Page 29 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Twenty

M y head . I swam through a sea of pain with a heavy weight pressed against my legs. The more I came to, the more I felt my body and the less I wanted to. My heart thundered out a reckless beat as a wet cloth brushed roughly over my face. First my forehead, then my cheeks, my mouth, my nose.

I lay on my stomach, my arms splayed out on either side of my body, my head tilted awkwardly against the ground.

My ears rang with the force of the earthquake but the sounds were distant and slightly muffled. The earth wasn’t shaking anymore. It was me. My arms trembled and I reached up to push the cloth away.

Hot breath panted against my fingertips and forehead. “Noren?”

The croak that came out instead of my voice was worrisome. The weight on the back of my legs seemed to increase as well as the frequency of the licks. His excitement at finding me awake and halfway okay warmed the pieces of my heart but the next inhalation brought with it haze and heat.

I flung my hand out and found his leg. My fingers wrapped around him to ground myself.

“Help me? Please?”

Noren crouched closer but I couldn’t see him through the dust. Nothing but the foggy outline of his shaggy shoulders as he bent, letting me use him for balance. I grabbed his fur and he rose slowly and dragged me with him.

There was nothing but blue sky overhead. I squinted against it, froze, and looked closer. Blue sky and not ceiling.

What happened to the house?

The ache in my legs was nothing compared to the tightness in my chest. Still holding on to Noren, trembling with the effort, I twisted, debris marking permanent indentations in my stomach. I somehow got my elbows underneath me and sat up, turning?—

One of the thick ceiling beams rested across my legs, trapping them. The same one that hit me on the back of the head, on the spine. I should be dead.

Why aren’t I dead?

I dropped my head back down against the dirt-strewn floor and probed the massive knot.

“Is everyone else okay?” I asked. “Did you check on them?”

My glimpse of the cabin showed nothing but ruin. It was a carved out husk of dirt and toothpicks instead of an actual house.

Maybe this was hell. Or some kind of painful middle ground where I had to suffer while I waited for actual judgment. But no, Noren was here. He’d done nothing wrong.

The direwolf growled and butted me with the top of his head. Drawing on my reserves, I turned again, staring at the beam.

An earthquake in Faerie…

Balanced on one elbow, I reached down and shoved. Solid wood met my fingertips. It felt as immovable as a boulder and just as thick, just as heavy. It refused to budge.

“Okay, I’ve got this.” Didn’t I?

Eyes shut, I drew in a dust-coated breath and dug down deep. My shifter powers rose in a steady wave, strength condensing in my wrist and forearm as my muscles bulked. I shifted into a concentrated halfway form until my skin strained like I’d taken steroids.

Grunting, I pushed at the beam.

It wasn’t enough.

Nothing felt like enough and the wood only grew heavier the harder I tried to move it.

Out of breath, panting, I drew more magic up. Agony flared in my left leg and I ignored it until the beam finally budged, giving me an inch of room to draw myself forward. It was all I needed.

And all I got.

On my stomach, I crawled forward, tears streaming down my face. My power sputtered. The beam crashed down in the space left behind, and there was Noren, his head lowered again.

“Thanks, buddy. You’re the best.” I used him to get to my feet, keeping most of my weight off my leg.

Another round of coughing wracked me forward. The debris in the air made it difficult to see anything outside of the mockery of blue sky.

My legs refused to carry me on my first step and Noren had to move quickly to keep me from falling. There was no point in telling him I was fine. No point in lying to him when we both understood the truth.

After a second, I nodded, gathering myself and stepping out of the wreckage. I waved the haze away but without any magic left, the gesture only stirred the particles. They circled in front of my face.

Whatever had happened with the prophecy, with Poppy’s vision and her resulting warnings, I’d been drained, like an empty vessel, left carved out and hollow.

“Mike? Bronwen?” Noren led me through the piles of debris. “Can you find them for me?”

He stared up at me with the put-out expression of someone torn between two duties. I nudged him and he huffed, then found a trail through the rubble.

What a mess.

I limped over a piece of stone from the cabin’s foundation, the edge jagged and cracked. One of the small iron nubs at the base of the cauldron poked out from another pile of debris. The thing survived into the future so I knew it hadn’t broken.

Or I’d changed the future drastically by being here.

After a few tense minutes, Noren howled to get my attention. I carefully picked my way through the wreckage of the spell room. This had to be the living room? Maybe?

Noren dug at something on the ground. Terror clenched my heart. I crossed to find Bronwen trapped under a pile of plaster and drywall. Impossible to bend down, I somehow managed to hold onto a pile of wood and reach for her with the opposite arm.

She was breathing. Alive but unconscious, a long trail of crimson dribbling from her nose. It was going to take a lot bigger punch than I had right now to get her out.

Someone coughed behind me, and over my shoulder I saw Mike shove his way out from under more debris. Stones from the fireplace crashed down around him. I caught the flicker of flame from behind him, the fire spreading rapidly with its newfound freedom.

My eyelids fluttered, then opened wider, meeting his green eyes and the life there.

“Tavi? You’re okay?”

I nodded in spite of the dizziness, still holding tight to Bronwen. “I’m upright. How are you?”

Sweat dampened his hair to his brow. “I’m okay. Where’s Bronwen?”

“I’ve got her right here.”

The blood continued to flow from her nose but hopefully it would slow down once we got her out.

My pulse beat erratically as I pulled her into my arms. “She’s hurt.”

Mike responded to the heavy sadness in my tone. “Let me help you.”

“The fire?—”

“The fire is going to have to wait,” he snapped.

He lost his balance when the floor gave way beneath him, one leg sinking down through the cracked boards.

“Fucking earthquake. And Poppy…where is she?”

“I’m not sure. Noren? Can you look?”

This time the wolf met my gaze, his yellow eyes a deeper color than I’d ever seen them, and showed me his teeth. Rather than going for Poppy, he took the front of Bronwen’s shirt gently in his teeth and gave a tug.

Her limbs flopped like she was some kind of life-size doll rather than a human but the motion pulled her free from the plaster.

A sharp crack came from the area of the fireplace. When I looked back, the flames had grown higher, consuming everything way too fast.

“We have to find her.” Mike’s eyes glistened with panic and he passed behind me, heading for the area where the spell room used to be.

He yanked up boards and planks and plaster as Noren and I dragged Bronwen away from the destroyed cabin, working in tandem. Every step we won magnified the agony in my leg and when I looked, fresh blood smeared the dress to my skin.

I shouldered Bronwen the same way Noren had to help me. Ignoring the fire. Ignoring anything that stopped me from getting us clear. I’ve been through worse, and there’s more to come .

Another crash sounded. My eyes blurred, tearing. One more step. One step after that and I’d be free.

By the time we got Bronwen safe, Mike had returned with Poppy, carrying her in his arms. One pale arm looped around the back of his neck and her head lolled as he stepped from the wreckage.

Together, we stood in what used to be her front yard and watched her cabin burn to the ground. The flames were unstoppable, magic and hungry.

From water to fire and everything in between, I knew. We were in terrible trouble.

“What actually happened?” I finally asked. “Faerie doesn’t have earthquakes unless something is very, very wrong.”

Mike shrugged. “Who knows, Tavi. Sometimes bad things happen when you least expect them.”

“When I first got here, you told me there were no thunderstorms in Faerie. My presence caused the land to revolt. Do you think?—”

“No,” he cut me off. “No, I don’t think. Please drop it.”

As if in response, Noren nudged my leg and looked off into the distance beyond the flame. The same place he’d stared at earlier before I went into the ritual with Poppy. He barked, a gravelly grunting sound, then met my eyes again.

Without words, I knew what he wanted to say. Smoke billowed on the horizon, blacker than the twisting trail from the wreckage of the cabin. It wasn’t from our fire.

There was something else going on.

“What’s happening over there?” I grimaced, jerking my nose in the direction of the smoke. “Maybe the quake caused more damage? The two things could be related somehow.”

Please . I needed the earthquake to be from a different source. Not me.

Poppy, now on her feet and inclining heavily against Mike, shook her head. “It’s something more. Big. The earthquake wasn’t a natural event. I felt Faerie magic in it. It’s not you.”

Bronwen inhaled sharply. Her eyes flickered back and forth, her pupils much too large. “Tavi?”

I lowered us both in a crouch and set her on the ground while she came to. “I’m here.”

“What happened?” She lifted her hand to her nose, winced, and dragged it through the dried blood. “Ugh. Is my nose broken?”

“Earthquake,” I replied shakily.

Bronwen paled, gasping, placing her hand on her chest. “The cabin?”

My shoulders lifted a fraction. “It’s gone.”

Poppy cut me a look. “It’s a miracle we all made it out. A miracle none of us are dead.”

“I wouldn’t use that word,” I added awkwardly, looking over our bonfire at the smoke spiraling into the sky.

Why had the earthquake hit now?