He turned to the side. I followed his gaze to find the silver-haired fae squatting beside me. Blood still painted her armor, but the hole in her chest was gone, and she was…my throat closed up. She was alive.
“You fucking marvelous human,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I don’t know how you did it, but you saved my life.” She touched a hand to her forehead, and then pressed a shaking hand against mine. “I owe you a great debt.”
My heart pounded. “You’re all right.”
“Because of you and whatever crazy magic you have inside you.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“Trust me, I would have doubted me, too.”
She nodded and then stood, gazing back at the dead creature. “Unfortunately, I have a feeling there will be more where that came from.”
“What even is that?” I asked.
Kalen frowned. “Nothing I’ve ever seen before. Some kind of oversized scorpion.”
“This, plus the behavior of the pookas.” Fenella glanced up at the comet. It looked larger now. “It has something to do withthat. I’m just glad Kalen’s power is what it is. Otherwise, we’d all be dead.Allof us. And there’d be no coming back.”
I pressed my lips together and glanced at Kalen.
His gaze narrowed. “What is it?”
“I turned back when I realized you’d gone for the guards. I couldn’t stand the thought of you facing the creature by yourself.”
“That’s right,” Fenella said with a soft laugh. “Stupid and brave, the both of us. Thankfully, your horse got frightened and knocked you off, or it would have been you on the ground and not me. And I’ve gotta say, there are a lot of things I can do, but I definitely can’t bring people back from the dead.”
“I got pretty close,” I said around the lump in my throat. I still didn’t understand exactly what had happened, but… “Close enough that I could see everything, even in the darkness and the mist. What happened to Fenella, the expression on your face, the clenching of your hands when you decided to loose your power.”
Kalen’s face went pale. “But if you were that close…”
“Your power hit me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You’d be dead,” Fenella said. “Kalen’s power crushes anything it hits. I’ve seen it myself.”
“So have I.” A pause. “Could this be because of the bond we share now?”
“The marriage vow?” Fenella shook her head. “That only prevents purposeful harm. This would have been an accident.”
“It’s impossible,” Kalen repeated, his voice growing louder. “I couldn’t have. It would have killed you. It kills everything.”
“Everything,” I said with a strained smile, “except for me.”
Fenella swore, but then shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I mean, I’m glad you’re not dead. But you know what this means, right? If you can survive Kalen hitting you with his power, then…”
Footsteps suddenly sounded beside us. The three of us turned to see Toryn, Caedmon, and Nellie arrive. Their grim expressions matched the dread in my heart.
“I saw it happen,” Toryn said. “I was too far away to do anything to stop it, but all of us…we saw your power hit Tessa. Which means…if she can survive it, maybe the gods can, too.”
Fifteen
Tessa
The new revelation blanketed all of us with dread, and despite our win against the beast, we left Itchen as though we’d lost something unfathomable. It was another advantage Andromeda and the others would have against us when they already had so many. How would we ever defeat them if even our greatest power couldn’t be used against them?
No one had any answers, and so we carried on toward the Kingdom of Storms. Our only hope lay in finding more fighters, in banding together with the storm fae who had only recently taken up arms against Kalen—and Toryn.
I rode beside the former prince, with Nellie silent and pale-faced on his other side. Kalen took the lead with Boudica on his shoulder, Caedmon brought up the rear, and Fenella stumbled ahead of us, insistent on walking the rest of the way to the border. She gripped the reins of her horse but refused help from anyone else.
