11
GUINEVERE
The meager breakfast she’d eaten an hour before came up violently, burning her throat before it spewed across the reddish dirt. She would have hit the ground herself if not for the gold-laden hand that closed around her upper arm and held fast.
Going through Veyka’s void wasnothinglike stepping through the portal rift she’d created to Baylaur. Maybe it was the fact that they’d crossed realms as well as the continent. Or maybe it was always this fucking terrible.
It’s no less than I deserve, Gwen thought as she jerked her arm from Lyrena’s grasp and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. When nothing else came up, she lowered it and took stock of their location.
“We passed through this copse of trees on our way out of Eldermist. Backtrack over that mountain. The village is just on the other side of the pass,” Veyka said. The queen appeared unruffled by the swirling black hell they’d just traveled through. Gwen’s stomach clenched again. She forced herself to focus on the words instead.
Veyka’s description was generous. The copse was a small cluster of four bare-trunked trees, their ragged fronds cracklingoverhead in the crisp wind. Gwen’s eyes traced the route Veyka indicated—away from the scant protection of the trees to the jagged orange mountain and then beyond, to the village that had long taken up residence in Gwen’s imagination.
“It gets easier every time,” Lyrena said, slapping her on the shoulder.
Gwen did not disabuse the other female of her assumptions. She could have done with a quieter companion for this task. Osheen, perhaps. But at least Lyrena was competent with the sword strapped to her bejeweled belt.
“You should be there in less than an hour. Another hour to prepare. Then I’ll open the rift.” Veyka repeated the plan, though Gwen had already fully committed it to memory. “Here,” Veyka added, extending her hand.
Gwen palmed the white crystal. Veyka had explained its use. Another fault laid at her feet. If she’d been able to get the truth about the communication crystals out of Igraine, she could have called for help. Baylaur might not have fallen to the succubus.
“Tell us if there is any delay,” Veyka said. She stepped back, well clear of them, even though Gwen suspected it was not necessary. In the months of her absence, the queen’s control over her new power had grown.
“Are you certain the crystals will work from so far away?” Gwen asked, still staring at the faceted white pillar. It was easier than looking at the queen.
“Make sure we don’t have a reason to find out.” Veyka winked at Lyrena, and then she was gone.
For a second, Gwen yearned for her presence. She recognized Veyka’s irreverence for what it was—a shield to keep her real feelings at bay. Or at least, to allow her to function while those feelings took their toll privately on her soul. But when Veyka was there, with her wicked grins and sarcasm, it was a little bit easier to forget the darkness bleeding into her own soul.
The crystal would work. Igraine had kept one in her possession; presumably to communicate with Gorlois in the human realm. Gwen was still processing all of the details that had been shared with her. So much information, given so fast, started to lose all meaning.
She pocketed the crystal and pointed her boots in the direction of the jagged pass. But before she could take her first step, a blur of gold flashed by her. Lyrena—starting up the mountain at a run. She paused only long enough to throw a wide grin over the gleaming shoulder of Goldstone armor.
Lyrena and her fucking golden grins.
Gwen shifted. Let the golden knight try to keep up with her dark lioness.
She should have stayed in her lioness form all the way to Eldermist. Not two minutes after she shifted back into her fae body—to drink from the canteen and force down a few bites of nourishment—Lyrena began badgering her.
“Tell me about the humans who came to Baylaur,” Lyrena said around a mouthful of dried oatcake.
Gwen ground her teeth. “You were with the king and queen in Eldermist.”
She could practically hear Lyrena rolling her eyes. They were almost to the pass. The path they’d followed dwindled away beneath their feet, disintegrating into the sand. This high up, there was no shrubbery or even scrawny trees. The wind ripped away everything. If the humans used this pass in and out of Eldermist, any evidence of it was thoroughly wiped away. Good for isolation and protecting the village, bad for two outsiders finding their way.
Lyrena lengthened her stride, closing the small gap between them. “Yes, but I was not in Baylaur after.”
“You heard my report,” Gwen said sharply. One more drink of water and she would shift back—
“You have gotten grumpier.”
Gwen stilled. She forced herself to stopper the canteen, then to return it to its place on her belt. She checked her weapons by rote, each move mechanical. Even her words. “Watching your friends die has that effect.”
Lyrena laughed.
How in the Ancestors-damned hell could she laugh? Even acerbically.
Gwen’s throat burned with anger, until Lyrena added, “You are not the only one who has lost loved ones.”
