It’s also three times as tall as me and can spit poison that can sear the skin from your bones.
“Run!” I scream as the questing beast suddenly appears against the trees, a reptilian eye blinking open and locking upon me. Snatching the horn, I tuck it under my arm. “Run!”
“What in the blighted lands are you doing here?” I demand as we sprint through the maze. “You were supposed to be taking care of Mistmark!”
“I did take care of Mistmark! I married the bastard, after all! And then I managed to slip him and his nursemaid,” Soraya yells. “I didn’t realize the ceremony was real and binding!”
I shoot her a glance.
She slams me into the hedge just as an enormous green spitball hisses past us. It cuts right through the bloodstar, eating its way into the hedge as though it doesn’t exist.
“You knew.” Soraya can obviously see it on my face, and she’s furious. “You said ‘you’ll thank me later.’ That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”
I push off from her and drag her through the newly opened hole in the maze. It’s too small for the questing beast. It might hold it for a moment. “This way! And yes, I knew.” I haul her to the right. “You’ve only been pining after him for three years.”
“Pining?”
“Don’t think I don’t know you,” I snap at her as the entire hedge to our right shudders. I throw a glance over my shoulder as the beast simply forces its way through the tightly bound trees. Curse it. Guess that wasn’t going to slow it down at all. “‘I’m fine,’ you used to say. ‘He’ll get his comeuppance one day soon.’ ‘His heart has my name on it, and I’m going to shove my fucking blade so deep inside it that you’ll hear his scream from here.’”
“What part of that has anything to do with pining?”
“He’s the one who got away, Soraya.” We reach a T-intersection and I take two seconds to decide which way to go before hurling her toward the left. “You don’t miss when Father sends you after a target. But for some reason, you couldn’t kill Mistmark, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with Falion, and everything to do with those pretty blue eyes.”
“Goddess, I hate you!”
I grin at her. “I knew it!”
Soraya makes a frustrated screaming sound. “Well, don’t get too excited. He’s sent Falion after you. I managed to escape and led that fucking prick on a merry chase before I came here, but I think he’ll realize where we are the second he hears that huge furry bastard rampaging behind us.” She looks over her shoulder. “Down!”
I dive, and another enormous, sizzling spitball burns a hole through the hedge in front of us.
“How do we kill it?” she snaps as we both scramble to our feet.
Teeth clash as I leap halfway up the hedge and snatch a hold of one of the branches. The questing beast misses me by an inch, and I’m dangerously close to where its spitball is eating its way outward in the hedge.
“We don’t!” I Sift out of the way, rendezvousing with Soraya on the other side of the beast. “It’s impervious to mortal weapons.”
“Falion’s idea, no doubt. I swear, I’m going to drown that smug prick in the blood lily pool. He’s going to be picking weed out of his crushed velvet for weeks.”
“You’re starting to sound a little fond of him,” I muse. “I thought you’d simply try to kill him.”
“I did try,” Soraya growls. “Let’s just say, I think he’s got my measure. Although, apparently he can’t kill me because my life is bound to Mistmark’s.”
I ignore her glare. “I did actually think of that. Handfasted couples are bound to each other for a year and a day.”
It’s an ancient custom between warring fae courts that’s probably saved many a life. By the time a year and a day has ended, often cooler heads have prevailed, and in some cases both bride and groom no longer want to kill each other.
We skid around a corner and slide to a halt.
“Dead end. Curse it.” Soraya looks this way and that. “And no way out.”
“Here.” I cup my hands and kneel. “The way out is up.”
“With this bloody hedge trying to take a swipe at me at every step,” she grumbles, but she steps into my hands, and I throw her into the air.
Grabbing the horn, I Sift after her just as the beast crashes right through the hedge beneath us.
The shock as it hits the trees takes my feet out from under me. I catch a glimpse of Soraya’s startled expression and then she’s falling too. A branch stabs into my shoulder, and the horn is torn from my grip.
No!
The ground comes at me too fast to Sift, but the second I land I vanish into the shadows, punching back into reality several feet away. Lucky. The questing beast’s slavering jaw closes right where I should have been, its teeth clashing over nothing more than empty air.
“Z!” Soraya launches beneath it, her knife slicing through the tendon in its heel.
I launch into a dive, grabbing the horn and rolling beneath the creature’s hooves. The flash of its dappled belly glides over my head, before I’m rolling to my feet on the other side of it. “This way!”
We sprint for the exit of the maze as the questing beast gives another furious roar behind us. A glance over my shoulder reveals its crimson eyes locking on us furiously. Soraya injured it, but the creature heals too fast to remain crippled for too long.
A door appears in the maze walls. I slam against it, and the polished timber bursts open. The cave beyond is dark, leading into the mountain court. We slam the doors shut behind
