Page 62 of Dance of Kings and Thieves

Ari said nothing but yanked me against his chest. My forehead cracked against another skull. Elise. He’d pulled us both into his arms. The way he grunted, it did not take much to know the man was shielding us in illusion, dissuading whateverthinghad attacked to overlook us.

“Malin. This way. Malin, hurry.”

My heart skipped.Kase.

“Elise! Elise where are you?”

“That’s Valen,” Elise cried out.

“This way. Hurry, follow my voice, Mal.” Kase called to us from somewhere over my left shoulder.

“Go.” Ari shoved me between my shoulders while still holding my hand. “Elise, this way.”

I had to believe he held her hand much the same. Clinging to each other we followed the desperate cries of Kase and Valen. My body stiffened when the crash of steel on steel ripped through the darkness. By the gods, weapons were drawn.

I forced myself to ignore the shouts of the Kryv, the roar of the Northern warriors in the darkness. My family, my friends, fought some unseen force. Teeth clenched, I followed Kase’s voice. He’d brought the darkness. He could see more than me, and if he was calling me away, I had to trust our folk had the upper hand.

Kase would never leave the Kryv to be slaughtered.

Elise shrieked when the silver rune circlet tucked in the braids of her hair snagged on a branch.

“Dammit.” The queen tugged, ripping out her intricate braids, but we froze at hissing in the darkness. Elise swallowed. “Something is coming.”

Ari cursed to the gods, took out his knife and cut the lock of hair holding the circlet until it was free. The chain dangled in the branches with a bit of Elise’s hair.

We left it for the creatures in the dark to take and sprinted deeper into the grove. For what seemed like a thousand steps, we traipsed through a shroud of pitch until the faint moonlight broke and we stumbled into a wooded clearing.

Ari tripped over a fallen log but righted quickly and wheeled on us. His hand went to Elise’s cheek, then mine. “All right? Are you all right?”

“Fine.” I spun around, searching the trees. “Kase!”

“Valen? Where are you?” Elise’s voice was hoarse. She pressed a hand to her belly and hunched over as if she might retch.

“Did we get off track?” Ari puzzled out loud. “They were calling in this direction.”

A twig snapped. Leaves shifted. My heart went still.

“Maaaallliin.” Kase’s voice called my name in an eerie song. Ghostly, almost breathless. More voices, those of Herja, of Valen, even a voice much like Hagen’s sang out Elise’s name. Then, Ari’s.

“Gods, no.” Ari’s soft gasp sent a hot rush of panic to my head. He grabbed my hand then his queen’s. “Run.”

Ari tried to flee with us out of the clearing, back to the darkness, but at the line of trees he skidded to a stop.

By the hells.

Slender, pale as ice creatures stepped lithely from the shadows of the trees. Red-rimmed eyes glowed a sickly looking green in the night, and their skin hung off their bones like dripping wax. Human in shape and size, their ears like the fae, but it was their jagged teeth I could not ignore.

“I need you both to listen to me very carefully,” Ari said, a heady warning in his voice. “When I say go, you run in the direction we came, and you don’t stop. You don’t look back.”

“What are they?” Elise whispered.

“Sluagh. Soul feeders. Dark fae. I should’ve recognized their damn tongues tasting us in the dark.” Ari spoke in jilted words, his gaze never leaving the line of sluagh.

Tasting us? The memory of the slithering things running up my arms in the shadows sent a shiver down my spine.

“Malin.” The center creature split its thin lips, but when it spoke its voice was that of Kase.

“Our taste lets them mimic those kept in our thoughts,” Ari murmured. “When I tell you, go.”