As soon as we land, I vault off her back, bypassing her extended wing.
“Where?” My voice is as sharp as a thorn and stabs the cloying silence. “Where is he?”
“Inside the cavern.” Bronwen nods to a small depression inside the jutting bedrock of the mountain.
I begin to sprint, but Aoife catches up to me. “Slow, Fallon. And stay quiet.”
Heart trembling as violently as my limbs, I creep toward the cavern. Just as I’m about to enter, a guttural gasp tears through the silence. I whirl around just as Aoife’s body slams into the ground.
I yell her name and rush back toward her, but Bronwen flings out her palms and shoves me back. “Get inside the cavern, Fallon. Now!”
“But Aoife—” My heart feels as though it’s crushing my throat, grinding each one of my ribs to dust.
“Lore will call her back, but in order for him to do so, you must save him. GO!”
I stare at the fletching that sticks out of Aoife’s waist. “Let me pull it out—”
Bronwen mutters under her breath. “Get in that cavern now.”
It strikes me that no other arrow has come whizzing our way. If we’d been under attack, wouldn’t a regimen of Fae have charged us by now?
Something is amiss.
Lore!When he doesn’t answer me, I shriek his name out loud.
“Quiet, girl!” Bronwen hisses.
But I scream my mate’s name at the top of my lungs.
Bronwen slaps me. I lunge back, nursing the sting off my cheek.
“If you care about him, Fallon—if you care about the Crows—get inside that cavernnow.”
“We’re not under attack, are we?Youstruck Aoife down?” I turn my head to the sky. “LORCAN RÍHBIADH!”
“He cannot hear you, Fallon.”
“What did you do to him?” My fingers clench into fists as I stare around me for something to use as a weapon. If only I could reach Aoife and steal the arrow from her stone body.
I eye the feathered hilt, then throw myself on my powerless friend. Just as my fingertips graze the scrawny fletching, wind claps into my body and sends me hurtling into the cavern wall. My skull jounces against the rock, and my vision fractures.
Bronwen is an earth-Fae not an air-Fae, which means . . . which means other Faeries are here.
I lie on my stomach, stunned, for precious seconds, but then adrenaline drenches me, and, jaw gritted, I drag myself onto all fours.
“I’ll take it from here.” The deep voice pins my heart to my ribs. “Hello, Fal.”
I twist my head toward the cavern just as a male dressed in gold armor appears in its darkened mouth, bracketed by four pointy-eared soldiers. Although Bronwen is still present, Dante has eyes only for me.
I slam my gaze on Bronwen. “You tricked me.” My lungs are in such a tight vise that every inhale burns as though the air were made of fire.
Hoofbeats vibrate the ground, amplifying the booming beats of my heart. I pray for the rider to be a friend but am greeted by a one-eyed, riderless horse—Arina.
I think the sweet mare has come to save me, but Dante bursts my fragile hope. “Dargento, help my aunt climb astride her steed.”
My skin breaks out in gooseflesh at the sound of that name, but also . . .my aunt? Bronwen told him? Just yesterday she was asking Gabriele to keep his silence.
“Immediately, Maezza.”
