Page 68 of Fae Trials

I tilted to the side to pass the statue of the one-eyed ogre and flew over the rest of the stone garden toward a lawn of chamomile. A herby, apple scent wafted up from the surface, and the little white flowers seemed to turn as I passed.

“Woo!” I shouted like a lunatic. It wasn’t every day that a human got to fly on her own power. Spreading my arms wide, I yelled something I saw in a movie about a sinking ship.

I flew up, up, up with my head turned to the setting sun. Power surged through my veins, and elation filled my heart. Being a faerie was awesome.

As I flew over a meadow of overgrown garlic flowers with pretty round heads of purple and white, the wind froze, and my altitude dropped several feet. “What?”

A freezing gust blew me off course, and I spiraled out of control. My wings stiffened mid flap, and however much I tried, I wouldn’t make them spread out to break my fall. This had to be the work of Prince Caulden, the heir of the Winter Court. He was the only faerie I knew of who could harness the power of winter.

Up ahead was a pond covered in lily pads, and beyond them, a patch of gnarled trees with branches as bare and jagged as thorns. Flailing my arms and legs, I tried to stay airborne, but the wind deposited me in a pond.

Cold water engulfed my body. It seeped into my wings, tripling their weight.

“Fucking shit!” I swam toward the edge of the water, smashing through giant lily pads and eliciting the angry croaks of frogs the size of cats.

The branches of a weeping willow drooped into the pond. I tried swimming around them, but a current surged from the water’s edge. My arms ached with the effort of swimming, and I grabbed hold of a branch to stop myself from getting swept back in the surface, but something wrapped around my limbs and yanked me down.

I held my breath and wrapped my fingers around something thick and slimy and cold. It gripped as tight as a fist, and I forced myself to believe it was pondweed. Anything else would be too horrific.

The grip tightened, and another set of hands wrapped around my other ankle. My mouth opened in a scream, and all the air left my lungs. If I didn’t get a miracle, I would die, and Sicily would be lost and forever suffering.

With the thought of my sister in the hands of those dark faeries, a newfound determination surged through my veins. I kicked out my legs, breaking the grip, and swam as fast as I could to the water’s surface.

Just as the water pressure eased up and I reached the bank, something huge and wet and ridiculously strong gripped me around the shoulders and waist.

Chapter 19

For a heart-stopping moment, I sank deeper into the cold water. Panic lanced through my heart like a spear as the bindings around my arms and torso tightened. This was it. I was going to die, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to save myself.

I struggled in the tight grip, but it was immovable. Water filled my ears, creating a painful vacuum that would only get worse the deeper I sank. I kicked out, and the back of my foot met something solid.

Then as quickly as I sank, I floated to the surface.

My eyes snapped open, and I parted my lips to let in a huge, noisy breath that was part inhalation and part scream.

“Unity?” a deep voice shouted in my ear. “Are you alright?”

“What?” I twisted my head around and met the beetle-black eyes of Pokeweed, his wet, brown fuzz clinging to his face.

Before I could reply, he flipped me onto my back, wrapped a strong arm around my shoulders, and swam me to shore. I bobbed up and down on the surface of the water, staring down at the debris of broken lily pads and sent a silent apology to the frogs whose habitat I had destroyed.

A green tentacle wrapped around my ankle, making me flinch, but Pokeweed continued swimming and towed the creature along.

We reached the edge of the pond, and Pokeweed resurfaced to lift us both onto the bank. A loud, outraged gurgle filled the air, as whatever wrapped around my ankle flew into the bushes.

“What was that?” I shrieked.

Pokeweed pulled himself to his feet and shook the water out of his fur. “What was what?”

“Something green and slimy clung onto my leg.” I pointed at the bush. “It’s hiding under there, now.”

“It’s probably a baby knucker.” I gave him a blank look, and he said, “Like drakes, but they live in the water.”

A green, snake-like creature scuttled past on oversized flippers, lashing its webbed tail. At the edge of the water, it turned a dragon-like head, flared its long, webbed crest, and plunged back into the pond with a splash.

“That’s a knucker,” he said.

“Right.” I turned to him and offered a shaky smile. “Thanks for saving me.”