24. Twenty-Five Maeve

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE: MAEVE

I woke up face down on the parched earth. Heat and steam rose through the cracks, scalding my skin. I gasped for breath, but the air in my lungs tasted foul. My stomach heaved, burning up my oesophagus as acidic bile rose through my throat.

I looked up with stinging eyes. Orange flames streaked across the sky. A towering wall of impenetrable briar rose up, blocking me from the blackened castle beyond.

I'm here.

I scrambled to my feet and tugged at the bracelets on my wrist, unravelling them one by one as fast as I could. I wanted to get this over with so I could go back to where I could breathe. A hand fell on my shoulder.

"Welcome to hell, Princess," Blake's voice reverberated against my ear. He might've sounded sexy if he hadn't broken down into a coughing fit of his own.

"Where are we?" Daigh demanded, peeling his lanky body from the ground. His fae scrambled to their feet and brushed the dust from his clothes.

"This is it," I whispered. My words fell away as I choked on the acrid air. I pointed up at the wall of briar, to the castle beyond. Orange fire streaked across the dead sky. The only sound was the crunch of our boots on the parched ground and my gasping, hawking breath in my ears.

I was so used to Daigh's indifference that I wasn't prepared for the strangled sob that escaped his throat. His facade crumpled with horror, and for the first time, I glimpsed what it was to be a fae connected to the earth and the seasons. His grief flowed out of him, sizzling in the air around me – a raw and vengeful magic.

One of his fae raised her hand to her mouth, but her thin fingers did nothing to hold in her dry scream. Another dragged a bow from his back and pointed it into the sky, as though he might slay the demon we now breathed into our lungs.

Daigh cried, "This is torture ."

"It's what will become of the earth if the Slaugh ride," Blake said.

"Take us to the stakes," Daigh ordered.

My whole body trembled. I didn't want to move, didn't want to see my boys strung up like that again.

Daigh's hard gaze bore into my back.

I stepped forward, moving along the briar hedge, crawling through the pain in my body and the tears stinging my eyes until I came to the entrance to the maze. I turned into the briar, relishing the cooler temperature inside the briar, although it could provide no relief from the poison air.

The others followed behind me, coughing and hacking as we made our way deeper into the briar. We emerged into the clearing. The six stakes rose from the earth, circles of charred dirt beneath them. A sob escaped my lips as the bodies came into focus – twisted forms that had once been human but had been brought to ruin by the cruelty of the fae. Flynn's clear blue eyes bulged from the charred skull of the first, Corbin with his face cut and mutilated, Arthur wearing his severed hands around his neck like a grisly necklace, Rowan with his ears cut off and his black hair matted against his burned skin, Blake's white teeth leering from his ruined face. The sixth figure was too far away and at an angle for me to recognise.

The sixth…I have to see the sixth…

I tried to lift my leg, but it was rooted in place. I flung my arms out, trying to propel myself forward, but I barely managed to slide an inch. Panic rose in my chest as I fought against the invisible barrier. Why won't the dream let me see? Why does it never let me see?

"The dream's breaking up," Blake choked out from behind me.

He was right. The dream cracked at the edges. Black tendrils curled through the vivid orange sky. The stakes wobbled in front of me. Arthur's collapsed beneath him, sending up a cloud of dust as his body crashed to the ground.

Blake grabbed my arm. "We have to go back," he yelled. Spirit magic leaked out of his skin as his whole body trembled. Pain arced through his voice. He couldn't hold much longer.

I need to know.

My magic hummed and crackled, protesting my defiance. I collected the well of spirit magic inside me, sucking it from the dream and balling it up. The sky cracked and shattered like glass, sherds of the broken heavens plunging into the earth around me like porcupine quills.

"Maeve, no!"

I ignored Blake and threw the magic in front of me, tearing through the invisible wall. My legs broke from the vice that held them and I toppled forward, my hands slamming into the earth. I leapt to my feet and ran toward the sixth stake. Just as I glimpsed the corner of the face, the entire dream collapsed and I ran into a giant black void.

My body slammed into hard earth. My fingers clutched at blades of grass. I lifted my head, and pain surged along my neck. I gasped for breath, and the air tasted deliciously cool and fresh and sweet. Beside me, Blake moaned and rolled over.

"Did you see?" I gasped at Blake. "Did you see the figure on the sixth stake?"

Blake dug his hands under my shoulders and hauled me to my feet. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me upright. Warm spirit magic flowed from him into me, easing the pain in my shoulders and back, calming over the horrors in my mind. "I didn't see, Princess," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

Daigh watched us, his mouth twisted into a strange expression that might have been half terror, half satisfaction. His fae clutched each other, sobbing and keening for the broken earth.

"So you'll do it, then?" I demanded. "You will accept our deal?"

The fae exchanged glances with Daigh. Their pale skin was even lighter than usual. Their eyes flickered with unease. What they'd seen had horrified them.

Good. It had bloody near broken me.

"We will take this dream back to the fae realm with us," Daigh said. "We will spread word amongst the fae of the consequences of the Slaugh. As soon as the fae are in my control again, I will send word that we accept the deal. Wait for us at your castle, if it still exists."

I started at his words. "What do you mean, if it still exists?"

Daigh tilted his gaze up toward Briarwood. I followed his eyes, and my heart leapt in my throat.

A glowing, flickering light moved across the meadow toward the castle. I could just make out the snatches of chanting and shouting on the still air. Angry voices. The light drew closer and I made out the shapes of individual torches held aloft.

Torches. The kind peasants burned witches with.

The villagers . They'd worked themselves into a frenzy over Flynn's statue and Aline's presence, and now they were approaching the castle to do what? It couldn't be good.

But why hadn't Aline warned us?

Corbin and Arthur burst through the trees and raced toward the castle. Corbin yelled something, but I didn't catch it. Blake's face twisted.

"Come on," he yelled as he bolted toward the house. "The bastards are coming for us!"