“Leave her alone!” the man shouts before he tries to surge forward, and then he blows out a big breath that seems to glimmer…
The hilt of a sword is slammed against his temple, and he’s instantly knocked unconscious.
Another person cries out. “Wick!”
My eyes follow the sound to a woman who’s lurching toward the slumped man, her fingers scrabbling down his arm. Something flickers along his wound.
Strange. I thought there was a flash of gold there…but no, his wound is bright red with blood.
The sensation of something tunneling through my mind makes my whole body shudder.
The woman is wrenched away from the man, pushed onto her knees by someone dressed in armor.
Soldier?
Wrong…this feels wrong…
The soldier yanks her back by her orange-tipped hair, exposing her throat. I try to get up, but the hands holding me tug on my arm, and I cry out from debilitating pain.
Why am I in so much pain?
“Vulmin filth,” someone spits.
I blink through the tears in my eyes. There’s a man wearing a crown standing over the kneeling woman.
My stomach twists and twists so much it’s going to get knotted in place.
“You are a traitor to your species,” he spits venomously, and she starts to shake. “You don’t deserve to call yourself fae.”
He nods, and someone moves, blocking my sight for a second. It all happens so fast I don’t see until it’s done.
Until she’sscreaming.
A soldier has a dagger in his hand that now drips with blood. The woman is sobbing, her arms still held back, but her ear…the top half is now missing, a chain left to dangle from her lobe as blood pours out.
“Emonie!” A man with blue and white hair behind her shouts her name and tries to get to her, shoving at another armored soldier.
One second, he’s trying to get to her. The next, there’s a sword poking out through his chest. He looks down at it, like he’s surprised to see it there. Bright teal eyes lift up to me, and then he falls.
Doesn’t get up.
Blood blooms. Rivulets seeping out onto the ground.
More screams.
I’m in a dream.
A nightmare?
As if the horror is contagious, I look past him. Beyond. There are more bodies. Unmoving, drenched with spilt blood.
The word comes up, floating forward.
Dead.
That’s what they are. They’redead.
My twisted stomach swells, the knots bloating with bile.
