Shadow and Crystal Thorns by Kay L. Moody

Author:Kay L. Moody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marten Press

TWENTY

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LOVE DIDN’T LISTEN TO LOGIC. Life would be so much simpler if it did, but—at least in Chloe’s experience—love much preferred to laugh and barrel right through any logical walls she tried to put up with no regard for how the shattered pieces it left behind still had to be cleaned up and dealt with.

She couldn’t be in love with Quintus. But she was. She would never allow him to fall in love with her. But he had. Love just barreled on, even though by doing so, it doomed Quintus to a misery Chloe wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy, let alone the person her heart sang for.

And why did love have to rear its inconvenient head right in the middle of a war anyway? She had more important things to worry about, yet her mind kept drifting off when it remembered the feel of Quintus’s hands on her hips and the taste of his mouth on her lips.

Her eyes slammed shut as she attempted to shake the memory away. Now that a day had passed—or maybe it had been a few days—the time had come to trick the rest of the mortal army into a door that would send them back to the mortal realm. She had no room for memories of kisses, no matter how glorious they had been.

The landscape of Dustdune spanned out around her. Heat clung to her skin like the little burrs that stuck to her dress hems back in the mortal realm. The heat dug deep, surging in each of her pores. If she tried to use her hand to fan it away, the heat would just grasp that much more tightly to the fanning hand.

Droplets of sweat beaded over her arms. She tried pushing her sleeve up closer to her shoulder, but the sun just accosted the newly-bare part with its stinging rays.

The heat hadn’t been this oppressive when they’d been here the other day. Perhaps the sun just shone directly above them now. Sand scratched at her throat when she tried to swallow. Or perhaps iron poisoning was turning Dustdune into a less habitable area than it had been before.

“I found a spot that will work.” Mishti’s voice had a sharper edge than usual, probably having to do with the heat in the air. Her long-sleeved, dark clothing could not have been pleasant in such temperature.

Chloe, Quintus, Ludo, and Mishti were all glamoured to be invisible since the army of mortals stood nearby. But with hundreds of mortals trying to build a bridge over the chasm Quintus and Ludo had created in the ground earlier, they didn’t notice the noises of four invisible beings nearby.

Mishti waved her invisible arms around until she managed to make contact with the invisible arms of the others in their group. Then they all held hands as she directed them to a large sand dune with a few trees growing around it.

The trees in Dustdune looked nothing like the lush trees in Crystal Thorn. Those had sturdy trunks with dozens of large branches covered in swathes of bright green leaves.

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