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There were so many. They were winged, some with flesh and trappings of the grave clinging to their decaying corpses, some completely fleshless. Shadow fae didn’t burn their dead in pyres as we did. They buried them in crypts in the mountains. And a wraith fae had summoned these wights back to life.
Who and why? None of my warriors were a nekliam. That I knew of.
A sinking realization awakened terrifying alarm. Dalya’s vision over a year ago warned me of a traitor. I’d been overly cautious for so long, expecting the betrayal to come from inside my royal council or even from an old ally of my father inSilvantis. Not within my Kel Klyss, my devoted warriors. Fae that I considered brothers.
Panic gripped my entire being as we flew through the melee of savage wights using fangs and claws and horns. As I gripped the skull of an attacking wight, disintegrating it into dust, the dread multiplied.
This made no sense. Wights couldn’t kill me. Why would a traitor use them to attack against me? There could be only two reasons—distraction or a delaying tactic. Perhaps both.
A thick wave of wights lumbered toward us from the stream. I growled, “Etheline!” They lit up into flames, still advancing on us. With a wave of my hand, they exploded into shards of smoking bone, crumbling to the ground. We never stopped, running faster past them.
A small body lay on the ground near the water. “No!”
I ran to Hava. Keffa knelt beside her. I checked for a pulse at her throat.
“Still alive,” I told Keffa.
Frantically, I jolted up and waded into the water. “Una!” My own heart beat so hard, trying to tear out of my chest, needing to find her.
“My king!” shouted Pullo.
He knelt in the shadows next to a body that was half in the shallows.
“No.” I couldn’t even breathe as I hurried to him, realizing instantly it wasn’t her. It was Meck.
Blue blood glistened on his armor under the moonlight, pooling at his chest. More blood streamed from his mouth. I fell on his other side, lifting his head to face me.
“What happened?” I demanded, even as I inspected his wound, realizing it had been done by a sword, not the claws or teeth of a wight.
“I’m sorry, my king,” rasped Meck as a tear slipped from one eye. “I should’ve told you.”
“Told me what, Meck?”
I sensed Soryn above us, but I couldn’t look away.
“I tried to stop him.”
Closing my eyes, I willed away the reality crashing inside me. I couldn’t believe it, yet I knew it to be true before he said it.
“Ferryn is sick…in his head.” He gasped, his face contorting with pain. “Dalya tried to heal him.”
“Where is Una?” I asked, knowing the answer before he replied.
“He took her.” Then he coughed, spattering blue blood onto his bottom lip. “It’s my fault. I didn’t think he would…should’ve told you, Sire.”
I gripped Meck’s hand in mine, seeing the shame and sorrow in his glassy gaze. His own brother had killed him. For without a healer, Meck would surely die of his wound.
“Where did he take her?” I squeezed his hand, bringing his attention back to me. He was drifting.
“Don’t know…should’ve…”
Grief swallowed me at the loss, at the betrayal he suffered from his own brother, at the fact he never confided in me. I could’ve helped him. “Rest easy, my cousin.”
His gaze shifted to mine. “No, Sire. Not cousin…my brother.” Then his eyes lifted to the sky before going vacant, not seeing anything at all as his spirit left his body, another tear sliding down his face, pale gray under the moonlight.
I was aware that I was panting, panic tightening its iron fist on me.
My brother. My bastard brother.
