Page 74 of Fae Trials

“Well, then,” I said. “That’s me told. It was a pleasure to meet you all.”

They stepped aside to create a parting, and my heart leaped. It wasn’t often a human outsmarted a faerie, but I was grateful to have escaped the wood sprites unstabbed. With the longest strides I could muster, I power-walked out of their semi-circle and back along the riverside.

“Wait a minute!” said a little voice.

“What’s that, then?” I broke into a jog.

Running uphill with a pair of enormous wings that dragged against the wind was torturous. Sweat broke across my brow and under my armpits, and my heart broke into a canter.

“Lady Salix said—”

“Why are forest kings doing the bidding of a mere lady?” I asked between panting breaths. With the water at my side concealing all manner of slimy monsters, my only chance of survival was outrunning these creatures.

My foot caught on a tree root, sending me flying forward. I spread my arms out front to catch my fall, but another root sprang out from the grass, wrapped around my wrists, and flipped me onto my back. Another coiled around my dagger and yanked it out of reach.

“Get her!” cried one of the wood sprites.

Cheers and footsteps filled my ears. Tiny hands grabbed at my hair.

“Wait,” I shouted. “Is this what wood sprites do to people who admire their majesty?” It bristled to continue kissing their asses when they were likely to stab me in the eye, but I’d run out of choices.

Nobody replied. Instead, they erupted into peals of eardrum-shattering giggles. Vines and weeds and all manner of vegetation wove around my limbs and rooted me to the ground until I could do nothing but gnash my teeth.

The leader of the wood sprites climbed up my arm and stood on my chest. “We’ll leave you out to the sun to dry instead of filling you with tiny holes.”

“Thanks,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Maybe a kelpie will rise from the water and eat you.” He jumped off with a whoop.

My stomach plummeted to the soil. “Hey, you can’t—”

“Bye, bye!” The little asshole ran off into the forest with his cohort of chuckling, leaf-headed bastards.

My muscles slumped with defeat, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to run through solutions. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to reject Prince Caulden. If I’d mated with him, it would have pissed Lady Salix off, and I wouldn’t be lying here vulnerable to any passing creature.

I pulled at my legs, but the vegetation rooted me to the ground. This reminded me of a story Mom once read to me called Gulliver’s Travels, where the main character got captured by little people. How the fuck did he get free? I forgot that part. I managed to raise my head six inches off the ground before the plants pulled me back.

“Shit.”

I stared up at the sky. Indigo clouds gathered above where I lay, their undersides tinged the blood-orange of the setting sun.

A warm drop of water splashed on my face.

“Bugger,” I whispered.

Then another, and another, until they coalesced into a full-blown downfall. I turned my head to the side, and a piece of hair loosened from the plants. Maybe this rain wasn’t so bad at all.

Hoofbeats approached, and hope surged through my insides. If I could persuade a horse to nibble on these plants…

I raised my head to find a large figure running through the woods on four legs, but it wasn’t a horse, it was something better.

“Hey, stallion!” I bellowed.

The centaur stopped and turned around.

“No, this way. I’m at the waterside.”

He trotted over, his brows furrowed. I blinked the rain out of my eyes and focussed on familiar-looking features. A golden mane, broad chest, and twinkling eyes. It was Coltrane, the centaur I had met at the Doolish town square who had supposedly rescued me from the Jack of Smiles.