“What did you just say?” an angry voice barks from behind me.
I flinch and whirl to face Brahm, putting on my most casual, believably innocent smile as I realize he’s wandered all the way over here from where he was just taking a smoking break.
“Nothing, I was just?—”
Brahm storms toward me, his expression and stance so hostile that my inner animal startles inside of me, going on the alert at once. I’m expecting this unfriendly fae to chew me out or insult me, since Everett and Silas are on the opposite side of the excavation site and everyone else is distracted.
I don’t expect him to shove me backward, but he does.
The backs of my legs knock hard into the side of one of the sarcophagi, but I keep myself upright. My inner animal whines about us being in danger as Brahm looms over me, his face twisted and threatening.
“Hey, there’s no need for that,” I insist, shocked and dismayed.
“No need? You were just talking about opening these sarcophagi so you could steal from them!” he spits. He grips the shoulder of my coat, twisting it in his grip. “I saw you doing something with your coat. Did you grab something out of the sarcophagi and hide it in here?”
“No, I swear I didn’t?—“
“You’re lying. Take it off,” he demands, yanking hard.
My inner animal doesn’t like that. I don’t, either, but his raised voice is making me freeze up, heart racing.
Athanis is trying to tell me something off to the side, and I’m pretty sure Noah is shouting something at Brahm from nearby. But when I just start to stammer again that I didn’t take anything, Brahm shoves me aside, sending me toppling to the cold ground.
“I’ll check for myself,” he snaps at me, leaning to open the sarcophagus I was standing closest to.
“Wait!” I warn frantically, scrambling to stand.
It’s too late.
He’s pushed aside the lid of the sarcophagus, and in the blink of an eye, everything changes.
The ground starts to move until it looks like a stormy sea, rolling and peaking. Surprised shouts of the fae excavators sound nearby, and I hear Everett calling my name—but when they start running this direction, they somehow start running the opposite way. There is no fire, but the scent of smoke fills my nostrils just as a fae woman sits up in the sarcophagus Brahm opened.
Nivarrah.
“No,” Athanis breathes beside me.
Her hair is light blond, her ears pointed. When her purple eyes lock onto Brahm standing above her sarcophagus, the ancient fae woman’s emotions crash into me.
Surprise. Terror. Wrath. Desperation. Hatred. Bitterness.
But first and foremost is a mix of panic and confusion.
Those quickly prove to be a dangerous combination, because when a few of the other fae manage to rush toward us despite the magic now distorting reality, all Nivarrah has to do is look at them before they begin screaming.
I don’t know what reality she’s making them see with her magic, but they turn on each other at once. I scream and leap away as one of the fae excavators throws some kind of spell at one of his comrades that beheads him immediately, his head bouncing away. Another one of them begins throwing attack spells at Brahm, who cries out in alarm and dives out of the way just in time.
“Heidi!” I hear Everett shouting again from what feels like miles away.
Ice begins encapsulating the sarcophagus that Nivarrah is sitting in, but she lurches out of it before my brother’s element can trap her. More ice starts forming, but it’s several yards away since the ancient fae’s magic is clearly making it impossible for my brother to see what’s going on. A flash of bright red blood magic lights up in the distance, but other fae begin shouting in alarm before I hear Silas cry out.
I see Nivarrah leaning toward one of the other sarcophagi like she’s about to push the lid off.
Uh oh.
I want to move toward the ancient fae woman to stop her, but the air around me is wavering and bending like heated air creating a mirage in the desert, despite the lingering spring chill.The world seems to twist and dip as colors shift, the blue sky overhead turning green and everything else turning into various hues of purple. The shouts of everyone else at the excavation site are warping before they reach my ears like we’re all underwater.
Nothing feels real. I’m getting wildly dizzy, so I shut my eyes and try to focus on one thing I can count on when the rest of my senses are being magically meddled with.
