He looked more hideous than any demon I’d seen.
“What is that gigantic rock thing?” I shrieked.
“A troll,” Baron said in dismay, two columns of sunbeams pulsing in his palms. “It’s been over a century since we saw a troll. His kind have come out of the old banishment and mixed with the darkfae. I wonder who his new master is.”
“Great,” I said in a high-pitched voice as panic expanded in my chest. “All kinds of bad supernaturals are popping into my world. How do we kill it?”
“I fought a troll before,” Rowan chimed in grimly. “They’re immune to magic and extremely hard to kill.”
How encouraging!
Now I was glad to have two layers of knights and two kings between the troll and me. My relief lasted only a second as my stomach started turning with worry for Baron and Rowan and the knights.
“Have no fear, Evie,” Baron said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t kill the troll yet, Summer King, even if we can,” Rowan warned. “We need information from it first.”
Baron nodded, understanding flashing in his amber eyes. “If it’s immune to magic, then no magic can bind its tongue. But then, trolls aren’t known to talk much.”
“We’ll work on it if we can capture the creature,” Rowan said.
Okay then, I wasn’t going to throw in my weight on the subject at hand since we had some experts on trolls here, but I still wanted to know how to defeat the troll.
The troll lunged forward, swatting a knight with its rocky hand and sending him flying. More knights charged the creature, hacking at its calves with their swords. The troll lifted its enormous foot to stomp on its opponents, but they jumped away just in time and darted behind it. The ground quivered as the troll’s foot thudded down.
Two Summer knights and a Winter knight ran up the troll and stabbed their blades into its skin—at least that’s what they tried to do, but sparks flew wherever fairy steel hit rock. The creature roared with rage and twisted its body, surprisingly nimble. It grabbed two of the knights and tried to smash them into each other, but the Fae warriors somehow slipped from its grasp and fell to the ground. Before they could regain their balance, the troll swatted them away toward the trees.
My eyes widened. The troll seemed indestructible.
By then, the Night Fae had engaged the first wave of the darkfae horde, cutting through them brutally. The nightmarish creatures hissed and clawed at the Fae warriors. The Winter knights also crashed into the darkfae that had breached the defense line of the Night knights.
Our enemies surrounded us. There was no shortage of monsters wherever I looked.
“Let me fight,” I growled.
The Summer knights around me wouldn’t budge. Rowan and Baron stayed close to guard me as well, watching the battle in cold calculation.
“What is your business here, troll?” Rowan demanded, frosty wind whipping the air around us. “Are you aware of the consequences of attacking three courts of Elfame?”
The troll’s three coal-black eyes swept over Rowan and Baron before settling on me, its mean features twisting together.
“Elfame is no longer what it was, kings,” the troll said, its deformed lips pulling back into a snarl. “The long-promised changes have come. My kind is free now. We will wreck the human world and take back our lost lands. As we speak, we’re already thinning the human herd with a magical plague—Pestilence. It’s not too late to join us, kings. Show me your good faith by giving me the girl, and you’re free to go.”
Anxiety flooded my stomach like cold lead. They named the virus after the first Horseman of the Apocalypse.
“What about Pestilence?” I called. If the virus spread in California, my siblings might get hit first.
“Filthy One!” the troll snapped. “I must bring you to my master. Prepare to be tortured to death!”
“Who’s your master, troll?” Baron hissed, death in his voice.
“Shut up, Jaafan,” a darkfae who had one crimson eye and one yellow shouted at the troll. “Keep bragging and you’ll get your tongue carved out!”
The troll’s eyes flashed with fear, regret, and anger. “The kings tricked me and made me talk. Now you’ll pay the price, human lovers.”
“Fae are anything but human lovers, troll,” I said, unable to resist correcting the racist creature. “You can’t even get that right, can you?”
Jaafan bellowed and crashed through the knights to lunge toward me. The knights hacked at it and many managed to climb over its rocky body, intending to slow it