Page 47 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
I climb a few more branches, each one growing thinner than the last. I’m about halfway up the tree, but only just out of reach of the fiend if it were to climb on its hind quarters to swat at me. From the way the trees crackle and the branches continue to snap as it takes a swipe at Finch out of the corner of my eye, I doubt my greatest problem is the fiend trying to climb up after me.
A few well-placed swipes of those enormous paws, and the tree I was winding my way around would be little more than splinters.
Down below, Finch’s distraction was starting to lose its draw.
The bear swiped its paws again, nearly hitting Finch this time, but he’s too quick. He jumps out of the way and takes off running again.
Only this time, the bear didn’t follow.
Instead, it lumbered only a step or two before stopping. It’s head tilted back, nose twitching as it sniffed at the air and then slowly, methodically, turned back to me.
Not to the tree, right to me.
Our eyes met for a moment, a terrifying intelligence shared between us. This was no dumb, giant beast. And just as Shiel had suspected, it was here forme.I knew it the moment we locked eyes and something like a knowing smile tugged at the outer corner of the creature’s great toothed maw.
And then it headed straight toward the base of my hiding spot.
The great fiend swipes away the lower branches of the trees outside my cluster, shoving his way through until all that remains between it and me is Shiel, his body looking for the first time small, almost insignificant before the form of the giant bear.
He stood his ground, however, arms stretched before him as they clutched at the sword pointed towards the bear’s pointed nose, growing ever closer. The bear saw him, it just ignored him—because its eyes were fixed firmly on me.
Shiel drew back his sword over his shoulder and then swung, hard and fast, only for the beast to somehow step back, just in time. It was quick. Too quick for Shiel’s human form. By the time Shiel had once again lifted the sword up over his head, the fiend swiped out one of its long-clawed paws and sent him sprawling.
An involuntary scream clawed its way out of my throat, distracting the bear long enough that it looked up to me instead of down at Shiel, the unmoving form of the lord dangerously close to the end of those pointed claws.
Finch, still in his fox form, ran up and leapt into the air, jumping off the bear and back onto the ground, but not before nipping at the back of the bear’s nape. It wasn’t enough to injure the creature, but itwasjust enough to once again distract it. The bear hesitated, turning to look at Finch—and that was when, all of a sudden, another massive form came pummeling through the trees. A second bear.
For a brief second, I thought it was the cub returned. But then, between the flashes of fur as the two creatures tumbled together, I realized what it really was.
Whoit really was.
Zev had regained his shifted bear form, this time, even larger than before.
Together, the two of them locked arm in arm, their heads snapping dangerously close to one another. Zev was still significantly smaller than the fiend, but he seemed to be holding his own—at least with the help of Finch, who’d made a nuisance of himself, darting in and out of the fiend’s legs while snapping at his ankles, trying to make the greater creature lose its footing.
I, meanwhile, leaned out as far from the base of the tree trunk as I dared, trying to make out Shiel’s form still lying down below on the forest floor.
For one, terrible second, I thought he wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing—but then, just as relief flooded through me as I spotted the slightest rise and fall of his chest, a new horror settled into it.
Because while Zev and Finch were busy dragging their fight with the fiend ever further away into the forest,anotherbear had joined us.
And this time, it was unmistakably the same cub that had stumbled into our encampment earlier.
I froze where I perched up in the tree.
The cub moved lazily through the trees, its nose dug half into the thick layer of pine needles coating the forest floor. It seemed oblivious to the pine-snapping fight its mother was engaged in not far off, only concentrating on whatever scent trail it now followed dutifully.
It might have been cute, this fiend cub, if it wasn’t obvious exactly which trail it followed.
Shiel.
The lord of the western court still lay sprawled on the ground at the base of my tree. Though he breathed, he showed no sign of returning to consciousness any time soon. Certainly, I realized, not before the cub reached him.
Bloody images, unwarranted and unrelenting, flashed into the forefront of my mind.
Before I even realized what I was doing, before I had time to consider what it was I was even doing, my feet were already scrambling down the side of the tree, no care for how the branches caught on my clothes or scraped my skin.
In my peripherals, I saw the moment Finch’s teasing caused the fiend to finally stumble, really stumble, giving Zev the upper hand. A few good swipes and suddenly, the fiend was loping away, both shifted fae snapping at his heels.
