That only left one wood fae. The one with the bow and arrow.
He had vanished somewhere in the fight. No doubt he was keeping out of the range of their blades. Frowning, Lorcan cast his eyes to the campsite. Bodies littered the ground. Most of them wore the colors of the Air Court. Gold mixed with the crimson of blood. His stomach dropped as he watched a wood fae slice down what looked to be the last air fae standing.
The air fae fell.
The Wood Court had won this fight.
“Reyna.” Lorcan grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. She fell against him, her fingers splayed against his chest. He tried to ignore the thrill that went through his gut. “We’ve lost this fight. All our warriors are dead. The archer has likely run back to camp to tell the others that we’ve escaped. We’ll be surrounded within moments, and we cannot fight them all. We have to run now.”
He expected her to argue. She liked to do that where he was concerned. But when she glanced back at the camp, her jaw set and that flood of life in her cheeks vanished.
“Okay,” she answered. “Whatever hope we had for a treaty is gone now. I won’t stick around here just to die.”
Simultaneously, they dropped back their heads to examine the skies above. Lorcan had long ago memorized the constellations and the position of the twin moons for each month of the year. He surely knew north from south and east from west as if it had been etched into his very skin like the mark he kept hidden from the world.
The mark that had been strangely silent this night.
“This way,” they both said as one, turning left from the campsite and pointing due north. Their voices rang like two steel blades that had crashed together. Lorcan’s lips twitched. How could they be so in sync? Why did it feel as though he stared at the other half of himself? A slight smile crested Reyna’s lips, an expression that matched Lorcan’s own.
A roar sounded in the distance as the wood fae turned their attention on their fleeing captives. Lorcan held out a hand. Reyna took it.
And then they ran.
42
Reyna
“Where in Dagda’s name are we?”
Reyna and Lorcan had stopped to rest in the swaying stalks as they had fled from the wood fae’s campsite. Their blazing fire was now only an orange speck on the distant horizon, but somewhere out there, the wood fae pursued them as doggedly as a dragon after lamb.
Regrettably, they were somewhat lost. When they had fled captivity, Reyna had assumed that they would quickly stumble upon the woods that backed up against the castle. She had been very wrong. The camp was deep in the hills. It would explain why it had taken so long for the Air Court warriors to find it.
The two of them had followed the constellations until a thick cloud cover obscured the stars from view. Now, they seemed no closer to Tairngire than they had when they’d first fled.
Lorcan knelt on one knee, his arm braced on his other. His face was flushed from the exertion but he was not winded in the least. His breathing was steady, and his eyes were clear. He was demonstrably stronger than most fae Reyna had ever met. There was also the matter of how he had escaped the cage and then lifted it as if it weighed nothing more than a small wagon. The iron burns on his palms no longer seemed to bother him.
Suddenly, the skies opened up. Rain poured down from above, soaking them instantly. Water ran down Reyna’s face, dropping into her eyes. Her palm soon became slick around the hilt of her ice dagger. If the wood fae tracked them down and forced an attack, she knew it would not take much for her grip on the slippery surface to fail.
“We need to take shelter until the skies clear,” Lorcan shouted over the roar of the downpour. “If we keep moving forward at this rate, we might very well end up further away from the castle than before.”
“Where?” she shouted back, pushing her wet strands out of her face.
He pointed to the right. “Before the rain began, I spotted a small outcropping of rocks. We won’t be able to start a fire for fear of being spotted, but at least we can remain dry.”
Reyna shivered as a sudden bout of wind blasted her in the face. They were not sea fae, accustomed to the slashing rain and pounding waves of the sea. Lorcan stood and motioned for her to follow. As they crept through the slick darkness, she could not help but cast her gaze his way, wondering at the secrets contained inside that mind of his.
There was so much she wanted to ask. Where had he found that strength? And why had he not used it before? Most importantly,who was he? She no longer believed his tales. Lorcan was not a village boy who had stumbled into the Air Court’s castle accidentally. There was far more to his story than that. She knew it in her very bones.
They reached the outcropping of rocks just as the rain thickened, hurtling down with a force that felt like punches against Reyna’s skin. It wasn’t a particularly large rock formation. Most in the grasslands wouldn’t be, as it made little sense for them to even be there. She knew the Dagda religion taught that these random formations were some sort of sign from their god. Something left behind from his days spent walking these lands.
There were five large stones that joined together before them. They curved toward each other, coming together at the top of Reyna’s waist. Just enough room to create a cave of sorts. Reyna ducked inside, and Lorcan quickly followed.
Instantly, her skin whispered in relief, now shielded from the pounding rain and the brutal winds. As she settled onto the dirt-packed ground, Lorcan slid his fingers into his dark, wavy hair and shook out the water. Reyna could not help but stare. And then her body began to shiver uncontrollably.
Suddenly, the weariness that had begun to plague her from Wingallock’s absence came crashing down upon her like an avalanche. Her entire body ached. She had pushed it to its limits, forcing it to fight and flee when half of her soul was missing.
“Reyna?” Lorcan knelt beside her and pressed the back of his hand against her cheek. His touch was like fire. “You’re freezing.” A beat passed. “Is this an ice fae kind of cold or is something wrong?”
