Feel My Power: The Iron Fae book 2 Page 8

  The air was thicker and sluggish in my lungs. Movement at the periphery of my vision had me turning to catch sight of a flash of yellow as a figure ran behind a stone to my left. There was movement ahead and to my right. I spun to look behind me and caught sight of a figure in yellow before he ducked behind a stone.

  Summer folk. The scholars.

  My heart beat faster as Aspen’s words filled my head. They were going to do something to raise the dead.

  Murmurs filled the air, melodic but unsettling. A gust of air blew into the circle, and suddenly the wind howled. Up above, the blue sky was eaten by gray storm clouds that frothed and churned angrily. The murmurs were now chants that battled with the howl of the wind.

  My skin broke into gooseflesh, and my scalp prickled in warning.

  I reached into my pocket and gripped the vial of tincture that would stop my heart. I needed to be sure before I took it. I needed to see.

  The wind raked at the armored cap on my head as if desperate to tug it off. It slapped my cheeks and forced its way into my lungs, shoving me back with angry fists.

  I locked my knees, raising a hand to shield my eyes and bending at the waist to combat the onslaught.

  The air in front of the stone a few meters ahead of me began to shimmer. Then green smoke burst to life in the air, spiraling out like a flower, with a dark spot in the middle that expanded to admit a tall, powerfully built figure dressed in shimmering silver armor. His face was hawkish, but mostly covered by a golden beard, plaited so it hung down to his collar bones. Pale-blue eyes fixed on me but didn’t entirely focus. He drew his sword.

  I scrambled backward, turned, and ran, yanking the tincture from my pocket. I needed a safe place to take it. I needed a safe place to hide.

  Around me, more dead ripped their way into my world. If I dropped dead now, they could simply cut my body to ribbons. I circled around the bearded dead Tuatha, and the rift he’d come through yawned at me like an inky abyss. An idea filled my head. Crazy, and probably stupid, but my only option right now.

  I picked up speed toward the rift, flipped the lid of the vial, and downed it just as I leaped into darkness.

  * * *

  The world was gray here too, and green fingers of smoke-like energy curled and writhed in the air as if seeking something they’d never find. I was no longer in the circle of stones. I was on a grassy plain with a forest of inky twisted trees laid out before me. An array of spindly and thick branches sprung upward and outward, lacing together to create a webbed canopy of darkness.

  I stared at the empty vial in my hand and swallowed the bitter taste that clung to the inside of my mouth.

  How long for this thing to work?

  It already has.

  “What?”

  Look down.

  I glanced down and saw myself lying on the ground. Dead.

  Fuck.

  Hide it before they come.

  Dead me looked serene and peaceful. Dead me was wreathed in a reddish tinge, which contrasted with the green, almost like a warning of a thing out of place. The sword was right. I needed to move my body and hide it. But where?

  I spotted an outcrop of rocks to my left. It was a huge and imposing formation that looked like an eagle about to take off. That would do. I reached for the body, but my hands passed through it.

  Shit.

  I was a ghost. I was a spirit. But why could the ancient dead attack my live body and I couldn’t pick it up?

  You’re in between, the sword said. They’re dead-dead.

  “So, what now?”

  We fight.

  I glanced back to see a spear pushing through the rift and onto this plain. The Tuatha with the beard had carried a sword; this had to be someone else. The figure stepped through, slender and tall with broad shoulders and black armor. Dark hair whipped around a pale face with piercing blue eyes.

  His gaze swept over the ground, over my dead body, and up to my ethereal form.

  He doesn’t see it.

  The sword was right. He didn’t see my body, even though it glowed red against the green. Maybe it was the fact that it was still alive, and only dead things were visible on this side of the rift. Who knew? All that mattered was that he was focused on me.

  My turn.

  I drew the sword and faced the wraith. He advanced, bringing the sound of distant chanting with him.

  Allow me.

  A frisson ran up my arm, and I swung the sword to counter a spear jab I hadn’t even seen coming.

  The Tuatha ancient moved with fluid grace, swinging the spear in arcs so fast my head spun, and it was only with the sword’s help that I was able to block and evade. He became part of me, nudging to life muscle memory I didn’t even know I possessed. But the ancient was strong. A deadly automaton with no off-switch, and I was already flagging beneath his powerful blows. I swung the sword at his chest, and he bent back at the waist to avoid the strike. He dropped the spear from his right hand to his left. Oh, shit. He was going to—

  Fire lanced across my abdomen, and my cry of pain locked in my throat as I leaped out of his weapon range.

  Movement to my left was a distraction I didn’t need. It cost me a slice to the bicep.

  Fuck. This armor was shit compared to the tip of his spear. I spun to counter the blond-bearded ancient. His pale eyes looked through me as he brought his sword down toward my head, intend on cleaving me in two. I rolled to the side, coming up to catch movement to my right.

  Another rift. Another ancient dead. This one huge and boxy. As big as Slade. His eyes were dark pits in his face, and an open wound wept in the center of his forehead.

  Look out.

  I ducked to avoid the swipe of the spear, and the blond one’s sword cut a path inches from where my head had been.

  It was two on one, soon to be three on one because the tank was hurtling toward me.

  I wasn’t stupid, and I wasn’t suicidal. Okay, so I’d just stopped my own heart, but that was beside the point. I couldn’t take on all three of these ancient dead.

  I leaped back to avoid the tank’s ax strike, ducked to save my neck from the spear, and rolled away from the slash of a sword.

  Danika. Run.

  I didn’t need him to tell me twice.

  * * *

  The forest swallowed me up, cocooning me in gloomy gray. Green mist hovered like a thick blanket on the ground, so I couldn’t see my feet or if there was any danger underfoot, but there was definitely danger at my back. The prickle across my scalp and the tightness in my gut told me so.

  “I can’t take them on all at once.”

  I know. They’re too powerful.

  “I need to split them up.”

  How do we do that?

  “I have no clue.” But I couldn’t run forever. I needed to make a stand. I needed to find somewhere that was safe so I could stop and think.

  I scanned the trees as I ran, looking for a nook or a hollow, some hidey-hole I could use. I spotted it—a huge hollow high up in a tree up ahead. Lucky for me, I was perfectly adept at climbing trees.

  I tucked the sword back in its scabbard, hooked my fingers into the rough bark, and began to climb. The crunch of bracken in the distance told me my pursuers were closing in. I grabbed the nearest branch and swung myself up, scrabbling for purchase when my foot slipped. I hugged the tree, heart pounding super loud in my ears as I got my pulse under control.

  Hurry.

  “Hey, do you want to do the climbing?”

  If I could, I would.

  And I was arguing with my fucking sword. This was insane. I grabbed the next branch and continued to climb. The hollow came into view, dark and forbidding. There would be creatures in there. Bitey things.

  The clank of metal and the crunch of boots drifted up to me.

  Fuck it.

  I shimmied into the hole.

  It smelled musty and sweet, and the darkness pressed on me. I crawled forward on hands and knees. The space was just about large enough for that
, but I needed to be careful. I’d probably come up against the back of the trunk soon. I kept going and going and…Wait a second. How wide was this hollow?

  I looked over my shoulder, searching for the light of the aperture. It was a tiny speck in the distance.

  What the fuck? My pulse spiked with fear and confusion, then a hand grabbed my wrist and yanked. My scream never made it past my throat before I was falling down what felt like a chute of some description.

  I landed on something soft and crackling. Leaves? What the fuck?

  Light stung my eyes, and it took a moment for my vision to adjust to the scene. I was in a cozy room made up of color—so many colors that my brain took a moment to catch up to what my eyes were seeing.

  There was a patchwork rug in vibrant purples and yellows, a small table and chairs, and strange paintings on the painted bark walls. A fire crackled in a brick hearth opposite me, and a lamp was perched on the mantle. An old woman with nutmeg skin and white hair sat on a rocking chair, watching me. Her shiny black eyes gleamed with interest as they raked over me.

  I tensed, ready to attack if need be. “Who are you? Why’d you drag me down here?”

  “You were making too much noise.” Her voice was smooth and youthful and totally at odds with her wizened appearance. “You would have led the hounds here, and I can’t have that.”

  “Hounds?”

  She sighed. “Pesky toothy things. Always hungry. Especially for the enlightened.”

  “Enlightened?”

  “Those like you and I, my dear. Those of us who exist in between.”

  “You’re not dead?”

  “Honestly, sometimes I wish I was. I’ve been here for too long, and in this state, in between, it’s a whole other kind of torture.”

  “I don’t understand. How can you be in between for so long? I mean…Why aren’t you dead?”

  She looked away, into the flames. “I can’t remember much of the time before, but I know that if I’m in between, then my body is still alive on the other side.”

  Could that happen to me? No. Aspen had been clear that I had three hours. Shit— the pocket watch.

  I yanked it from my pocket and checked the time. It would have started ticking from the moment I died, and there were only two hours on it. I’d already lost an hour.

  “Fuck.”

  “You seem like you’re on a mission,” the old woman said. “Maybe I can help?”

  “I’m being hunted by three ancient Tuatha.”

  She sat forward. “Tell me.”

  I filled her in on my predicament and ended up having to answer a ton of questions about the world of the living.

  It turned out she had no memory of the courts or the way of things now, so either she’d been here for longer than the Tuatha had been back, or time here had erased her knowledge of the otherworld.

  “So, these Summer Tuatha are controlling the dead, are they?” She pursed her lips, and the skin around them wrinkled as if she’d tasted a lemon. “Describe your pursuers.”

  I gave her the details, and her eyes grew round.

  “Nuada, Lugh, and Balor are the oldest of our kind here. Not even the bravest dead would dare toy with their slumber. They were here to soothe me when I first arrived. They were our kings, but then they tired and fell into a new slumber. I used to visit their thrones and sit and speak to them, but time stole my looks and my energy. I can only hope it means that, wherever it is, my body is finally dying.”

  “And now they’re awake and trying to kill me. I have to stop them.”

  “They would never intentionally harm you, child,” she said. “Whatever power these scholars have over them is to blame.”

  “I have to stop them, or I’ll fail this trial.”

  “You can’t kill them. They are already dead.”

  “I know, but I can maim them and slow them down.”

  She frowned. “You’re no match for them on this side of the veil.”

  “Less of a match on the other side, from what I’m told. At least on this side, I can hurt them. All I need to do is survive till sunset.”

  She looked at me with pity. “Oh child, you’ve been misled.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The dead are always weaker in the land of the living. They may have been able to hurt you a little, but it would cost them much energy to do so. Hurting you would have weakened them and eventually drawn them back to this side of the veil. Also, the sun never sets here. We exist in a timeless world. If you remain here, you’ll be running forever, and eventually, your body will die.”

  My mind raced as I unraveled what she was telling me. I couldn’t kill them. They were dead, but I wasn’t dead. I was in between, and now that I was on this plain, they could kill me, either with their blows or by keeping me here.

  Could Carkal’s intel have been wrong?

  Could he have been fed bad information?

  By getting me onto this side of the veil, they’d put me in a more dangerous position. If I’d stayed on the other side, I’d have been able to fight and evade until sunset. The ring was the starting point, but there were forests and woodland around it that I could have utilized.

  Anger bubbled in my chest at the faux pas.

  I needed to get out of here. “I need to get back to my body.”

  “You’ll need to find a rift and get to the other side,” the old woman said with a weary sigh, as if bored of the conversation now.

  “My body isn’t on the other side. It’s on this side.”

  She sat up straighter. “Then child, you must hurry back to it. An empty vessel is a beacon to every soul hungry for life, and there are many here.” She pushed to her feet. “Where is it? I may be able to help you get there faster. I know every shortcut and nook in this wood.”

  “It’s on the plain by a huge outcrop of rock that looks like an eagle about to take flight.”

  She hobbled over to me, using a gnarled walking stick to brace her. “Oh, I know it.”

  Um, Danika…

  She raised the stick, and it took a moment for me to realize what she was about to do. A moment that cost me.

  The wood smacked my temple, and darkness claimed me.

  13

  Wake up, Danika. Wake up!

  I came to with a start, heart thumping against my ribcage. “What happened?”

  The bitch knocked you out. We need to go. Now.

  It came rushing back. The woman, the stick to my face, and my body. She was after my fucking body.

  Like hell.

  I stood and looked up the chute. It was a sheer drop. There was no way I could scale it.

  Not that way. There’s a door behind the bookcase.

  “How do you know that? Can you see?”

  Not in the conventional sense. Now move.

  I yanked at the bookcase, and it came away from the wall smoothly, attached at one side with hinges. There was a door behind it, just like the sword had said. I shoved it open and dove into the tunnel beyond.

  It was dark but not pitch black. There was illumination coming from somewhere. The tunnel sloped upward, and I saw a circle of light. An exit criss-crossed with branches. The tunnel sloped up sharply, forcing me onto my hands and knees so I could scramble up to grab the lip of the exit and haul myself out. How the fuck had the old woman with the walking stick done it?

  I brushed off the dirt. I wasn’t by the tree with the hollow. I’d come a long way, and the edge of the forest was visible. So was the old woman, hobbling as if her life depended on it, and I guess it did, which was why she was headed for my body.

  I could see the shape of the rock in the distance. I had to stop her. I broke into a sprint, weaving between the trees and breaking cover onto the grasslands.

  She looked over her shoulder and let out a yelp before picking up speed.

  But I was almost on her.

  She must have realized she wasn’t going to make it because she turned to face me, holding up one hand. “You don’t understan
d. I need your body. I need to go back. I need to stop her.”

  I kept going, and she backed up as I passed her and fell to my knees beside my body.

  Her attention fell to it then, and her eyes grew round. “Oh my. Oh…” Her gaze flew to meet mine, and she shook her head. “I didn’t see it before. I didn’t see it because you were apart. but now you’re together, I see the colors.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She flicked her wrist, and a silver thread materialized at my solar plexus. It rippled and shimmered as it grew—azure, red, and pink—then it snaked through the air and linked to my dead form.

  “I thought I needed to go back, but I don’t. You do. You need to go back, and you need to stop her. You need to tell him she isn’t what she seems.”

  The woman was crazy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I needed to get into my body.

  The blast of a horn filled the air, shrill and sharp.

  The woman looked over her shoulder at the forest then turned to me urgently. “Go. You must go now. Fight them on the living plane. Balor’s weakness is his eyes. Take them, and he will be forced back. Lugh must return if he loses his spear, and Nuada has a silver hand. You must cut it from the forearm, and he will be forced to return here.”

  Figures emerged from the forest, headed my way.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because only you can help show him the way.”

  “Who?”

  “The Night King.” She hobbled closer, and I moved to shield my body. “Open his eyes!” She shoved me, and I tumbled back. “Remember me.”

  The world tilted, and pain ripped through my head. I hit the ground with my ass and stared at the monolith of stone in front of me and the green grass that seemed too bright.

  I was back.

  But the rift was still open, and the chanting registered. The scholar bastards were still at it, and yes, there was Nuada, pushing through the rift.

  The old lady’s advice came to mind, and I leaped up, my gaze dropping to his arm. I drew my sword, and as he swiped with his, I spun out of its arc and turned toward him, bringing my sword down on his silver arm.