Page 23 of The Blood Queen

I know that in the human world, these rocks are in the same formation. If I were to slip through the passage between them, I would emerge in Scotland.

Just a short walk away from Mugdock Castle, where I grew up.

“This is the portal my father went through when he met my mother,” I say, my eyes roving over the stones.

“You know where we are then? We need to get to the…” He frowns, trying to remember what I’ve told him.

“The Seelie Court,” I say. Where the princes pretend to reign under the guise of constant feasts and balls.

I huff out a mirthless laugh. The fae realm doesn’t work in a straight line, but I think I can get to the court from here. At least I know I’m likely closer to the main palace than the High Blade is—without access to portals, it would have taken a fast horse two days or more to go from the fairy ring Samson and I leaped through to this rock formation, and we traveled it in less than an hour. It’ll take the High Blade longer to mobilize her troops, even if this is the closest live portal to her.

“Before we go to the Seelie Court,” I start, “we have to destroy this portal.”

Samson whips his head around to me.

“She knows who I am,” I say, my eyes not leaving the stones. “The High Blade knows I’m a Graham. Knows I grew up at Mugdock. Knows that this portal is closest to it. And it’s one of the more southerly portals. She’ll come here, and the wisps brought us to this path to show me that. This is the next portal the High Blade is marching toward.”

My steps are silent on the moss as I stride closer, touching the warm stone.

My grandmother used to take me to these stones—she called them the Auld Wives Lift—and we’d sit under their shade and she’d tell me stories about my mother, who died in childbirth.

When my grandmother died, I ran to these stones, and I shouted through the hollow space between them, wailing for a father to love me.

A father who never came.

But I still returned to these stones.

I never expected my father to come and save me again, but they remind me of my grandmother, of my mother, of—

Hope.

I swallow down the emotion threatening to overwhelm me.

“Alyth,” Samson says in a quiet voice.

I shake my head. I’m certain. The wisps take us where we need to go. It wasn’t just the fairy ring to help us escape. This path led us straight to these stones. The first living portal we’ve seen yet.

And I have to kill it.

“Do you see it?” I ask Samson. “The power?”

It’s not the way I can see auras or he sees magic. The portal thrums with life, connected between two worlds. It’s wild the way the fae are wild, the way Scotland is wild.

I press my hands into the stones, my fingers wrapping around the threads of magic. They’re as warm as a summer breeze, as soft as heather, but when my grip tightens, it’s like stinging nettles in my palms.

“Do you have to?” Samson asks. “The High Blade’ll be days away, and—”

“We can’t risk it,” I say.

And I pull.

It’s not easy, but it’s not hard either. I strain against the threads of power, and they snap, and I stumble backward into Samson’s waiting arms. He wraps me up in his embrace, his strong body lending me support as I lean against him. I’m so tired that I’m numb to the pain from all the cuts, and I’m not sure if the sweat breaking out on my brow is from exertion or fever.

In front of us, the rocks shift from warm brown and gray to solid onyx, black as night. Frost spreads from the base, and the air turns cold.

“That’s it?” Samson asks.

I nod. On the other side of the portal, the rocks are now nothing but rocks. Here, the black takes over, the life drained from it, the creeping darkness extending into the fae realm.