuminated what had been nothing more than flash of moonlight in the darkness above.

A white face. Not pale like mine, but truly white.

White hair in a hundred tiny braids.

Glowing white eyes around a black pupil that did nothing to make them any less unnerving.

And delicately curved, perfectly pointed ears.

“You’re fae.” I could hardly believe it. But the pointed ears, the magical flames dancing at her fingertips…

“I am a faerie,” she corrected, her syllables sharp as the sword sheathed down my back.

We were all armed—even Cyara and Maisri. But there wasn’t a blade on the woman—female?—nor a hint of fear.

My eyes went back to the flames at her fingertips. I watched as they winked out, one by one, revealing the fingers beneath. Fingers tipped in brutally sharp claws.

“Aren’t they the same thing?” I asked carefully, keeping one eye on those claws even as I examined the rest of her once again.

She returned my stare, slowly perusing my form from bottom to top. Her expression didn’t change, that same challenge in her gaze as it returned to mine.

“What do you think, High Queen?”

I cut a look to Arran, but it was Lyrena who said, “She’d fit right in at the elemental court with cryptic questions like that.”

I felt Arran and Lyrena shifting behind me, positioning themselves to defend and protect. They ought to know by now that I was as likely to stab them as any of these supposed faeries.

“Friend or foe?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and casually crossing my arms beneath my breasts—in easy reach of my dagger.

The female slashed a smile I almost recognized from the looking glass.

“That depends, Majesties.” Her sharp eyes flicked to Arran.

He didn’t miss the implication. “On?”

“If you hold the same prejudices as your precious Ancestors,” she said, taking a step back into a wall of darkness.

A tunnel.

A tunnel so dark, I was immediately drawn back to that realm of cold and death…

I stepped back, knocking into Arran just behind me. His left hand—the one not wielding his axe—landed on my hip. Steady reassurance.

I was not in that realm.

I was not alone.

I could control my powers—sort of. At the very least, I had Arran—my tether back to reality.My reality, that was.

The white female was already several steps down the tunnel, would have already been swallowed up entirely were it not for the pale, reflective quality of her skin and hair.