“Daigh has the power,” Liah muttered. “He’s taking it from all the fae, from the Seelie and Unseelie together. He’ll make every one of us impotent, but it will be enough to raise the Slaugh and?—”
Liah’s words stopped short as an arrow whizzed between us, the fletch streaking across my cheek, leaving a thin, stinging cut against my skin.
Liah’s eyes widened with fear. “Run!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BLAKE
By the time I scrambled to my feet, Liah had already disappeared into the trees. Of course, she wouldn’t wait for me – she may be my friend, but she was also a fae.
I crashed into the trees after her, following her swinging blonde braids as she leapt off logs and darted between the towering oaks.
Arrows whizzed on both sides of us, thudding as they buried their tips into tree trunks. Angry voices rose as the fae bore down on us.
Shite.
I was no dream-walking expert, but judging by the sting in my cheek I felt pretty sure that if one of those arrows pierced my chest, I’d carry the wound back into the human realm with me.
Liah’s head sank below my view as the forest fell down a steep ridge. I scrambled down as quickly as I could, just in time to see Liah parting a curtain of vines to reveal a small burrow beneath the roots of an ancient oak.
I raced toward her. Dainty, terrifying feet skittered all around me, followed by the sound of wet flesh slithering over rough bark.
Bwbacks.
I cursed under my breath as their slimy forms dropped from the trees above and raced toward us.
They’d been there all along, watching Liah’s hideout, waiting for their opportunity to strike.
“Liah!” I leapt over the roots and raced toward the burrow just as her head disappeared inside. The tiny bwbacks snapped at my ankles. Another arrow flew directly in front of my face. Never was I happier that Daigh’s princes weren’t the greatest shots.
I reached into the barrow and grabbed Liah’s arm, yanking her out of the hole. She glowered at me. “Let go. I’ve placed a glamour here. They can’t see or sense me.”
“Look!” I pointed, and she finally saw them. Liah gasped as Bwbacks hurtled their tiny slithering bodies toward her, teeth bared, ready to chew away her flesh. An arrow embedded itself in the tree behind us. And I knew what I had to do.
I’d done this once before for Maeve, but never for myself. But both our lives were at stake. I had to try. I reached into my head and pulled out all my cruellest memories, all the things that haunted me in the darkest night. Daigh looming over me, forcing me to tear the wings from tiny sprites that shrieked and trembled in terror, explaining to me that their screams were the trigger to harnessing Unseelie magic. Daigh’s face twisted with rage and pain as he scrawled image after image of Maeve’s mother’s face into the walls of his sidhe. Bone blades slicing my skin as the other princes tormented me, their pet human. The gnawing emptiness of my stomach, deprived of food for days at a time until I was forced to eat the poison fae cakes or beg Daigh to bring something edible back from the human realm – an apple core, perhaps, or some half-chewed sweets children had spat out on the pavement.
Twenty-one years of torture, pain, and cruelty. Enough fodder to fill all the nightmares of all the children of the world.
But I only needed one.
I fell into the memories, feeling the knives enter my skin as the other Princes surrounded me, chanting their insults as they enchanted my wounds to heal so they could stab me again. Each strike with their blades felt like a punch, hard and fast, my body tossed about by the force of their blows.
The pain and humiliation burned hot in my veins until I could sense my grip on the fae realm receding. From inside my memories, I thrust out a hand to Liah.
“Hold on to me!” I yelled.
“What’s the point?” she yelled back. The dwbacks fell upon her, their tiny bodies slithering up her legs, pinning her to the earth. An Unseelie soldier wrestled her arms behind her head. She yelled as he snapped her right arm like a twig.
“Just do it!”
Liah tore her other arm free of the fae and reached out to me. Her fingers brushed mine.
Inky darkness crept from the corners of my eyes, enveloping me. I grabbed for Liah, reaching through my nightmare to grip her fingers in mine. I pulled, dragging her into the darkness?—
I woke up with a start. Sweat drenched my face. My body ached from the slices of the fae blades. It took a few moments for the inky darkness to dissolve and reveal the shelves of books in the Briarwood library. Maeve’s lovely face loomed large and frightened above me.
“Blake, what’s wrong?” Maeve stood over me, her pretty eyes wide with fear. “You were thrashing about and crying. And there’s blood?—”
