Page 43 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

W e were completely screwed.

Mike grabbed my hand, still talking with the soldier in tight-fitting armor that seemed to reflect the shimmer of the distant flames against the mist. The burning boats behind us felt like a warning that we were going down no matter what we did.

My heart raced, my pulse a terrible gallop in my skull. If we tried to get away, we’d expose ourselves. They’d realize we weren’t the allies we’d claimed to be and might execute us on the spot and be done with it. We’d be killed before we posed a threat to them and their war.

Out of options, we let ourselves be led along the ridge, closer to the palace and skirting the torched morsana fields, the soldiers chatting happily about their plans for the fight.

“This ends today,” the one in the lead said. “Then we’ll never have to worry about those pixies again. The morsana weapons are the only real magic they have going for them, and once we destroy every last bloom, they’ll never be a threat to our way of life again.”

My stomach twisted. “Damn right,” I agreed weakly.

The clash of weapons and the screaming got louder as we approached. We once against stepped off the rippling ridge and onto the stone path leading to the wide gate of the palace. There, magic protected the entrance from the flames. The walls pulsed with power and the glow became tunnel-like.

Mike squeezed my hand when the lead soldier looked over his shoulder, his gaze hardening when he saw us. We were out of time.

“Take no prisoners and show them no mercy,” the man said. “Be vigilant. The pixies are small but they are fierce.” His eyes seemed to dance. A fucking sadist enjoying this bloodshed.

The soldiers escorted us into the heart of the raging battle. Their group joined the fray with a yell. Magic pulsed, and a blast from a morsana weapon left a trail of acid where we’d just stepped.

The bitter taste of a future stripped right out of my hands filled my mouth. But there was no time to wash it away.

Mike pulled me down to him, his face close enough for his lips to brush my temple. “We have to hide.”

“It’s going to look suspicious,” I argued.

Bronwen knocked into us as the soldiers palmed their blades and we three hunkered down near the wall.

“We’re already out of place. We’re either going to look like enemies to the pixies and get mowed down by their morsana weapons, or the fae will find out we aren’t with them and hunt us,” Mike fired back. His golden brows, a little singed, drew together in a fierce frown.

He was right, even though the prospect of hiding left me feeling carved out and awful. We had the flower. If it weren’t for my powers and the pressing need to unlock them, then we could get out of here right now and let the fight run its course the way it was meant to.

Mike’s eyes bored into mine and I eventually nodded.

“Right. Then follow me. I’ll find a way through the fight.” His fingers tangled with mine and he lifted my hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss over the curve of my knuckles. My heart beat faster.

I cast my gaze at Bronwen and found her pale and shaking. She leaned against Noren for support and the direwolf blinked at me, acknowledging our plan of attack.

The pixies were fast and lethal in their defense. So we had to be faster.

Instead of going back the way we’d come, we ran through the fight, heading into the palace itself. Two pixies, white glows overhead, fired off their weapons while the fae moved in formation and met the blast with one of their own.

We raced out of the massive opening foyer and beyond the graceful curve of the staircase. The hallway narrowed into a funnel, with the end obscured by black smoke.

The fight trickled out of the foyer with us. We passed room after room, and no matter what turn we took, there were more soldiers. More bodies blocking our path.

We were going to be discovered. How could we not be, in the thick of things? The screams burrowed into my head and set my teeth on edge.

“Don’t kill anyone! You’ll change history!” Mike shouted.

He asked for the impossible.

Noren jogged ahead with a flick of his tail and only once did he glance over his shoulder, his yellow eyes meeting mine. He huffed out a breath like a punctuation to Mike’s warning. Or maybe it was one last warning to tread carefully.

The blistering heat belching from the burning morsana fields scalded every inch of available skin. How long before we burned along with everything else?

A wave of pixies rushed us. They crashed against the oncoming fae at our backs, meeting the armored warriors with their wings beating and their cries savage.

Despite their small size, the pixies did not shrink away.

They wielded weapons much larger than their bodies with a ferocity I’d never seen matched.

My wolf ached to get free as Noren leaped forward and took down one of the warriors cutting past us, stopping the soldier before he drew his sword. Not like I thought I’d change the tide or anything so silly but I’d feel stronger as a wolf. As a halfling. But it would give us away immediately.

Mike grabbed the sword from the fallen warrior, now grunting under Noren’s weight, and swung it in the air. “Stay back! No one come any closer.”

A pixie drove straight for his throat and I leaped in front of him at the last second, pushing him to the ground. “We’re not your enemy! Don’t touch him!”

Noren pounced on the pixie before they fired off another round of morsana-fueled fury.

How on earth did we convince the pixies we told the truth? Did it matter?

The pixie went down but another tide rose beyond it, their earth magic rippling the floor. The marble buckled underneath us and we went down. The back of my skull cracked against the floor hard enough for a universe to bloom to life in front of my eyes.

Oh, god. The pain was excruciating, unbearable.

Noren nudged me with his nose as I struggled to get up, Mike’s hand falling from mine.

“Tavi, we have to get out of the palace. They’ll bring EverRose down around us,” Bronwen screeched.

She grabbed my shirt and hauled me to my feet. Mike followed, slower and sluggish, until the clash of the fae swords faded.

Several of the older pixies we’d arrived with found us, and Noren growled.

Bronwen drew up short with her palms held out. “Hold on! It’s us!”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” I added.

The fae soldier called Grant stepped beside us and swiped his sword at the pixies. One of them went down with a scream and magic burned through my veins.

“Don’t touch them.” I grabbed Grant by the back of his armor.

He dodged my fist and jerked me by the leg, the world spinning as he slammed me onto my back again. The impact, the throbbing in my skull, drove the air right out of my lungs.

“Look at these fucking traitors! They’re part of it. They’re friends with the damn enemy.” His sword pressed to my collarbone. “I’ve caught something good here,” he murmured.

His pause gave me the room I needed. If he didn’t go in for the kill, then I had to. I lunged up, moving for the hilt of his sword. Grabbing his wrist, I squeezed, forcing his tendons to twitch and his hands to loosen their grip. The fae yelped and I plucked the sword out of his hand.

I pointed the tip at him. “You are going to leave them alone.”

He rolled backward, kicked it, and disarmed me. Just like that.

My blood boiled. My neck throbbed, chest heaving, and Grant swiped the sword at me again, accompanying it with a wave of fae magic.

Adrenaline fueled, I tried to punch his throat, but he just knocked me aside. Every single hit he parried, dropping the sword to grab a dagger from his weapons belt.

“It’s much better up close and personal, isn’t it?” he hissed with a smirk.

“You tell me.” Bronwen’s voice came from behind him.

Grant whirled, but couldn’t move quickly enough to avoid her or the murder in her eyes. Bronwen bit down on the hand holding the dagger before he could slash it across my skin.

We moved with the same patterns, muscle memory of all those attacks in our past with our pack taking over. I punched forward, but he reared back and my knuckles skittered over his armor. His magic burned me and I yelped at the white-hot agony in my hand.

Grant kicked at us and I gripped his leg, twisting until the bone snapped.

“Tavi!”

Bronwen tossed me the sword, holding the dagger in her own hand, and before Grant had a moment to react, we moved. I dropped his leg and Bronwen drove forward.

Together, we slashed at his neck, and Grant’s head toppled off his body. My breath came in terrible gasps, pushed out of my body as the full implications for what we’d just done filled the empty space.

“My god.” Mike tore at his hair, pulling the strands, his voice sounding like it was coming from far away. “Oh, this is fucking bad .”

“We really don’t need the reminder, Your Highness.” Bronwen waved him away and stashed the dagger in her pocket.

Mike pried the sword from my numb fingers. “You know the rules about changing things in time. I told both of you.”

I swiped my hand across my face and smeared blood. “There wasn’t much of a choice. He wasn’t going to stop.”

Mike’s eyes told a different story. As though there might have been some way for us to pull a win out of our asses without spilling any blood.

It was too late now. Much too late.

Another fae charged us and a fireball grew between their outstretched palms. The warrior used it like a paintbrush, scalding the air in a slashing motion and going for the three of us.

Killing the fae soldier had put us on the enemy list.

Mike pushed me aside as the fae regrouped. “Go, go!”

We backtracked the way we came and took a left turn rather than a right this time.

The maze of hallways made it impossible to follow a direct path, and equally impossible to escape the fighting.

My lungs felt two sizes too small and shrinking.

Noren was the only one who didn’t seem to give in to the panic.