I don’t hear what the Gore soldier replies, but another one snarls and jerks forward, making the Badges flinch. Guttural, aggressive laughter spreads through the Gore. The Badges quickly turn and head back with strained faces before remounting their anxious horses.
If our own battle-trained horses won’t go near the Gore, that should tell us something.
The army continues to move past, and I’m grateful I’m not on an outside row, that I have some buffer between me and the glaring Gore. But I wish I had an evenbiggerbuffer. Like an ocean. Like them being on that abandoned island with an entire sea between them and civilization where they’resupposedto be.
King Carrick is an absolute idiot if he thinks they’re going to be loyal to him. Gore aren’t loyal to anybody. They only answer to flesh and power.
And yet he’s just going to…let them loose. In Orea.
They already do unspeakable things to their own faekind. I don’t even want to imagine what they’ll do to Oreans. The very thought makes me shudder in fear.
I glance around, wondering where the hell Carrick went and what’s going to happen when the Gore get done with everyone in Orea and decide to turn on us. Wondering how I’m going to make any sort of difference when all of this has gotten way bigger than me.
My worry grows with every step, until all too soon, our destination comes into view and my breath catches.
The bridge of Lemuria.
It’s famous. Everyone knows the story of how our fae prince came here, at the edge of our world, and used his magnificent power to tether it with his princess’s home realm. A wedding gift, from him to her, and a display of power that Annwyn had never seen before.
I don’t know how it worked, though stories have been passed down for generations. All I know is, Orea had a bridge, and the prince somehow connected it to Annwyn.
But now that I see it in person, I’m amazed at how…utterly plain it is.
Fae are known for elaborate buildings and ostentatious designs. We like flare and beauty and adornments. But this bridge is simple.
Just a pair of white pillars and rustic rope stretching from them, wrapped around short balustrades beyond. The bridge itself is stark as well. Only gray dirt along a narrow path that disappears after a few feet, swallowed by a thick fog.
I don’t want to go into that fog.
And yet the army keeps marching. We have to shift, narrowing our lines to only three per row, and I get shuffled back even more. Up ahead, the front lines have already disappeared.
A hush falls over the army. Even the Badges have entered the lines, horses nickering and snorting with unease. I get closer and closer, and my nerves twist tighter.
“It feels wrong, doesn’t it?” I mutter to the male to my left. “Like we should turn back around?”
He ignores me, and I refocus ahead, though I have a terrible feeling in my stomach. Every ounce of intuition is a weight that’s trying to get me to stay. To not take another step forward.
But I can’t.
My footsteps falter as I reach the pillars, but I’m trapped. There are soldiers behind me, beside me, in front of me. Gore at the dead city just a mile away.
There’s no way out.
“This feels strange…” I say again, but still, no one replies.
Don’t they feel it? Annwyn doesn’t want us to go there.
I suck in a hurried breath, and then my feet leave the dead soil, and just like that, I’m on the bridge.
My nerves pound with unease. The sound of the soldiers marching onward in synchronized steps fills the air, making everything so much more ominous.
Then I enter the thick, swirling fog too, getting swallowed up in it…
And I realize instantly that something is terribly wrong.
There’s a pressure that builds up beneath my skin. As if I’m nothing but soap and air, filling into a bubble. It strains within me and then, in the next second—pop.
My glamour magic disappears.
