Page 90 of Dance of Kings and Thieves

“Junie,” I said, clasping her hand tightly in a greeting. “What the hells are you doing here?”

Raum released Fiske from a quick embrace and turned to Junius.

“Fiske saw darkness at Felstad,” Junie said.

I looked at my Kryv. “You saw?”

“It was clear something dangerous was going to happen. I didn’t know what.” Fiske looked over his shoulder hesitantly. “Until now.”

My stomach boiled in sickness. “We only learned today that Felstad had been taken. Ash and Hanna are in there, as are Von and Laila Strom.”

Both Junius and Fiske looked at Hagen and Gunnar with sympathy. Fiske scanned our faces, his eyes already asking the question without needing to speak a word.

“Isak is with us.” I clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“And Nik?” Junie asked.

“IsakandNiklas just left to send word to you.”

“It will fall on an empty nest.”

“You brought everyone?”

“The Falkyns are here to do your bidding, Nightrender.” Junie dipped her chin, grinning a little wickedly.

“Kase, we saw the guards at Felstad.” Fiske rubbed the back of his neck and shifted as if discomposed.

“Take us.” My voice sharpened like thorns, dripping with disdain and hate. “That is why we’ve come tonight. We need to take it back.”

Fiske and Junie shared a look. One that left a heavy bit of foreboding in my gut. They knew me well enough to hold their tongues. They knew I would need to see things for myself, no matter how hopeless.

And it was hopeless.

I’d not felt such a wretched despondency since the day I was taken into the Black Palace as a boy. Hundreds of Southern fae, the twisted kind, guarded the ruins. Massive jötunn giant folk with square teeth and clubs instead of swords. Spindly fae with fangs and tattered wings. Troll folk that could burrow the ground out from under us. Pixie fae that could cloud our minds and take hold of our senses in their illusions.

Then there were the warriors. Fae folk with glamour I didn’t know. Were they illusionists? Could they see steps of the future in the stars like Eryka, or prey on our seediest desires like Sofia?

The Southern guards were horrid on their own. But on the ledges, in the windows, no doubt scattered across our hallways were dozens more skydguard. There were Alvers. Rifters positioned with blades, Profetiks who might see as mightily as Raum, or with the sensitivity to sound Vali had. Hypnotiks paced across the jagged ledges of the ruins, ready to ensnare us in their tricks of the mind.

Ivar and Britta had not simply taken Felstad. They’d transformed it into their new stronghold.

“Will you say it, or shall I?” Junius said.

I closed my eyes. “Our mesmer will not outlast theirs.”

“Nor will our blades,” Thorvald spoke for the first time in tolls. “We step in there, it means death.”

I rubbed the sides of my head. No. There had to be a bleeding way in. I would not leave them to the wolves.

“We have the North.”

“Kase,” Hagen said. “Look at it. They would suffer innumerable losses.”

“We knew we would face their armies. We’re in a bleeding war.”

“But we intended to face this with the queen’s ring, and at a different time, with different moves,” Hagen said.

“Sea fae? What of your forces? You said you were a king,” Gunnar asked.