changeling chronicles 03 - faerie realm (20 page)

Irene in hand, I slashed off a tendril before it could latch onto my wrist. Another cut, and thorns flew everywhere. These monstrosities were easily as long as my forearm, the stems thick enough to wrap around my neck. A deep-seated fear rose inside me. I’d only ever seen thorns like these in Faerie.

Vance fought a similar battle a few feet away, but if the thorns kept growing at this rate, they’d overwhelm us. We needed to remove them from the manor before someone got killed.

Blood spattered the lawn, and cloaked mages helped their fallen companions limp away from the vines before they were ensnared. I moved in to help, placing myself between the mages and the giant thorn-monster. One swipe of my blade and I cut through a thorn, then another, until whoever controlled the thorns switched their attention onto me. Two thick tendrils slashed at me like knives, but I severed them in a single sweeping motion. A thorn snaked over my shoulder around my neck.

Magic flared from my hands as I concentrated on forming a shield to stop the plant attacking me from behind
.
I couldn’t access enough magic in this realm to take care of the whole beast by myself, not before it devoured the house and everyone in it. Tendrils bounced off the shield.
Good.
Now I was in control.

A yell caused me to spin around. Drake’s hands scrabbled on the ground as a thorny tendril wrapped around his legs and dragged him down the lawn. The thick mass of plant in the lawn’s centre pulled itself together, opening like a giant mouth with thorns for teeth.
Oh, hell.

I ran, throwing magic wildly, which slowed the thorns long enough for me to catch up. The part holding onto Drake was too thick for me to slice through with one swing of the sword, but my hit allowed Drake to pull himself free. The fire mage scrambled to his feet.

“Whoever heard of a fireproof plant?” he demanded of the universe in general.

“Welcome to Faerie.” I disentangled myself from the thorns, snagging my jacket in the process. “Common sense need not apply.”

Drake snorted, then retreated up the steps to the paving stones outside the back entrance to the manor. Wanda stood alongside another frost mage, both throwing handfuls of snow. The grass underneath froze, but the plant remained untouched. I looked for Vance and spotted him helping two injured young mages escape the death trap.

Another three mages—earth elementals—made the ground underneath the bush collapse, but the thorns continued to grow. They’d reach the manor within half a minute. I moved as close as I dared, hacking every stabbing tendril I could reach.

Vance appeared at my side. “I’m ready. Stay back,” he said to the other mages. “I’m going to attempt to displace it.”

The mages hacking at it scooted out of the way. Vance moved in closer to me, and a breeze kicked up. The swathe of thorns began to spin as though caught up in a tornado.

The instant before we vanished, a familiar tugging sensation grabbed my limbs.

“Vance, the vow—”

My words were cut off as we landed, Vance’s hand was wrenched from mine, and I looked up into a nightmare.

Straggly tendrils formed a gaping maw, with thorns snapping like teeth, and brambles covering its giant face. I froze for a moment as horror tightened its grip on me. Not because the plant looked alive, but because I’d only seen one faerie use this particular trick before.

I’d hoped to see that faerie even less than I’d hoped to see Avakis again.

A thorny stem stabbed at my face, and I swung Irene with my free hand, severing twin branches. These were bigger than the ones that had attacked us before. The thorns alone were as long as my fingers and sharp as knives. Bright red blood beaded on my hands where they’d snagged me. Vance, meanwhile, conjured up two blades and sliced his way forward.

“Crap.” I cut at a particularly thick branch, hacking three times before I severed it. “The vow dragged us here. Do you know where we are?”

“No,” said Vance, cutting off another branch. Two blades materialised and sent severed tendrils flying over my head. “To kill it, I’d bet we need to kill the person who created it.”

“Sounds about right.” I risked a peek behind the creature. We’d landed in a forested area. “We’re in the Lady of the Tree’s woods. Guess she heard we suspected her as the killer. She didn’t cover her traces very well.”

“No,” said Vance, through gritted teeth—a half-dozen pieces of thorn exploded overhead— “but this creature regenerates itself even when cut with iron.”

Damn. How to get around this spell?

Think.

Another, longer blade appeared in his hands. “Iron ought to work if we stab it in the heart.” He looked into its open maw with deadly calmness.

I swallowed. “Yeah, but… damn. Those thorns are wicked sharp. Do you have a defensive spell?”

“I’ll try displacing the air. If I keep it up, it ought to shield me from the thorns.”

“Be careful.” I severed another tendril and moved closer. “I can use a magical shield, but it’ll only work on me, not you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

My heart sank a little, my mind replaying the Lady’s words—
My words are not for him.
She needed my help, but she wouldn’t hesitate to take Vance down.

A tendril swiped at Vance’s feet. He sliced it in two, cutting his way closer to the thorny beast’s giant mouth. I gritted my teeth, forming the blue-tinged magic flaring from my skin into a shield, and walked after him.

Irene bit and slashed, sending bits of thorn flying everywhere. I held my breath as the giant’s teeth snapped—and bounced straight off my shield.
Gotcha.

Last time I’d got too close to a nest of magical thorns, I’d had no magic of my own. Whatever sick game the Lady was playing, I’d kill her.

A few metres in and darkness enveloped us. The giant’s mouth grew taller and wider, more like the entrance to a cave. Before us, the glow of my magic lit the way into a tunnel formed of thorn-studded walls. In the centre stood a female figure.

The Lady wore a silken emerald-coloured dress, shimmering in the light of the magic pouring off every inch of her skin. She smiled at me with full lips, and the impact of her ethereal beauty slammed into me, stopping my breath.

Vance stiffened at my side, his weapon dropping slightly. The Lady, radiating magic all over, looked for all the world like a pure Sidhe at home in Faerie.

The blade in her hands, flaring all over with green light, completed the picture.

“Damn,” I said, when she didn’t say a word. “I hoped I’d be wrong for once. Your trail was really obvious. No offence.”

“It was a deliberate move on my part,” said the Lady of the Tree. “I needed your help, even though I’m aware of your propensity for sticking your too-human nose where it doesn’t belong.”

I lifted my sword. “Lady, meet Irene. I don’t believe you’ve been introduced.”

Vance’s blade snapped at a creeping thorny tendril.

“What the hell’s with this place? Been taking decorating tips from the Princess of Thorns?”

“You’ve met her?” The Lady’s eyes flashed bright green. “How many Sidhe did you encounter during your time in the Grey Vale?”

“If you think I’m stopping here for a chat in your little lair, forget it. I’m not in the mood to talk. You murdered three people. With that.” I jerked my head at her sword. “Right?”

Aside from the glow, the sword might have been a double of the one I’d held in my hands as I’d cut Avakis’s throat. Runes flared up and down its length, unreadable from this distance, and the aura surrounding it made my own magic hum in resonance.

“With its power. It was a necessary sacrifice.”

“Velkas,” I said. “I guess you hopped over the veil when we were preoccupied stopping the end of the world. I
knew
you lied. Sidhe nobles would never have let a powerful talisman go missing for months without a clue.”

“You have more knowledge of Faerie than I gave you credit for,” said the Lady. “Unfortunately, it won’t help you now. As a matter of fact, the talisman
was
stolen, a long time ago, when they exiled the traitor Velkas. I have long believed he stole it himself when he made his escape. Sadly, I never had the chance to speak with him before you killed him.”

Holy hell. I’d known she was old, but the way she talked suggested decades had passed, at least. She’d been in this realm twenty years.

“Clever of you not to specify where in Faerie you went,” I said. “How long did it take to practise telling me the truth without saying anything of substance?”

What’s her game?
She couldn’t have brought me here to kill me. Her plans were more calculated.

She smiled, waving a hand, and a dozen thorny branches attacked Vance. He snarled, severing half of them, but even his magic couldn’t take out so many at once.

“Cut it out!” I yelled at her, fighting my way to him. A thorn stabbed at my head and I ducked, swiping upwards.

A rustle of movement behind me. I spun around to find the Lady had moved silently to a spot a metre away.

“Show me your magic,” she whispered. “Show me the power of Avakis.”

“My pleasure,” I said, and threw magic at her. The blue swirl of energy dissipated before it reached her.

“You can do better than that, Ivy Lane. I know you can. Haven’t you noticed it’s getting stronger?”

I ignored her words, tightening my grip on Irene and hacking at another thorn.

“You use the power more easily than before. Sometimes, you can heal from a life-threatening injury or block out pain in a dangerous situation.”

“You don’t know my magic,” I said automatically, although my heart sank at her words. When those shifters knocked me out the other day, Frank said I’d used a healing spell. More than once, I’d got through a fight with injuries that should have incapacitated me far sooner than they did. But I’d thought I’d needed to be in Faerie to heal myself with magic.
What’s happening to me?

“I know your magic, Ivy Lane, because the power of the Grey Vale is now mine. Your realm stole my original magic from me, and I plan to steal it back.”

“Not interested.” I swiped with my blade and missed. She was freaking fast, easily as light on her feet as a Sidhe warrior. My arms ached under the strain of fighting off her hits. She was testing me, taxing me to my limits. “So was it you draining the life out of half-blood territory?”

“Their magic feeds mine. A powerful talisman like this has consequences.” She took a swing at my head. I ducked and stabbed with Irene.

Her own blade swung to meet me. I gritted my teeth, disarmed by her unexpected strength. Our blades pushed against one another, but she didn’t give, even though the iron ought to have some effect on her. We weren’t even in the Grey Vale.

But her blade was infused with the power of Summer, not to mention three dead shifters. And Velkas’s strength.

“I thought magic decayed in the Grey Vale. Is that why you needed to boost its power?”

“You know too much for a human.” She bared her teeth. “I earned this magic when I killed the undeserving fool who stole the blade from Velkas’s corpse. The magic judged me and found me worthy, and the same will happen when I take yours for myself.”

Hell, no.
“Not a chance.” I kicked at the side of her leg but missed. She moved fluidly, impossibly fast, and my own magic enhanced instincts barely caught up. I dodged a cut that would have impaled my chest, driving her blade away with my own.
Life-drinker.
If she wanted to, she could suck my energy and magic right out of me. But she wasn’t. Not yet.

“Wat the hell’s the point in all this?” I yelled. “Why gain all this power? Is being one of the oldest, most powerful faeries not enough for you?”

“Summer will cleave to me,” she hissed, her beautiful eyes flashing, her face positively inhuman.

“Summer. Right.” I parried her blow, tried another kick and missed. Dammit. “Revenge. The usual crap.”

“Don’t mock me, human. You have no idea what it feels like to be stripped from your home and stranded in a world which is poisonous to your kind.”

I laughed, slashing at her with my blade. “Yeah, I do, Lady. I know
exactly
what it feels like. But I don’t use it as an excuse to kill people. I killed Avakis and Velkas, but they tied for dickhead of the century award. You made the shortlist.”

I stabbed her in the heart.

At least, I would have, had she not vanished. A wall of thorns slammed up, and sharp pains stung my arms and legs. I yelled, jerking back, and collided with Vance.

“Shit. Where’d she go?” I stared at Vance. His face was a bloody mess where the thorns had scratched him. He swiped the blood away with one hand, murder flashing in his eyes.

“Blasted thorns.”

“Tell me about it.” I turned back to the cave. “Get us out, before she comes back.”

Vance’s hand closed around my arm, the air rustled, and we landed in a familiar clearing. I shook my head, slightly dazed. I hadn’t even needed to tell him where I wanted him to take us.

Except she wasn’t here.

The old oak tree remained, its roots grey and dying. No sign of the Lady.

“Where…?”

“Follow me, Ivy Lane.”
The voice sang out, a whisper through the trees.

“Holy crap.” I looked up through the clearing and saw nothing but sky. “That’s seriously creepy.”

Something tugged at my limbs. “Dammit.” I stumbled forward. “She’s calling me. Vance, don’t—”

His hand closed over my arm as we vanished again.

This time, we landed on a hill, crowned by trees. The distant shapes of crooked houses extended across the horizon. Familiar, ruined houses, with caved-in roofs and trees blocking the view.

This was the place Velkas had set up the summoning circle.

“We’re on the Ley Line,” said Vance, not letting go of me. “If she’s carrying the power of a pure Sidhe, she might be able to—”

“Cross to the Grey Vale.” I looked at him. “That’s where I can kill her. It’s the only way.”

A pause. “I won’t let you fight her alone.”

“Vance—”

A tugging at my limbs. “She’s luring me out. She needs me.” And I highly doubted she and the other lords of the Vale were preparing a ‘welcome home’ party.