Reyna gave her a wry smile. “I thought you couldn’t see my face in your visions.”
Tarrah stared up at her with those unnerving hollow eyes. “My god has given me several visions of you, Shieldmaiden. Ones that show your face. In many of them, you fight.”
“So, it was a lie then,” Reyna said with a sigh, turning back to the fire. She’d suspected as much. “You knew your god wasn’t showing you my younger sister.”
As she gazed across the fire once more, she noted that Lorcan no longer sat in his place between Nollaig and Teutas. Frowning, Reyna glanced around. Where had he gone? Back into the shadows again? Perhaps he had overheard their conversation after all.
“No, it wasn’t a lie,” Tarrah said. “The important vision—the one where I see you fighting on the battlefield for our king—I cannot see a face. Silver hair frames a strange darkness, like a smudge left behind by a pile of ash.”
A chill swept down her spine. The image was a terrifying one, though she would not admit it to Tarrah.
“But you know it’s me,” Reyna argued. “Even if you cannot see my face.”
“Do I?” Tarrah arched her brow. “It is strange that Unseelie will not show you to me. If it is you, then why is there so much darkness surrounding you? It makes me wonder if there is something wrong.”
She bristled. “Maybe it’s something about you that’s wrong, Tarrah. Not me. I’m not the one who claims to receive visions from a dark god.”
Tarrah smiled. “You misunderstand him, as many do. He is not a dark god. He is good, pure, and right.”
Reyna rounded on her. “How do you explain all of his twisted servants? Those whose minds have been warped, damaged, gone wrong? That is what he turns fae into.”
“False prophets and nothing more,” Tarrah said softly. “There are ancient books speaking of these things, prophecies proclaiming that his name would be sullied by his enemies. The magic that twists and burns minds—it comes from somewhere else. It blames Unseelie for the darkness so that none will know the truth.”
“How very convenient. Let me guess. These prophecies came from visions.”
“I’m not lying to you, Reyna. I am able to, but I don’t. It’s not something I believe is right.”
“I don’t think you’re lying to me, Tarrah,” Reyna said, feeling a sadness creep into her heart. “I think Unseelie has found a loyal servant, and I think you’re being used.”
A twig snapped in the looming forest that surrounded them. Panic clutched Reyna’s heart as she whirled toward the sound. Footsteps crunched fallen leaves in a path that was clearly heading straight toward their camp. Heart in her throat, Reyna stood. Had the wood fae found them after all?
But it was Lorcan who appeared between the trees. His face was pinched, eyebrows knitting tightly together. His sword hung from his white-knuckled hand, the tip skimming the ground.
“Lorcan, what is it?” Reyna asked sharply.
He met her eyes. Understanding passed between them at once. Lorcan had stumbled upon something terrible. “A group of wood fae were here not that long ago. A few days, perhaps. No longer than a week judging from the…state of them.”
Reyna’s heart leapt into her throat. “What do you mean, the state of them?”
“The wood king has been here.”
Those six words were enough to make Reyna’s gut quake. She had heard the rumors. They all had. And yet, she had desperately hoped they weren’t true.
“How do you know it was him?” she asked quietly.
“He left behind a painting of his sigil on the ground. If it wasn’t him, it was someone working for him.”
“Come,” Nollaig said, striding toward Lorcan. “I need to see this with my own eyes.”
Reyna frowned but followed. She knew that what they would find would be terrible indeed, but she found she could not turn her back on the brutality. Avoiding it would be like pretending it didn’t exist.
When they reached the wood fae’s campsite, bile rose in her throat, choking her. Through blurry eyes, she took in the horror. There had been six of them, as far as she could tell. All of them were in pieces. Arms and legs were missing, along with some of the torsos. The heads had been lined up in a row beside the Wood Court’s sigil that had been painted onto the dirt with the dead fae’s blood. The blood had baked into the ground, staining it crimson. The scent of rot swirled through the air.
Reyna pressed a hand to her mouth just as Tarrah gagged. The shadow fae whirled away from the sight. Wingallock hooted mournfully.
“They are wearing the armor of the court,” Nollaig said in a low, gravelly voice. “These were his own people, his loyal warriors.”
It made so little sense. Why had the wood king murdered his own warriors? And why had he left them scattered in pieces? What had happened to the rest of them?
