“Let’s move,” I hissed, shoving the Mirror into my inside coat pocket, balancing the Crown in the crook of my right arm. They weighed me down like a couple of lodestones, every step requiring far too much effort, my feet dragging across the floor, like I was fighting a strong headwind.
“This is…awful, but…we just have to get outside this part of the temple.” Varian groaned through gritted teeth, straining to take his next step. “I can’t ghost us away in the middle of all this corrupted magic, it works against my own power, which I don’t have an abundance of right now.”
“What the fuck is happening?” I grunted, managing a measly two paces.
“My guess is, the magic on this level has been keyed to the relics. We got through the protections, but what wardsguard these walls is clinging onto the relics, trying to keep them down here. Kind of like a second line of defense.”
“And you didn’t foresee this as a problem?” Varian covered twice the amount of distance as me, and I wondered if it was because he’d bogged me down with two of the fucking things.
“Who the fuck do you think I am? The Seer of Tempeste?” He bared his teeth at me, but that could have been the strain of just trying to lift his feet.
“No, I didn’t foresee this because I barely had time to grab my toolkit and we were back here for a heist that should have taken a week to plan.”
“Just asking. No need to be so defensive.”
If we didn’t get out of here—with the relics—we were dead.
Everything—our entire future—hinged on getting these things to Rooke. If he didn’t have all three, then nothing we’d planned for these past fifty years would matter.
I managed a few more shaky steps when something warm trickled down my face.
I reached up.Blood.
Fuck. “I thought finding these things would be the hard part,” I breathed, “I didn’t expect to die before we even got back to the island.”
“We’re nearly free of it, just a few more feet.” Varian stopped in his tracks, swaying, the Thorn gripped in one white-knuckled hand, the tip resting on the stone floor. I stopped too, grateful for the reprieve, blood now dripping from my chin, every breath a miserable chore.
“Good, because I don’t think I can…”
The hallway exploded with the reek of ozone as three of Gravelock’s Fae soldiers appeared, each of them a foot tallerthan us, armed to their sharpened teeth, each radiating a dark, malevolent magic that made my stomach churn even more.
Red fire and blue fire and something shadowy spewed from their fingertips.
Purely out of habit, Varian and I put our backs together, swords drawn, opponents sized up.
Odds definitely not in our favor.
I tightened my hold on the Crown, trapped beneath my armpit, almost hidden by my coat. I could barely even raise my weapon, the thing could have weighed a thousand pounds, my arm shaking as I pointed it at the guard bearing red fire, hot enough to scar.
“What the fuck are these soldiers?” Varian studied their blank faces, black eyes.
“No earthly idea, but let’s not stick around to find out?” I slid my feet sideways, like I was back out on that ice, and the three mirrored my movements, gazes pinned to the treasure I bore, the long, slender bit of gold clutched in Varian’s hand.
Not even close to mortal, these soldiers appeared to be half Fae, half monster, because something evil had corrupted their flesh, the light that burned in their whiteless eyes. They were bigger, stronger, and lacking any sort of humanity—or hesitation—a normal soldier might possess.
These three wouldn’t make mistakes.
I was weighed down by two ancient relics, fighting one handed, so weak I could barely lift my blade.
But Varian—perhaps because he only carried one of these fucking things—brandished the Thorn in both hands, a twisted golden needle that didn’t look especially dangerous, except for the sheer power drifting off the tip, bendingthe air around us. With a decidedly wicked look on his face, Var stepped forward and two of the guards paused, as if finally registering what we held in our arms.
Weapons.
“That’s right, you fuckers, surprise. I have to admit, I’m curious,” Varian hissed, tracking the third, undeterred guard out of the corner of his eye. “What this ancient relic can do. I once heard the Thorn can bind an opponent’s will, render them powerless. Or corrupt them from the inside out, though it looks like you three are way ahead of us on that front.”
“I’ll take my chances, thief,” the third Fae crooned in the ancient language, wreathing himself in red, spectral fire before he lunged, faster than a snake. All Varian did was tip the point of the Thorn in his direction, the point barely brushing the edges of those flickering flames.
Instantly, the soldier’s magic guttered, red fire turning black, then he was writhing inside a shadow of darkness, devouring him from the inside out. High-boned, haughty cheeks melted off his face, one eyeball dripping from the socket, the flesh on his hands sloughing off as he clawed for Varian, reeking worse than a two-week-old, putrefying body.
