Chapter 41

CHAPTER 41

" O h, for fuck's sake." The words, spoken in a Scottish accent, float into my mind, and my eyes flutter open.

I'm alive, my teeth chattering wildly. This, in itself, is a miracle. I'm soaked in freezing water, but I'm breathing.

Someone must have pulled me back into the boat because I'm lying on its cold, wet bottom. Somehow, the boat has stayed mostly intact.

I sit up to see Raphael and Ysolde still on the boat as well. They're trying to catch their breath, and they're drenched and shivering. Raphael's sleeve is crimson with blood, though he pulled the arrows out. Ysolde is deathly pale, with an almost blue tinge to her skin. I suspect she's the only reason we survived the last leg of our boat ride.

Raphael glances at me. "You're back. I had to drag you out of the river, Nia. The water wanted to keep you, and can you blame it?" A little smile. "We're safe now."

We're pulled onto the bank by a burly guy in military overalls. A group of men in similar garb stand nearby, shouting contradictory instructions in different languages, some with accents that are clearly French, others that sound English.

A bunch of men bossing one another around in makeshift Esperanto? This has to be the allied military. I nearly weep with relief. We've made it.

As we're pulled ashore, one man offers me a chivalrous hand, which I'm grateful to accept. I carefully step out of the boat, and it takes all of my strength to remain on my feet.

They stare warily at my pointed ears. "Those are proper Fey ears, aren't they?"

"I'm demi-Fey in disguise," I say tiredly, "and so are they. I grew up in LA. Go Lakers. Look, we don't have much time. I'm with MI-13. I need to talk to whoever is in command. I have urgent intel."

"We have an MI-13 agent in our base with us," a man with a thin mustache says. "Will she vouch for you?"

"Probably," I mumble, glancing at the boat, where two men are helping a half-conscious Ysolde up. "What's her name?"

"Don't remember," he says. "She's blond and scary as fuck."

"One of the guys tried to grab her arse, and she broke his wrist in two places," another one says.

"Then yes, she'll vouch for me," I say, my voice cracking. "Viviane knows me quite well."

I'm sitting on a military cot, waiting for someone to lead me to the base's commander. They took Raphael and Ysolde to the infirmary, while a soldier led me here to wait. They gave me fresh, dry clothes, warm woolen blankets, and hot tea.

A guard is stationed outside my tent to make sure I don't roam around.

No one is listening to me when I say I need to speak to the commander right now .

As I sip my tea, Viviane enters the tent, glaring at me, her blond hair pulled back severely. She folds her arms. "What the fuck are you doing here? What happened to Raphael? Who's the woman he's with?"

She fires questions at me without stopping to let me answer. I'm not sure she's interested in my answers.

"Why did you leave your position?" she goes on. "You had clear directives! Without you there, we won't be able to strike at Auberon and murder him and his fucking son. Did you talk to Nivene about this? How did you get to Scotland?"

My fingers tighten into fists. "Viviane…"

"You show up here in a fucking fishing boat. How the hell did you survive the River Tay in a fishing boat?"

"Viviane."

"I don't know what Raphael was thinking. Or what you were thinking. I don't know what anyone is thinking right now?—"

" Viviane !" I scream at the top of my voice.

She winces, snaps her mouth shut, then raises her eyebrows. "What?"

"I'll tell you everything, okay? I'll give you a full, thorough briefing. I'll even write it down for you, if you want. But right now, I have incredibly urgent intel for the base's commander."

"What sort of intel?" asks a male voice.

I look behind Viviane to see a new person stepping into the tent: a man, forty or fifty, by my guess, his head shaved to stubble. Sharp green eyes. Strong jutting chin. I'm not very knowledgeable about military insignia, but he looks well-decorated. A large gun hangs at his side, a combat knife in his belt.

"Commander Pearson," Viviane says, her voice steadying as she turns to address him. "This is Nia Melisande. Dame Nia. She's with MI-13. An Avalon Steel knight. She's glamoured to look like a full-blooded Fey, but she's not."

"I see." His eyes are scrutinizing, digging deep. "And I understand you have some information for me?"

Finally. "The Fey are planning a trap for the human military. It will happen tonight. Prince Talan plans to lure your people in and slaughter them."

He shakes his head. "You're mistaken, Dame Nia. The Fey army is in disarray. Our scouts recently discovered that they're on the move to attack an abandoned base, exposing their flank. The joint human military is launching a full-scale attack this evening. They'll never expect it."

Frustration simmers. "That's the trap! They're not just expecting it, they're planning for you to attack tonight, in exactly that way. They plan to retreat, pulling our forces deeper. Then a second, smaller, elite trained force will assault from the north, backed by a dragon. Our army will be caught in the middle and will get cut down on all sides. It will be a massacre."

He frowns at me. "Our scouts detected no such elite trained force. Even if it's a small force, it would have to be at least a few hundred Fey soldiers?—"

"Two thousand."

"We would have seen them."

"No, they're not here. They've been amassing for weeks in Brocéliande. They're coming through a portal."

Silence settles in the tent, and the commander scrubs a hand over his jaw.

"How certain are you of this?" Viviane asks, her blue eyes piercing me.

I take a deep breath. "Fairly certain. My intel is from two days ago. I took one of his portal keys, but he doesn't need it. Auberon can open portals. I don't know what the limits are on his magic—I only know that he can do it, and that he plans to do it tonight. You have to warn everyone."

Viviane and Pearson exchange looks.

"That's impossible," Pearson says. "We don't have a way to warn them. The Fey magic has completely disrupted our communications. We work with messengers and homing pigeons, and a pigeon will take about three hours to get there. Our assault will begin to mobilize in less than two hours."

"Send the pigeon now," I say. "They might have enough time to turn back."

Pearson shakes his head. "They won't. And we're losing the war, Dame Nia. Even if your intel is true, we have no other option."

"He's right, Nia," Viviane says softly. "We can't turn this around now."

I want to shout at them, but I see the hopelessness in their eyes.

Then, a tiny kernel of an idea starts to blossom in my mind.

"How long would it take you to send a small force to Glasgow?" I ask.

Pearson considers that. "The roads between here and Glasgow are more or less intact, and we have two old trucks that still work. I estimate that we can do it in two hours. Maybe two and a half."

"But we don't have more than twenty or thirty people we can send there," Viviane says.

"That's enough." I shakily stand. "Send me with them."

"What for?" Viviane asks. "You can't change the outcome of the battle with just thirty people, Nia."

" If I manage to shut the portal, I can stop the elite Fey force from coming through. The portal is just a short distance north of Glasgow." It might be the only way to ruin Talan's plans.

"You can shut the portal down?" Pearson asks.

My Sentinel powers haven't worked on a portal—yet. But my powers have been growing for weeks in Brocéliande. In theory, it could work.

"I can't promise it. But it's possible. And frankly, none of us have a better idea, do we?"