We hugged what remained of the buildings, and I had to help Kat cross debris strewn into the road where belongings had been dragged out of houses along with people. I placed Kat’s feet on the floor, gripping her waist and squeezing my eyes shut.
Whole families are forced outside. Adults, children—we round them all up now the new weapons have arrived.
The weapons that give me nightmares.
When we’re alone, I beg my beloved not to use them, to send them back. I know from the way he’s bitten his lips raw and rough since their arrival that he shares my horror at the things, but he insists. Both the Day Queen and Night Queen have sanctioned them. We have no choice.
The night the monsters arrived, one of the younger recruits tried to flee. She was caught and taken to the pens. I know nothing more than that about her fate. I haven’t seen her since.
“Bastian?”
Something warm touched my cheek. Like light glimmering through water as I rose from a deep, deep dive, I fixed upon it and emerged, gasping for air.
Green eyes on me. Her hand on my face. A warm body pressed against mine. These things were real. Here and now.
I pressed Kat’s palm into my skin, like I could imprint it there and make her a permanent anchor.
“Something’s very wrong, isn’t it?”
I swallowed, unable to answer when the only answer I wanted to give was a lie. I wasn’t fine. Not at all.
She glanced along the road. “We should go back.”
“No. No.” I squeezed her fingers and tried to smile. “I’ve just been here… before it fell.”
The crease between her brows deepened. “But you said this place was destroyed in the Wars of Succession. Weren’t they a thousand years ago?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled away. “You’re right.” Every thing I saw made it harder to remember logic.
I drew a deep breath. There was barely any aroma of magic left here, but Kat’s springtime scent filled me. The air in my lungs was cool. My chest rose and fell, under my control.
I was in control. Not whatever madness the Horrors left in the air.
I had never been here before. I couldn’t have memories of this place. It wasn’t possible.
“Come on.” I took her hand and led her deeper into the town, Elthea’s instructions ingrained in my head. We turned one corner, clambered over the rubble of a fallen tower, then turned another corner.
No sign of Horrors, save for the depleted magic. Perhaps they were feeding elsewhere—they tended to move in packs, leaching one area of their territory before moving to the next.
A scrape sounded ahead.
23
Kat
Bastian pulled me behind a tilted pillar, caging me in with his arms. We stood in tense silence, breaths held, listening. I gripped my magic tight—or tried to. If I let go, the Horrors might smell it.
Something scraped over rock, followed by the clack and thud of stone hitting stone and a heavy object landing.
Bastian’s moonlight eyes fixed over my shoulder for a long while before he peered out. He eased back into our hiding place and ducked closer. “There’s one ahead,” he breathed in my ear. “We’ll cut through this building. Keep quiet.”
Hand-in-hand, we picked through the debris. Sweat slicked his palm, though the day was far from warm. Still, I clung to him. Heart pounding, I tried to place my feet exactly where he did, but my legs were considerably shorter than his, and at times I had to find my own path over fragmented wood and fallen granite.
When I wasn’t watching my step, I watched him. He’d been even tighter than yesterday, and since we’d spotted the town, the deep gold of his skin had turned ashen. It wasn’t fear that marked his movements and expression, but… guilt… shame…
And he thought he’d been here before it had been ruined?
Something was very wrong.
The sounds grew quieter as we emerged on another, narrower road. Bastian looked left and right, then pulled me across the street. We took a right turn and paused in what had once been a doorway, though the timber had long since disintegrated to splinters at our feet.
“There.” He pointed out a house at the end of the lane, on a T-junction, set back behind dead shrubs and the remains of a garden.
Despite being abandoned for so long, there was startlingly little life around the town. The copse where we’d left the stags was full of stunted, sickly trees.
Even nature knew to stay away.
He gripped my shoulders. “We go in, find the fireplace. I get the box. You stay close. Understood?”
I swallowed, nodded, then we were hurrying down the lane. We paused at the T-junction, listened, peered around the corner.
Nothing.
We stalked across the road, Bastian’s hand tight around mine. No magic surged between us, but his grip still felt like a lifeline.
The way his breaths heaved and his jaw ticced, I wasn’t sure whether that lifeline was saving me or him.
No roof remained on the building Elthea had sent us to. The walls were partially collapsed, but thankfully a chimney stack still stood at its heart like a beacon.
As we stepped across the threshold, a low sound rumbled through the air.
I froze, stomach dropping. Bastian raised his free hand, the grip on my fingers tightening. That was the only thing that stopped me fleeing. Head canted, he surveyed the ruined room, then pointed to the far wall.
That was when I heard it.
The crunch of something large moving just the other side of this building.
He pressed a finger to his lips and led the way.
Heart hammering, I tiptoed around broken glass—the shards of a mirror reflecting the clouds overhead. I hardly dared to breathe knowing only an ancient wall stood between me and something the fae found so terrible they called them Horrors.
Great windows had once graced the next room. Now only their metal frames remained, open to the other side.
We crouched below the level of the cracked windowsills and crept along.
The sounds of movement grew louder, accompanied by a series of low, rasping huffs.
Was it sniffing the air?
Could it smell us?
A chill sweat trickled down my spine as I followed Bastian dumbly and tried to keep my breathing under control.
We reached the end of the run of windows, and as I straightened, I caught a glimpse of sunlight gleaming on something outside. A rainbow sheen marked the sleek, dark segmented body, like oil on water. I could only see part of it, but…
It was fucking huge.
Bastian’s hand on my back urged me through the next door. Despite a crack running its full height, the back wall of this room stood between us and the Horror, tall and relatively complete. My breaths eased a little, though my pulse still throbbed in my throat.
We’d reached the fireplace.
Almost done. Then we could leave this damned place and never return.
Bastian started towards it, but I grabbed his arm. I tapped his shoulders, then pointed out the width of the fireplace—or rather the lack of it. His broad shoulders would never fit, and Elthea had said the box was on a shelf hidden inside the chimney.
He scowled at the narrow opening, but that didn’t make it any wider.
I pressed my hand into my chest and mouthed, “I’ll do it.”
His scowl grew sharper and he shook his head.
But he didn’t have any other choice. I raised an eyebrow and gave him a look.