My magic was gone. Even the newly released shadow magic vanished in the face of the horde of ice spiders. Not that I’d know how to use it anyway.
I darted a glance at the staircase we’d come down, only to find it also overrun with eight-legged monsters. We were as trapped as the Shadow King in his tree.
I stumbled closer to the others, clumsy in my haste, and my leg hit on something hard in my interior cloak pocket.
The mirror.
Back at Valrun Castle, I used the mirror to contact the King of Dergia to make sure the dwarves were safe. I never thought I’d use it again so soon, but with a plan forming in my mind, I wrestled the mirror out of my cloak.
“King Tholin!” I spoke urgently into the mirror, trying not to draw the Shadow King’s attention. “Help!”
It took longer than before, but the king’s face appeared, gray rocks behind him, making him look evenpaler than usual. He was in a mine or something but carrying the mirror with him, just as he said he’d do. A good ally. I only hoped that he could somehow send help in time.
My stomach hardened at how far-fetched my dream was.
Dergia is a day’s ride, but they have messengers. Maybe even ravens? It’s possible . . .
“Princess Neve? Where are you?” His bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Are thosesunshaftsabove you?”
I angled the mirror up, toward the hole in the mountain. “Yes! We’re in a mountain by Eygin. An old mine, we think.” Thinking he might know our exact location if given more clues, I spun the mirror toward the tree. “Look, there’s a Drassil too, and we’re being overrun by hundreds of ice spiders. Can you?—”
A spider fell on top of me. I shrieked and batted at the creature with my hands, only to stiffen when glass shattered.
I screamed as I stomped on the spider with both boots, barely crushing it because the monster was so large. The mirror was gone. Our best chance, gone.
All we had left to do was to fight. My friends were already doing so viciously. Spider carcasses sprawled around us, but there always seemed to be more. More.More.
“Stop them!” I screamed at the Shadow King.
The king laughed, and the skin on the back of my neck tightened. “I cannot call my children off now, Isolde. Not when flesh has walked into their home. It already took much of their willpower not to attack you on your way here, and I believe they deservea tastefor their good behavior. A half-elfto start sounds good, no? I do not think they’ve ever tasted elf.”
Thantrel. Caelo. Both already covered in blood. Redandblack blood. Fae and spider. My stomach tightened at the reek and tang of spider blood, and my air came in shallow breaths.
It was because of me and Thyra, our needs, our hopes, that these people were here. Thyra might pretend to hate Thantrel, but I had a feeling he was growing on her. At least enough so that she’d mourn him. And I could not bear to lose either male. Vale’s brothers, one by blood, one by soul.
“Maybe a pixie too?” the Shadow King crooned as one spider shot a string of silk at Xillia. “Not much meat there, but some of my smaller children might enjoy her.”
The pixie soared out of the way in time to avoid being caught, though I did not miss the fear in her eyes as she dove for safety in our circle.
“Here!” I waved an arm, ready to protect with my sword in the other hand. She was almost to me when she changed course, flying backwards. Another spider soared past my face, and she veered to avoid the monster. But Xillia did not see the horror coming up behind her until it was too late. The spider, five times the size of the pixie, grabbed her and tore her head clean off.
Thyra’s scream joined mine, and Livia drew her bow, shooting an arrow at the spider, ending its life for killing our friend.
I tried for my magic again, to spread ice and trap these foul creatures, but to no avail.
“Neve.” Vale grunted as more enemies fell from above.He cut one swinging from above in half withSkelda,and blood as black as the shadows I’d been wreathed in rained down on us. Another approached, and my mate killed it too, always protecting me, shielding me. “We need to fly out of here.”
I cast a frantic glance at the hole that allowed sunshine to enter the cavern and shine upon the Drassil. That hole was our best means of escape.We were simply too deep within the mountain to run.
“We go now. Ready your blade.” Vale grabbed my non-dominant arm. Perhaps only for a brief moment, no spiders rained down.
I slipped my wings through the slits in my cloak, and we rose. The others followed, and I’d never been so glad that the vampire sisters still had their wings. If we had to carry them out of there, it would have been so much harder. As it was, the feat was already near impossible. Swords waved as we flew and spiders tried to catch us, spinning half hazard webs, jumping at us, and climbing the rock walls.
One strand caught not on a rocky outcropping but on Ulfiel, still lower than the rest of us. I screamed as a spider the size of Vale’s destrier pulled the rebel to the ground.
“We have to go back, Vale!”
“We can’t, Neve. We?—”
