Page 24 of The Blood Queen

And one more link between my two homes is gone forever. A bit of magic is gone from Scotland; a bit of humanity is gone from the fae realm.

“It seems…” Samson starts.

“Too easy?” I ask.

He makes an affirmative sound, the vibration rumbling through his chest and into me.

“It’s always easier to kill something than it is to keep it alive,” I tell him.

Beyond the blackened rocks, the path continues, the moss brittle as we crunch over it.

Our journey isn’t over yet. I cannot help but wonder how much I will have to destroy, how little will be left to save by the time this is over.

7 Samson

I can’t bloody well tell the time here.

How long’s it been since we dropped through the mushroom portal? An hour? Several? Is it near on midnight now? The sky’s the same no matter how long we walk, the smeared mix of blue-purple-pink I remember from when we went to the goblin market. Chunks of the sky show through the unnaturally thick, unnaturally silent, just all around unnatural forest, and I swear, sometimes when I’m looking up at a gap in the trees, that gap’ll ripple itself shut like curtains drawing over a window.

I did not miss this feeling. The off feeling. My brain’s seeing normal things: trees, rocks, grass. But everything is just a little…not, triggering some primal flicker in my brain that wants me to look away, find somewhere to hide. It’s all glowing too. In the real world, I only see magic glowing, but here, everything’s magic, so everything glows a bit, faint hues of pink and gold and blue and green.

All the weirdness is exacerbated by wanting to get Alyth help. To get her somewhere she can rest.

I don’t ask her the time or how much longer we’ll be walking. I just stay slightly behind and to the side of her, watching, making sure she doesn’t stumble or show signs of wooziness. She winces and slows her gait sometimes, but she keeps on.

’Course she does.

She’ll keep right on until she runs herself ragged.

Every time she fumbles or her face screws up in pain, I see that dagger pushing into her skin. That dagger I held.

I bite my tongue raw, and just when I can’t take it anymore and start to demand we make camp, the tree line ends, and we emerge into a field.

Ripples of lumpy green plants sway in a wind I can’t feel, the stalks bowing and dancing and gleaming, the glow of magic. It’s undeniably pretty set against that eternal swirled sunset sky, but the sight beyond is what stuns me.

A castle complex stands across the field. The architecture is at once familiar and foreign. Similar to Mary’s Stirling Castle, a gray stone wall wraps around what’s gotta be a massive area, and I spot turrets and roofs and towers rising within it. But the stones all glow a faint silver, and the turrets beyond bend at unnatural angles, rising straight out left and right. Some of the roofs twist like coiled snakes, and others arch in mighty sprawls, gleaming gold and pink and purple. It feels expensive, divine, even from so far off.

The odd silence of the forest is still thick here, so when Alyth speaks, I jump.

“The Seelie Court,” she whispers. Her eyes reflect the sky’s colors, blue and blush pink.

Where’s the sun? The moon? It’s just sky. Just a canvas.

I reach for her hand, remember her wounds, and leave my fingers open toward her until she takes my hand in her own.

The cuts come down to her wrist, the blood dried now, most of the wounds clotted. Some of the cuts look swollen though. Infection?

My stomach lurches, bile stinging my throat.

“Eat nothing until I’ve checked it,” she tells me, eyes on the wall. “Since you’ve got fae blood too, you should be fine, but the high fae don’t really like even a drop of humanity, and they might add something nefarious to your food and drink. And for all that’s good, Samson, make no promises while we’re in there. Question everything. Mary’s court may have been full of vipers, but this is full of something far, far worse: fae. They’ll woo you before they kill you, and you’ll thank them for the pleasure. And you mustn’t—”

I rub her knuckles. She snaps her gaze to mine, jaw open to berate me more, to warn me.

“I’ll be all right,” I say. “Or I will be, as long as we get you taken care of. I have no intention of promising myself to any being in there when I’m already sworn to you. And—” I pause, a sudden thought hitting me. “Will I be able to understand them at all? I mean, they speak English?”

She nods. “How they speak will sound like English to you, and when you speak, they’ll understand you. That doesn’t mean you can—”

“I’ll be good, Alyth.” I give an easy, innocent shrug. “All I really plan on saying to anyone is to politely ask them why they’ve been a bunch of daft arseholes when it comes to how they treat you.”