AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I continued on through the hall, calling for Jaclan and Gisela, but inside, my head was a wreck. Putting aside that my sister’s father threatened her life, so that he could steal our coin and kidnap me and my little sister, the mind-shattering shock was watching my mother perform magic.
How?I thought she was gone, but obviously she just fell into a frighteningly deep sleep. Or did she, somehow, pass away, but then Meya allowed her to return to us—save us—with her true and natural state returned?
“Jaclan—?”
“Yes?” Jaclan poked his head out of his room—whole, healthy, and curious. “Is Mama awake? Can I show her my drawing now?”
Slowly, I stuck my head inside. Gisela and Savia were inside too. Savia napped in her cot while Gisela sat at the small table Jaclan vacated, drawing her own picture for Mama.
“Haeowen?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, pulling out of my thoughts. “Mama’s in the front room. Go and show her your—”
Screams pierced the air, invading through the cracked window. “Faywens, take Savia and go to Mama now!” I ran to the glass and peered into the street.
I choked on a cry. “Alisdair?”
My love wasn’t in the street, but faeriken were. I watched bug-eyed as the source of the scream race through the alley, shrieking her head off as a pack of rhino faeriken charged her. I wrenched back just as they closed in on their target.
“What the fuck is going on!”The faeriken were invading? Why would Alisdair do this? We had a plan. As far as I knew, no secret female assassins have slaughtered Salman in this bed, so why would he attack now?
“Calli? Calli!” Meliora called. “What do we do?”
I took off, racing out the room and making for the back entrance. “Stay inside!” I burst outside and shrieked, hugging my arms to my chest.
Cold!Oh fucking Meya, it was cold! A blast of freezing wind struck me, chattering my teeth.
The pack of rhinos had moved on, but they weren’t the only ones. A monkey faeriken scaled the walls of the home across the street and jumped on the roof. He had to. Two leopard faeriken were on his tail—snarling and snapping at their lost prey from below.
Cries and howls drew my attention, making me run around our building to the alley. Three cat faerikens ripped off their clothes and pounced on each other. There was a cock in an ass, and another in a mouth before they hit the cobblestones.
Their noise startled a bird faeriken into taking flight.
I followed their path up, my eyes turning to the skies as the dark, heavy clouds rolled in—blotting out the horizon. The sun. The light. The warmth.
The world.
“Alisdair didn’t launch the invasion,” I whispered, lips numb from more than the cold. “And these— these people—” Slowly, I backed toward my door.
“Argh!” A group of fifteen, maybe twenty women charged down the street with a familiar face leading the pack.
“Mykel Starsinger,” Shadi screeched. Her hawk eyes bulged in sync with her ruffled feathers. “This will teach you that no means no. Eldur!”
The mansion windows three doors down blew out—the very glass fleeing before the flames.
I bolted inside, slamming and locking the door. “They’re not from Lumenfell,” I cried. “The faeriken are Lyricans! They’ve been changed! The curse—”
“We know,” said a calm, clear voice. “You did say that in Lumenfell, their ordeal frees them from the binding...”
Stiffly, achingly, I turned, and met my mother’s now small, beady eyes and thick, furry face.
“I was skeptical,” Mama continued, “but I confess, it feels a fair trade.”
THE THREE OF US SATat the dining table.
The twins were there too, but Jaclan and Gisela were busy poking Mama’s face and scurrying off giggling. She looked at them fondly, while she devoured an entire chicken.
“At least, they’re not afraid of you,” Meliora remarked in a small voice.
