Page 17 of The Blood Queen

The High Blade sent her best fae into the loch first to breach the portal, and she held back the weaker Leth and human soldiers under her thrall. They’re no fools, though, and even with the High Blade distracted, they move quickly to attack us as we try to flee.

Samson’s Red Cap nature flips immediately. Men and women who raise their hands with magic or raise their swords with violent intent are flung away. I charge after him, slinging icy winds I pull from the sky to part the opposing forces. Behind me, I hear the High Blade screaming, ordering the soldiers closest to us to attack, but her focus is too divided to bring Samson back to her.

Or…or Samson is too far gone in his rage. His aura is that strange void again, ominously empty.

And even as I think about how I have to get him away from all this, I also think—

The more he kills, the stronger he’ll be.

I shake myself. No. No. I cannot turn this man I love into a weapon, not even to escape.

So I call forth more wind, and I let it rage at our backs. Crystalline ice glitters, and I send a silent thanks up to Beira, the Winter Queen, who promised to help as she could. The ice cuts into the soldiers, obliterates the High Blade’s view of us, and sends the horses into a panic. They start rampaging, kicking their legs up and barreling through the troops.

It’s chaos—below the water and on the shore.

“Come on!” I shout at Samson.

His eyes are unfocused, empty.

His head turns back to the swirling icy winds, the shouting, the battle.

He craves it.

“Come back,” I whisper, taking his hand, searching his eyes.

And slowly, his aura shifts back to green and brown, yellow and pink, loyalty and love.

Behind him, my gaze snaps to the shining armor of the High Blade. Panicked horses and screaming men and women stand between her and us, but even as I pull Samson deeper into the trees, I watch as her silhouette turns in our direction.

5 Samson

We run.

Through winter-stripped trees, through slashing icy wind that fades out the farther we get from the loch.

We run, and Alyth leads, for a bit at least.

The High Blade’s army is behind us. They’ll gain their bearings again easily. They’ll come for our heads after that.

I reach for Alyth’s arm, can’t grab it, can’t touch her wounds, and settle for snatching a handful of her skirt.

“Stop,” I plead, breathless. I’m sweating and winded, still hollow, working on base instinct only. And my instinct is wailing, thrashing, and scraping at my resolve.

She’s bleeding. Covered in open wounds. Bare-armed and shivering in the winter cold, even while sweat pours down her body. It’s gotta be getting in her cuts.

“Not yet,” Alyth snaps back at me. Her face melts, betraying her exhaustion as we keep moving. “Not yet,” she says more gently this time.

She angles us along a slope set against a wall of solid stone. There’s thrashing water down on our left, a river gone angry in winter, and I teeter, thinking of the water in the lake churning red with blood, flashes of those beastly horse creatures clawing at the Red Caps.

But Alyth’s footing is sure and swift. After another minute of panting and hurrying, just when I’m about to beg her again, she ducks us to the side, into an opening I’d have missed entirely. It’s a cave of sorts, roughly carved so it doesn’t look a bit natural, too boxy, just tall enough for us to stand up in.

She drops inside and plants a hand against the wall, taking a breath, gasping and shivering, and my heart squeezes.

I approach her slowly, unworthy and despondent. My eyes fight to drop to the wound I made on her collarbone, the circle gouged into her skin, but I stay looking at her, only at her, with my hands out. “Alyth—”

She whirls on me, thrusts her finger against my chest. “Not yet. Just a break. We have to get”—she fumbles, panting but also hurting, inside and out—“somewhere safe.”

“Where is safe?”