Page 78 of Witchbane
The rolling nausea made me too weak to do much. I felt like most of the sickness had passed.
The snow melted around me, heat seeming to pool from my skin, for which I was grateful. It took a few minutes to balance; the cold chilling my skin from snow and ice, and the heat rising up from my core. Whatever was holding me seemed to smolder, but they didn’t release their grip. They lifted me as we reached a set of stone stairs, and forced me to my feet.
I stumbled as the vine had returned to my leg, smaller now, shorter, ending below the knee. I glared at it, thorns dug in deep, flesh dark and gross. How many times would I have to rip it away?
“Walk,” commanded a deep voice. “Or I’ll drag you.”
I did my best to fumble up the steps, the pace was too fast to keep up with my captor. He kept a firm grip on my hair at the base of my neck, his hand larger than my head, but not a giant. He was a mountainous sort of man, wearing heavy cloaks and with lots of facial hair. He also had the glowing eyes of the fae, though I couldn’t lift my head enough to actually study him.
The climb seemed to take forever. Mostly because my leg kept giving out, going numb, then stuttering back to sensation with a pop of waking pain. As if my body was fighting the vine. The floor evened out and we spanned a long hall. There were fae of all kinds lining the hall, strange and foreign like an alien world.
The giant hand on my neck kept me faced downward, almost in a half bow, even as it forced me forward. I felt oddly hollow in that moment. Fox and kitsune not absent, but silent, almost afraid. I breathed deeply and prayed I wasn’t being dragged to my doom. Since I didn’t see Liam anywhere, and the few stuttered memories I had told me I’d left him behind in Underhill, I wondered if there was a reason to live at all.
How would he survive with the world collapsing around him? How could I have left him behind? How would I live without him?
Another set of stairs appeared. I caught the edge of it in my peripheral vision first, and then we stopped at the base of it. The large man paused and lifted my head enough that I could glimpse the stairs, but not see the top of them.
“A summer court mutt?” a female voice asked.
“Yes, your majesty,” came the deep rumbled voice of the man who held me. My mind stuttered for a second, catching a language I didn’t understand at all, and seeming to translate it into English. It was slow, a bit like an echo. Strange words first, then ones I understood following in the same voice. “Smells odd… The burnt magic of Underhill.”
There was a beat of silence. “Really? I can’t smell him from here. Bring him to me.”
This time I was dragged up the stairs. I tried to find my feet, but the man moved too fast and I ended up banging against the sharp edges of stone more than actually walking. Then I was dropped unceremoniously at the top. The man remained behind me. When he let me go and I looked up, he was bowing his head and not looking forward.
“The wafting stench of the end of the world,” she said. “Is this the mortal child the light court fights over? Ridiculous.”
“He appeared here. Dropped from the sky,” the man said.
“A portal between worlds? Useful. And dangerous.”
When I tried to look up, the man planted a hand on the back of my head, forcing me to bow, only giving me a glimpse of the woman. But it was what was behind her that caught my breath.
Like a throne of horrific proportions, a figure was locked in dark stone. Something huge, and almost dragon-like, with wings, claws and a snarling half monster, half human face.
Apa.
Partially changed into some monster, and encased in onyx stone like the most detailed statue ever created. The sculpture decorated the area behind the throne, like some elaborate design meant to heighten the power and horror of its queen.
Queen.
My brain slowly ticked through what little I knew. The wholethis is not the light courtmade me think it could only be the dark court. If that was a thing. Did that mean this wasthequeen of storybooks?
“Kitsunes and dragons. Always such trouble,” she scowled at me. “Do they seek to use you against me? Pointless. You’re not the first fox to cross my path. Mischief makers though you may be.”
The leg with the vine around it cramped up, and I yelped as it dug in.
She glanced down at it. “A curse made by one of mine? What a waste of energy. You kitsunes are almost impossible to control. Might as well lasso the stars. You all burn yourselves out eventually.” She reached for the vine. Rather than ripping it away, it turned and seemed to be coaxed to her, moving like a snake. The thorns vanished as the snake slithered to her hand and disappeared up into her sleeve.
My leg throbbed, but it was healing. I tried not to be weirded out by the fact that I was naked in front of some fae queen. I guess this answered the questions about the fae crossing the veil and creating new spaces for themselves. My stomach did another little twist and I gagged. The firm hand on the back of my head kept me facing the floor. I really hoped not to spit up more bile.
“Drop him back in the mortal world,” she commanded.
“Even though he smells of Underhill?”
“Underhill is gone.”
My heart lurched. What about Liam?