Gareth.
I followed the sound of his screaming, running so fast it hurt. This could have been a trick, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the knowledge that I could help him, and that whoever was hurting him would pay.
Bursting through a thicket of saplings, I saw them: Gareth, running with a limp, clutching his left arm. He looked back over his shoulder, choked out a yelp, and hit the ground. A whistling spear missed his head by mere inches.
And right on its heels came Luthaes, the beautiful fae from Mhorghast. He lifted another spear, ready to strike. His silver eyes gleamed like blades, and his grin grew too wide for his face.
I know that one.
He was one of his favorites.
So much mind to grab on to.
I rammed into him as hard as I could. The blow was like slamming into a wall and knocked us both to the ground. Spitting curses, Luthaesstaggered to his feet, trying and failing to find his balance. I leaned over with my hands on my knees, my vision full of stars, and looked around wildly for Gareth. I found him huddling among a cluster of ferns. He was covered in red and green blood, and his clothes were in shreds, but he was alive, he wasalive. And when our eyes locked, his wide with fear, a surge of primal instinct rushed through me.
Mine.
He was mine, and if I had to, I would tear down this entire forest to save him.
I rounded on Luthaes just in time. He’d lost his spear, but he had knives, and one whipped toward my throat. I ducked, the blade barely nicking my shoulder, and spun around to plunge my dagger into his neck, but he was faster than the others had been, and stronger. He dodged my blow with a grin. Lurching past him, I lost my footing, then whirled around just in time to knock his flying blade from the air with my own.
Then he was on me, slamming me to the ground. My dagger flew off into the trees, and my sword was pinned painfully beneath me. Luthaes climbed atop my chest and grabbed my neck, hard.
He grinned down at me, pressing his thumbs into my throat until I gagged. Gareth was screaming my name, but I could barely hear him over the thrum of my own panicked blood. Luthaes’s hands tightened, choking off my air.
“He is your mate, then?” Luthaes crooned. “I’d wondered. How sweet.” Then he called out gleefully to Gareth, “How does it feel to see another man claim your mate as his prize?”
I refused to let this creature kill me—not now, not ever. Power rose inside me, roaring like a river flooding its banks. I was not simply a human or a Rose. I was a demigod, a true daughter of Kerezen. I thought of Mother as she might have been before the Unmaking: eyes of golden fire, an entire age of ancient power coursing through herveins. Maybe she had towered over the mountains. Maybe she had sung the first stars into the sky.
Gemma’s glamour begin to crack around me, as if it were ice and I a warming spring. Luthaes stared down at me in shock as my true power illuminated him from below. Soon I would be obvious—my hair newly lustrous, my skin suffused with light, specks of gold in my brown eyes.
“What are you?” Luthaes whispered. The pressure of his hands let up ever so slightly, enough for me to throw him off me and roll. Gasping for air, I grappled for something, anything, to use as a weapon. My hand landed on a stone as big as a dinner plate. It would do.
I wrenched it out of the earth, spun around, and threw it hard. It crashed into Luthaes’s head with a sickening crunch, killing him immediately, but I didn’t stop there. My power was hungry, tired of being trapped behind a glamour, and this fae deserved no peace, even in death. He had tried to kill Gareth. My Gareth.
Feeling wild, I strode over to Luthaes, picked up the rock, and struck him with it again and again. I was battle-hungry, my power lighting me up like a storm, but I knew exactly what I was doing. With each blow, I heard his body crunch and watched his bones shatter. A scream burst out of me, punctuating my final blow. Luthaes was a pulpy ruin beneath me, and the rock in my hands was hot and slick.
I rose and tossed the rock aside, breathing hard and fast. When I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, I tasted copper and salt, and smiled.
“Mara…” Gareth’s voice was quiet.
I turned to face him, realizing a second too late how I must have looked to him—half glamoured, covered in blood, grinning like a madwoman. The air rippled hotly around me; this snowy forest was a desert, and I was both the mirage and the true oasis.
But then Gareth’s stricken gaze dropped to the ruin of Luthaes, and that single look punched all the air out of me.
Monster.The word spiraled viciously through my mind. I wasmonstrous. I craved pain and death and rejected love. I belonged here with the fae and their beasts more than I did back in Edyn. And Gareth knew it. I could see it on his face. One of his lenses was cracked, and this small, stupid detail made my eyes burn. His glasses were broken, and he was terrified of me.
I breathed steadily, slowing my heartbeat. I imagined stone flooding my insides, cooling me, settling me. I couldn’t let the damaged glamour fall.
“Come on,” I said shortly. “We have to go to Gemma. She’ll guide us to the key. I hope.”
I held out my hand, and he took it in silence, grimacing as the movement jostled his hurt arm. Quickly I inspected his wound—a welcome distraction. It wasn’t deep and had already stopped bleeding. But a nasty blue-black bruise surrounded it, and the nearest veins had gone dark.
“Venom,” Gareth said through gritted teeth. “A variation of what poisoned Farrin at the ball, I think. Their spears are laced with it. I have an antidote back at Rosewarren.”
I glanced up at him. “Can you run?”
He gave me a wry smile. “Not as fast as you.”
