There’s something about their uncanny, too-sharp features, their hungry eyes, their penchant for chaos and cruelty that makes me want to dive right back into the Veil as soon as I step out of it.
Only, that would be a goddessdamned feat right now, with the number of beings spat out at regular intervals.
The ether in the high stone arch flashes all colors of the rainbow. A pale, pale blue as someone arrives from the frost realm. A black of deepest midnight hearkening an arrival from the shadow realm. Rich brown from the Middle and a flash of red from my own realm.
Some stagger from that ethereal doorway, eyes wide and legs unsteady as they find their feet in this strange realm. Others swagger out with grins and confidence, off immediately to where we’re all set to gather and be sent on our hunt.
Ahead of us, the fae queen’s court.
She’s one of dozens of monarchs who reign in Faerie. Each has carved their own territory from this hostile land that’s made of more magick and story than true earth and air. The realmtwists and bends at their whims, the land as much a part of the fae monarchs as the fae monarchs are of the land.
This queendom, in particular, is filled with death.
Dark forests made of bone-spindled trees and detritus, which might contain any number of horrors. Jagged peaks jutting into a sky stained to rust in the falling dusk. A wind reeking of rot and decay.
A pleasant arrival. Certainly not a harbinger of doom to come.
At the heart of it all, the queen’s court sits in a palace that looks more like some monstrous bower. Skeletal tree trunks warp in and around and over themselves, a huge, hulking rib cage hiding a heart of malice. A thicket too deep and too dark to get any kind of clue of what exactly we’re all about to walk into.
I fall into line with the rest of them, sword at my hip and my pack of supplies slung across my back. If I brought an extra dagger or two in case of emergency or to arm a partner, and if I packed twice as many rations as usual in case I find myself in company for this assignment, what of it?
I doubt my mate will be thrilled to see me, but I couldn’t stop myself from planning for the best-case scenario.
Though, that best-case scenario doesn’t seem to be panning out as the crowd of hunters trudges forward.
I scan every face, looking longer and harder than I have any business doing at each raised hood, but I don’t find her. I don’t scent her rich magick or see any flash of her golden blond hair.
All I manage to do is earn myself a few growl-edged grunts and pointed glares, the universal language ofwhat the fuck are you looking at?
And yet.
With each step, a stirring of instinct.
That same deep knowing, a tug within the hollow of my chest.
Now that I’m more attuned to it, it’s impossible to mistake, and it’s a wonder I didn’t recognize it at once back in the Middle.
I wonder if I’ll feel it for the rest of my life.
A curse, if I will. And a blessing. Because even as it tugs, it warms. It suffuses me with a sense of purpose, of peace, of something jagged and broken knitting itself back together.
The closer I get to the court’s entrance, the harder instinct spikes within me.
Dark and churning, the need to seek, to find, to wrap her in my arms and draw my wings around her so I can…
Muttering a harsh curse under my breath and reining in my racing thoughts, I turn my eyes back to the stream of fortune hunters headed up the long, winding path to the fae queen’s abode.
There are fae and elves, ogres and trolls, even a handful of other demons. All no doubt certain of their own prowess and ability to hunt down whatever treasure the queen is about to set us after.
Most have the look of mercenaries about them. Leather armor and well-worn boots, unkempt hair and beards that haven’t seen the sharp end of a razor in months. Weapons slung across backs, eyes darting from face to face, sizing up the competition.
The entrance to the bower palace looms high above, a twisted mass of thick vines and viciously sharp thorns. Stepping beneath it feels like stepping into a snare. A deep urge within me shouts to turn back, run, get somewhere far from this place and never return.
But there’s nowhere to go but onward, nothing to do but keep my head down and try not to draw any undue attention to myself, especially as the path narrows and the crowd thickens. We all do our best not to touch the sides of the thicket corridoraround us, to stay well away from the sinister tendrils which look poised to strike and draw blood.
Not all of us make it.
From behind, a sharp cry rings out. I turn just in time to glimpse a winter elf with bone-white hair and pale blue skin being pulled into the mass of brambles. In a blink, they’re gone, the reaching black vines closing around them and drawing them into some unseen horror.
