Thorns: The Devious Fae by Katerina Martinez

Author:Katerina Martinez [Martinez, Katerina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Supernal Publishing
Published: 2021-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I’m sinking again.

No, I’m floating this time. Floating up, and up, and up, moving through something dark and murky. I can hear voices, but they’re distant, and muffled. I think one of them is Rell. The other could be the Viscount. It’s hard to tell.

I try to look around, but the darkness is too thick.

Crickets?

They sound weird. Distorted. Distant. It’s a horrifying sound that grates against my ears. I try to cover them, but I can’t feel my hands, my fingers, my toes. A toad croaks loudly, the sound drawing out for a few seconds too long. It hurts to listen to.

Finally, I hit something. I’ve floated into a wall, but it feels more like a ceiling. I can hear the voices more clearly, now. It’s definitely the Viscount, but he’s not talking to Rell.

“How is she?” he asks.

“In rough shape,” says another… Elaith? “You let her out?”

“I thought she should learn a lesson.”

“That lesson almost cost this one her life. Do you ever learn yours?”

“Careful how you speak to me, Elaith.”

“Oh, big, bad Viscount, the terror of Emerald Hall. You should spend a little less time being intimidating, and a little more time trying to figure out how to save this human’s life, otherwise you’ll have broken the laws of Spring.”

“She fled the manor. The Rite of Protection no longer applies.”

“Except it does, because you shouldn’t have let her leave in the first place. I warned you she would try to escape again, but you insisted on watching. This one is on you.”

“Stop wasting time and tell me if you can help, or find someone who can.”

“This is beyond me. I simply don’t know enough about humans to know exactly what’s wrong with her, but magic hasn’t helped, and if we don’t get this fever down, she’ll die.”

She’ll… what?

Concentrating, focusing all of my energy on trying to see, I fought the murky darkness back. Slowly, light started to reach my eyes. I blinked hard, trying to figure out where I was. My hands were still pressed against a white wall, as was my forehead. Turning my head to the right, I noticed a large, iron pole jutting out of the wall. Attached to it were several bulbs—wait.

Angling my head a little, I realized I really was on the ceiling. I followed the stem of the fixture, the bulbs, and the burning lights within them, all the way down the lavishly decorated room to the large, four poster bed I was lying on.

The Viscount stood by one side of the bed; Elaith by the other. I was on my back, my pale skin looking paler than ever, my red hair splayed out on the pillow, which even from up here looked soaked through with sweat. I wasn’t moving, my lips were blue, and my eyes were shut, which led to the only logical conclusion.

“Holy shit, I’m dead,” I said.

No one looked up at me, as if they hadn’t heard me.

“Kadeera,” said the Viscount. “She has spent more time in the human world than any of us and knows this human better than we do.

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