Drawing his eyebrows down, he tries to appear threatening rather than embarrassed as he growls, “Not a word. Not one fucking word.”
I suppress a chuckle but keep my mouth shut. Thankfully, so do Isera and Orion. Instead, we all just take off at a run so that we circle through the woods outside Frostfell in the other direction instead.
My pulse thrums as we run through the forest. The Dryad Queen said that the humans are supposed to live in the woods up ahead, but there is still no guarantee that they will actually helpus. They might be too frightened after the failed rebellion to try again. Or too angry with me for the part I played in it.
I sort through several plans for how to convince them to help us while we make our way towards their temporary camp. If we can’t?—
A bellowing roar echoes across the entire landscape.
It’s so loud that I miss a step when my hands fly up to instead cover my ears. Whirling towards the city, I stare at the parts that are visible through the trees. A jolt pulses through me as a massive silver dragon shoots up into the air above the Ice Palace.
Empress Jessina Iceheart.
Landing atop the roof of her glittering castle, she opens her jaws and lets out another deafening roar.
Silver dragons begin exploding into view all across the castle as well as the city below.
I draw in a sharp breath.
Looks like it worked.
Lowering my hands from my ears again, I exchange a look with my friends. This is it. Jessina and her entire army are about to leave. We need to finish this quickly so that we can rejoin Draven and the others before the full weight of Jessina’s forces descend on them.
Without a word, we all pick up the pace and sprint through the woods. Trees flash past in the corner of my eye as we hurtle towards the human camp while a mass of silver dragons takes to the skies. Their wings boom above us as they speed away from the city with Jessina at the head of their formation.
Leaves rustle in the canopy above us as the winds their wings create slam down over the woods, but the dragons never look down at the four shady fae who are sneaking along down there. Their eyes are solely on the horizon and the battle that waits beyond it.
“Not another step,” a female voice suddenly yells.
We all skid to a halt as a large group of humans step out fromthe trees. They close in quickly, surrounding us from all sides, and half of them are carrying bows. I quickly flick my gaze over their faces, searching for the source of the voice, which I recognized immediately.
“Kath,” I say, as my gaze finally lands on a young woman with dark blue eyes and red hair that falls down to her collarbones.
Recognition flits across her face. But instead of smiling at me, her expression darkens like a thunderstorm.
“You,” she growls, eyes flashing. “You’re the reason they’re dead.”
“What?” I draw back in surprise. “Who?”
“Hector. He and half of our organization died breaking us out of the Ice Palace, which we got locked up in because you led us into a trap!”
“I didn’t lead you into a trap. For Mabona’s sake, I had to fight my way out of it as well.”
“You fought your way out? Flying away like a coward while we had to fight in the streets!” She throws her arms out to indicate the forest around us. “Fight until we had to flee out here. Do you have any idea what it’s like to starve and scrape by like this?”
“Do not fucking talk to us about starving and scraping by,” Alistair suddenly growls from my right. Fire flares up and rushes down both of his arms while rage burns in his eyes. “And put the fucking bows down before I incinerate both them and you.”
Shock pulses through the circle of humans, and several of them cast worried glances between Alistair and Kath.
Then a sharp hiss sounds from my other side. I snap my gaze towards it and find a human man holding a knife to Orion’s throat. Orion, who couldn’t see the man approaching from that side because of his missing eye, stares down at the blade in shock. But his expression quickly transforms into humiliation at his inability to see the attack coming.
Isera slowly turns towards them. Two ice blades form in herhands, and the expression on her face is so cold and lethal that half of the other humans behind Orion stumble a step back. Fury burns like cold fire in Isera’s eyes as she stares at the knife pressed hard against Orion’s throat. Then she drags that freezing gaze up to the human holding the blade.
“If you put one single mark on his skin, I will carve your fucking heart out,” she says slowly, emphasizing each word.
Terror washes over the human’s face, but it only makes him tighten his grip on the knife.
Anger crackles through me. I don’t have fucking time for this. Jessina is flying towards Draven. I need to get to him before she can hurt him.
