Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

43. Veyka

43

VEYKA

“How old are these reports?” Arran peppered the soldier with a steady stream of questions as we climbed. Stair after stair, up and up and up the spiraling tower. At least these were wider than the ones at Eilean Gayl. The two males could easily walk abreast.

“A day or two, at least. It would have taken that long for the human to reach the rift, pass into the Shadow Wood, and then make their way here.” To Outpost, the terrestrial fort perched on the edge of the continent overlooking the Spit.

The Spit was neutral territory, belonging to neither the elemental nor terrestrial fae kingdom. The terrestrials watched for treason from their tower, dubbed Outpost. The elementals did the same in the west from Skywatch.

I rolled my shoulder as we climbed, half-listening to Arran’s briefing as I assessed the hasty healing Isolde had done. I hadn’t even bothered to change out of my blood-stained clothing. As soon as I could bend my arm without screaming, we were on our way to Outpost.

We reached the top of the tower. But even from there, it was impossible to see all the way across the Spit from this tower to its elemental twin. Still, I braced my hands against the stone sill and leaned, eyes straining to see what was not there.

Skywatch did not appear through the clouds. Nor did the succubus’ dark specter mar the stretch of unclaimed land. The only sounds were the waves crashing against the shore and the call of birds—some of them surely shifters on patrol.

Waves.

“The Split Sea,” I croaked, hardly believing what I saw with my own two eyes. “It is moving.”

The terrestrial jerked his chin in confirmation. “For a few weeks now.”

Weeks. A few weeks ago we’d been in Eilean Gayl, rescuing the refugees from the goldstone palace. That could not be a coincidence, could it?

I leaned further, looking north to where the Split Sea stretched out. The soldier was right—the waves were not contained to the shore. The entire sea was a roiling tempest of gray and blue.

A low growl told me what Arran and his beast thought about how far I was leaning out the window. I settled my weight on my forearms and let my toes lift off of the stone floor.

The soldier gasped. I guess that growl wasn’t just for me.

I ignored the look Arran leveled me as I put solid stone beneath my feet once more. I still needed to punish his stubborn ass for what had happened in the Pit.

“Have any of the males under your patrol succumbed to the succubus?” I addressed the soldier. He wore the typical wool vest favored by the terrestrials, buttoned at an angle across his chest that terminated at his shoulder. He wore his hair cropped close to his head, which made the awestruck looks he kept shooting Arran even more apparent.

Fear wasn’t the only thing my Brutal Prince inspired, it seemed.

“Two in the last hour,” the soldier admitted.

We’d never used any kind of mechanism to measure the rate at which the succubus stole the minds and then the bodies of their victims. Once they had taken over, we’d seen how they degraded, expelling the soul within in torrents of black bile until all that remained was a skeletal husk that felt no pain and could only be felled by amorite weapons.

I caught my lower lip between my teeth. “Do you think it has to do with proximity?”

The soldier’s mouth fell open in confusion, but the question was not meant for him.

Arran answered by crossing his arms over his chest and stepping to the side so he could see past me and out the window I’d dangled myself from moments before.

“They are in another realm,” Arran pointed out.

“But the realms… they exist like layers on top of one another. Some places they are thinner than others.” I’d felt it when moving between them. Sometimes, it felt like a single step. Less, even. A blink to move from one realm to the other. Then others, a leap or a lunge was required. At first I’d thought it had to do with my own reserves of power or control. But the more I stared at the Spit, the more I felt it in my bones. The wrongness in the air. “If there is an army of them right there, but in the human realm…”

“Proximity,” Arran finished.

I nodded, palming the hilts of my daggers by habit. “How much amorite do we have left?”

“The stores we collected from the Baylaur refugees are almost depleted.”

That was the agreement we’d made. The small jewels, already fit for piercing, would be put to that purpose. The gems mined from Castle Chariot would be smelted into weapons. The survivors from Baylaur had brought through a decent stash, but I’d dispersed some of that to the villagers and elementals in Eldermist as a show of goodwill.

The terrestrial army was tens of thousands of fae strong. How would we decide who received the life-saving amorite piercing and who did not?

“Just because we give them an amorite piercing does not mean they will live. Nor does putting an amorite weapon in their hand. Even those that have both will die. Thousands of us will die.”

Thousands of my subjects. Even more of the humans.

I need to find the Ethereal Queen.

Arran’s posture tightened. I need you in this battle. Then we will start raiding the library in Cayltay.

“Flattery will get you everything,” I said, flashing a grin. The poor terrestrial soldier frowned in confusion.

You cannot delay forever.

I said it—thought it—to remind myself as much as him.

But the other end of the bond was silent.