...
Sting diyor ki, "Her şey yıkılıp giderken, geride kalan şeylerle güzel bir şeyler kurmaya çalışmaktır hayat."
Her şey yıkılıp gidebilir, ama geride kalan şeylerle eğer ben hala iyi bir hayat kurmaya çalışıyorsam, işte o zaman anlamlı biçimde yaşamaya çalışıyorum demektir.
Close Combat
A queen’s power roars to life inside me. Take the crown that belongs to
us. Take what’s yours.
Imbued with their magic, I shove him hard.
He staggers back, a sharp smile on his face. “Do you know what, wife?
It’s been far too long since anyone has truly challenged me. I think I was
starting to miss it.”
Magic rushes into me from the earth, and I charge at him, but this time,
he’s ready and moves for me with a shocking speed.
He grabs my wrist, twisting my arm sharply behind my back, then
shoves my chest against the tree. Every nerve in my body is alight. My face
presses against the rough bark, and I catch my breath.
Leaning close, he whispers, his breath warming the side of my face.
“You’ve been playing me all along, little liar. And here I thought you
needed to be saved…”
“Blocking you out of my head kept me weak,” I say. “But now I’m
free.”
I slam my head back into his face, causing him to lose his grip. I spin
around and kick him high in the chest, my foot colliding with what feels
like pure rock. Even worse, he manages to catch my foot on the way down.
With a dark smile, he twists my leg and flips me onto my stomach. I hit the
ground hard, grunting from the pain.
I gasp sharply for breath. Rolling over, I kick him hard in the thigh, and
he winces. Swift as lightning, he’s on top of me now, his hand around my
throat. Not squeezing. Just holding me in place. Dominating. Owning me.
Curiosity flickers in his eyes, a flare of copper in the darkness. “What
are you, exactly? How did a demi-Fey become this strong?”
Morgan’s power streams into me again from the earth. Dark-eyed
usurper…you need to know your place. You’re not here to be king. You’re
here to be consort.
“Do you really want to know who I am?” My words cut through
clenched teeth, echoes of ladies long gone
Reklam
The Bassilix Hunt
Somewhere in the depths of the forest, the basilisk is already hunting us.
Or rather, hunting me.
On his own, Talan would have no problem escaping this creature, but I
keep getting winded, my lungs wheezing. I can fight and throw daggers and
control people’s minds. What I cannot do is run like a Fey. I stopped
sprinting after about ten minutes.
I’m behind Talan. I walk quickly through the dark woods, twigs
snapping under my feet, and try to keep up with the Dream Stalker.
Armed with a bow, Talan prowls with a tiger’s grace. He’s all silence
and shadows, a quiet breeze between the trunks. When he catches my eye,
he doesn’t give the slightest hint of concern about the primordial monster
hunting us.
The fuck have I gotten myself into?
The snow crunches beneath my boots, and the chill seeps through to my
toes. Every breath of frozen air sears my lungs, and my heartbeat pounds in
my ears.
Barren and gnarled tree branches arch toward each other, a twisted, icy
cathedral above our heads. Apart from the sounds of our footfalls, quiet
blankets the forest. The silence is more menacing than noise, and fear
crawls under my skin.
Am I a spy or a prisoner who’s completely lost control of my mission?
As an undercover agent, I should be a manipulator, a puppeteer, influencing
those around me to work for my agenda. Instead, I’m fleeing from a fucking
basilisk so I can marry a man I’ve kissed once, a man I’m also trying to kill.
Worst game of Kiss, Marry, Kill ever.
The cold air pierces my lungs and stings my cheeks.
Part of me wonders if Talan already knows the truth about me. Maybe
this is all a slow torture plan—a punishment to take me apart one piece at a
time until I’m left defenseless before him and confess everything.
My lungs burn, the airways tightening. Of course, I don’t have
Raphael
I flip through his thoughts, searching deeper. The prisoner. Does he
know anything about a beautiful, silver-eyed demi-Fey?
The prisoner has been here for some time. Captured in the war with the
humans, but they didn’t put him with the rest of the rabble. He’s too
valuable, for some reason. Doesn’t seem particularly valuable to Cadoc.
Just another half-breed mongrel…
My heart skips a beat. Raphael.
I invade Cadoc’s every thought, sifting through ideas, memories,
everything he knows. I’m ravaging the inside of his skull, grasping the
threads, then pulling the strings to bend him to my will.
Now, Cadoc wonders if the prisoner is literally valuable.
Maybe he’s rich. In fact, he’s probably rich, or they’d leave him with the
rest, right? If Cadoc will just do this tiny thing, just unlock the door, the
prisoner might reward him handsomely. Yes. That’s what he should do.
Odelia will fall back in love with him, and his father will get his job back in
the stables. Cadoc absolutely shouldn’t question this drunk lady more
because she’s a distraction from what’s really important. She’s just a tiny
woman, a drunken musician, not worthy of his notice.
When I withdraw from his mind, he stares at me, dazed. Then, without a
word, he pulls a skeleton key from his belt and opens a door into yet
another torchlit stairwell.
I follow him down a flight of stairs, the air growing staler, like wet earth
and mushrooms.
My heart is pounding as he leads me to another wooden door. He slides
a second key into a rusty lock, turns it twice, and pushes the door open.
I can hardly breathe.
“You,” he says into the darkness. “Get up.”
I step inside, trying to see in the dark.
In the corner of a grimy stone cell sits a shirtless man. For a second, I
almost don’t recognize him. Dirt smears his body, and
He sacrefised himseld for her
Raphael snorts. “You’ll send a sea serpent after her as soon as you have
your brother back.”
“I won’t. You can keep that sword to my brother’s thick neck until this
young telepath is well on her way.”
“No, you can’t,” I cry. “She’s lying. She just wants you alive. She wants
to torture you so they can learn all you know. We can’t be taken alive.”
Raphael clenches his jaw. “Why do you even want me?” he asks.
Maertisa shrugs. “I could not care less about you. But Auberon’s
psychics have been shrieking about the one person who might be able to
stop him—the Guardian of the Lake. They say that’s you. And Auberon
wants a chat, to figure out how one man could thwart all his plans.”
I gasp. The Lady of the Lake. That’s not Raphael. That’s me. Auberon’s
psychics must have homed in on the general vicinity, but they got the wrong
person.
“It’s me Auberon wants,” I blurt. “Tana told me. I’m the Lady of the
Lake. The Guardian of the Lake. She’s been telling me this for months. You
can’t let them take you. Listen, take Vidal on board the boat. Maertisa won’t
send a sea serpent after you if you take her brother hostage. You can get
away—”
Raphael holds up one finger. “How do I know you’re not lying?” he
asks Maertisa.
She sighs. “Ask your telepathic friend. I’ll allow her a peek. She’ll tell
you that I speak the truth.”
Raphael looks at me. “Do it.”
I nod, but not because I intend to play her little game. Once I’m in her
mind again, I’ll make her let me go.
I connect with her again, using my power, and instantly see that she’s
being honest. She will let me go and allow Raphael to hold her brother
hostage until I sail away. It’s a risk. She knows it’s a risk, but she suspects
Raphael wouldn’t kill her brother until I’m out of the sea serpent’s range.
And by then, she reasons, there’ll
The Culling Test
“Wow, demi-Fey? I’ve never seen one. What did they look like?”
“Fucking weird, pardon my language. The man had pointy ears,
obviously. Dark hair. Tattoos on his arms, eerie silver eyes like metal.
Beautiful blonde woman with him. You know, I don’t mind the women
demi-Fey quite as much. I’d give her one,” he says thoughtfully. “Pardon
the expression.”
I toss a horseshoe, and it clatters to the floor of his stall. A thought starts
to blossom in my mind. “Did they have anything with them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
I open my eyes wide. “Well, like you said, they’re dangerous. And you
know the saying, if you see something, say something.”
He holds up a finger. “Do you know what, love? The fella was carrying
something. It was in a box, like a musical instrument or something. They
never brought it out again.” His eyes widen. “Do you think they could be
planning something? You don’t think it was a bomb, do you?” He scrubs a
hand over his mouth. “With all these people here? Should I call the police?”
I toss both horseshoes one after the other, so off the mark that one
nearly hits one of the prize dolls. “It’s probably nothing. I doubt demi-Fey
even know how to make a bomb. We don’t want the police shutting the
whole fair down over an empty box.”
What I know at this point is that Raphael and Vivian came in earlier and
left a package here, then left.
The Excalibur replica.
“We will obviously need to reschedule the shadow trial.” Wrythe sighs.
“Ms. Melisende can do it properly with the rest of the cadets.”
“No,” Raphael says.
Wrythe frowns at him. “Right. You think she should be expelled after
all?”
“She won’t do the shadow trial again. She’s shown her leadership by
sending cadets to call for backup,” Raphael says. “She followed an enemy
agent through the fair
Reklam
Reklam