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I know we’re close when we reach the River Gami, the great channel that empties into Summer’s ocean. Though it’s not water anymore, not really. The surface is slick with black sludge, and the banks are lined with bloated fish belly-up.
“Is that a dam?” Kel narrows his eyes.
A massive concrete slab cuts across the water. Rusty pipes jut out, pumping the sludge into the river. Other tubes seem to suck it up, sending it who knows where.
“Careful from here on out. Her minions could be anywhere,” Wrenley hisses.
As much as I hate to even step foot on the dam, there’s no other way to cross. Dayton reaches out instinctively to help Rosie over one of the pipes, but she brushes past him without pause. There’s nothing but focus in her gaze. She hasn’t said a word since we started walking.
As I’m halfway across, I glance down. Something pale drifts beneath the surface. A face. No, a reflection in the black mire. My own. It doesn’t look like me. A hollow-eyed fae in a T-shirt. A shiver of despair runs up my spine.
After the dam, the terrain flattens. The briar husks are flat against the ground. Without them, the mountains that border what was once the Queen’s Realm seem to press inward. Even the sky is darker, that copper light faded.
“We’re too exposed,” Kel growls.
Abandoned trebuchets and other war machines pop up, the way trees might in a forest. Weapons used in the siege on Castletree, no longer needed with Sira’s complete dominion. And who would challenge her? Not her own minions. Those, she owns completely, their wills at her command with the magic of the rose.
The fae are leaderless. Drained of magic.
This is Sira’s land now.
A graveyard, I realize.
My heart beats faster as we crest a slope. I know this place. The last ridge before Castletree.
I smell it before I see it. Acrid smog hangs heavy in the air. Over the top of the ridge, great plumes of dark smoke surge into the sky.
I can’t bear it anymore. Taking off at a run, I crest the hill in three strides.
Castletree. I scan the horizon, searching for it.
But it’s gone.
Only the bones of it remain. Fallen pieces of trunk, rubble and shattered stone…all desecrated by Sira’s creations.
It’s like a terrible anthill, with goblins skittering across the grounds, erecting shoddy war tents. Harpies shriek as they chuck pieces of bark into bonfires. Gargoyles patrol the perimeter, wielding spears I recognize from Castletree’s armory. The briars that filled the moat below have all died, revealing a trench of brown, stinking water.
The worst is the noise. It’s so endless I want to cover my ears—barking orders, riotous laughter, and thunderous footsteps on our once sacred grounds.
Rosalina steps forward, fists clenched at her sides. Her chest rises and falls like she’s trying not to scream.
“Nasty bit of redecorating,” Wrenley murmurs, tapping the wood of one of the many trebuchets littering the hill. I grab her elbow, pinching tight. “What?” She gives me a bug-eyed stare. “If it were up to me, I’d say we blow the whole thing into the sky.”
“No one’s arguing with that, only our current capabilities,” Ezryn says gruffly.
A harpy screeches overhead, whirling through the air with its leathery wings.
Kel presses himself against one of the trebuchets, then gestures for us all to follow. “Look, we need to make a plan, but we can’t stay here.”
I’m looking back toward the river when Caspian grabs my shirt. “Get down!”
We move in sync, all seven of us falling to the ground, squeezing as tight to the trebuchet as we can. Caspian’s breath is a hot flurry on my neck, and his face has drained of color.
There’s only one entity in all the worlds that can elicit this reaction from him. Ice runs through my veins as I turn back toward Castletree.
A twister of shadows has formed within the rubble, whirling in a storm of darkness. Every horrible creature stops their work, faces turned toward the very top of the tornado. Shadows stretch and mold, forming a shape. A woman’s figure, her lower body within the storm, her upper half out, as if the tornado were some sort of cursed ball gown.
And we are all in attendance for whatever merits such an occasion.
