Keeper of Storms (The Fallen Fae #3) - Jenna Wolfhart Page 0,21

as her eyes locked on the bodies. I’m on a battlefield. One far worse than any she had ever seen.

The bodies were piled five high. Stacks of them surrounded her, and blood swirled into the mud. A light breeze tickled the back of her exposed neck while a single braid tumbled over her right shoulder. She reached up, absentmindedly, for Wingallock. He wasn’t there.

A forlorn horn sounded in the distance, reminding her of something terrible that had happened in her past, eons ago. She turned to face the sound and found herself standing on the edge of a cliff. Waves crashed far beneath her, the water spraying up like a thousand grains of sand. A familiar parapet shuddered out of a stone wall and trapped her in place, binding her to the teal castle.

I’m in Gorias City. But wasn’t I just on a battlefield?

“Do it,” a deep, snakelike voice hissed into her ear. A voice so familiar that it made her bones quake.

“Unseelie,” she whispered. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

Shadows curled around her like a lover’s embrace.

A lover. Forgotten memories clanged like a warning bell inside her head, but she could not see them. A lover, a lover, a lover. She squeezed her eyes tight, confusion ripping her sanity to shreds. Something was happening to her. Something terrible. And she was powerless to stop it.

“Do it!” Unseelie shouted.

She tightened her grip on her ice dagger and flipped open her eyes, determination storming through her. Gods couldn’t be killed. Or could they? Reyna intended to find out.

But it wasn’t her old dagger that she clutched. It was an axe. A glittering, blood-drenched axe that glinted beneath the light of the twin moons. The sharp edges curved like fae ears, and the Tamaris steel handle had been etched in an ancient language she did not understand.

“Mochta’s Axe,” she said, stunned. The ancient, mythical weapon that had been lost decades before. She had not thought of the axe in ages, and yet...here it was. In her hand.

“Use it!” Unseelie shouted into her mind, into her ears, into her very soul. “Or I will rip the breath from your lungs and toss you into the pits of Ifrinn.”

“Use it?” Reyna shook her head. “Use it for what?”

“For the Cleaving of the World, you fool!” Unseelie’s eerie laughter echoed all around her. “Do you not remember why you’re here? How many lives you have stolen in order to be the one to pour my power over the world? The one to rule over every living thing on this planet.”

Reyna shuddered. But even as fear clenched her heart, her body moved. Her arms lifted high over her head, and then the axe fell. The steel slammed into the Gorias stone, shattering the world beneath her with a single blow.

Fire ripped through the sky.

Salt burned her lungs. Groaning, Reyna dragged her hand against the ground, coarse sand scratching her palm. She peeled open her eyes, choking. The green strands of her dyed hair were plastered to her face and blocking her vision.

She swiped the strands aside and blinked at the world around her, trying to make sense of it all. A moment ago, she’d been…what? Where? Unseelie’s words bounced in her ears, echoing through the caverns of her mind. It had only been a dream and nothing more. Reyna shuddered with relief.

Until she remembered the nightmare of her reality.

The Coinchenn.

Panic gripped her heart as she hastily stood on trembling legs. She whirled, and her eyes locked on sand that backed up to the sea. Gentle, frothy waves rushed to the shore, lapping against her feet. A steady blue stretched out for miles. Splinters of wood bobbed like rafts.

“Oh, Dagda, no,” she whispered, clutching the necklace around her throat. “Duff, Fiona…”

She shook her head and stumbled back. The Coinchenn had attacked the ship and smashed it into splinters with all the wood fae on board. They’d been stuck in the hull, save Duff. But even then, the salt of the sea would have killed them all, even if they’d managed not to drown.

Pain ripped through her gut, and she doubled over, tears pouring from her eyes. She fell to her knees, sobs shaking her drenched body. Her damp hair fell into her eyes like a curtain of seaweed. She’d done this. She had brought them with her. And all for nothing.

They’d died to bring her here, and now she didn’t even have the magic to kill the king.

You’ve failed, the Ruin whispered. What if you never reach