Queen of Extinction by Gwynn White & Erin St Pierre

Author:Gwynn White & Erin St Pierre [White, Gwynn & Pierre, Erin St]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 4xOverland Ltd
Published: 2017-06-04T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Raith

That little ginger-haired bitch.

Raith stood in the very center of his narrow pathway, breathing heavily in the dankness. The air hung like a wet blanket around him, drawing sweat from his pores. It made his leathers stick to him like wine to linen.

Squealing metal sounded behind him. Musketeers swung a wrought-iron gate across his pathway and padlocked it closed, trapping him in the lethal garden.

He swallowed hard. With no mask or helmet, his face was unprotected. He pulled his tunic up over his nose and mouth. His hands he kept high in the air. While a few streaks of light sparkled from above, the light was primarily dark and blue.

Ahead of him, the ground was laden with bright-blue-and-orange mushrooms. Goo dripped from their waxy stems.

A large tree Raith didn’t recognize sent its roots sprawling through the undergrowth, waiting to trip him into the murk. New saplings sprouted up through the moss along their length. A wooden swing hung from the tree’s lower branches, poison ivy curling around the rope. Strangle weeds clung to everything a foot off the ground.

At eye level, fireflies hung like stars around him.

One landed on a dark purple flower.

Its glow went out.

I’ve stepped into a fairytale—of the worst kind.

Only this wasn’t magic. And his magic could do nothing to help him here.

Raith had hoped Aurora’s changes would work to his advantage. Now he knew that was too much to hope for.

Instead of having Jorah remove his head with an axe, his mind would be filled with hallucinations and poisons until one of them killed him.

Just concentrate on finding the flower.

It struck him that Aurora had worn a purple-colored dress. That could have been the clue. There were at least four different purplish flowers within arm’s reach of him. Hers could be any one of them.

They looked innocuous enough, but what did he know, when his interest in plants stopped at the vegetables on his dinner plate? He didn’t even like those much.

He grimaced at Carian’s solution to this challenge: forget the flower and concentrate on finding another contestant—and then kill him. That way, Raith’s place in the next trial was guaranteed.

Raith wasn’t ready to consider such a final option unless absolutely necessary.

Crunching into the mushrooms, he was grateful for his knee-high boots as he set off down the path.

A squeak above his head made him jump.

He searched the mossy ceiling for the source.

A mirror winked down at him.

“Ginger is clever,” he muttered to himself.

And most definitely a dryad, given what she had created here.

Raith looked at the foul garden with greater appreciation; soon all this power, and more, would be his.

I certainly won’t use it to make gardens.

Treading lightly, he continued along the winding path—until his feet slid on slick mud.

A large pond, almost a dam, lay across the path. Lily pads the size of Raith’s bed and as thick as bone, dotted the dark glimmering surface. Pink and white lilies the size of a giant’s hand bobbed, intertwining with reeds. He stared into the depths of the lake between the lily pads, but the dark waters hid its secrets well.

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