Red Hood's Revenge

Lakhim. You work for Zestan.”
    Roudette said nothing.
    “I should have killed you the moment we arrived in Arathea.”
    “Yes, you should have.” Roudette stood and walked over to reclaim her knife. “Remember that lesson when you awaken in another hundred years.”

CHAPTER 20

    R OUDETTE SWALLOWED, TRYING TO suppress the wolf’s eagerness. She held Talia’s rope at the knot, her knuckles pressing the back of Talia’s neck. Knife ready in her other hand, she marched Talia forward.
    The air stank of fairy magic. The hunters kept their distance, blocking off any escape but otherwise paying little mind to Roudette and Talia. Naghesh walked ahead, confident as a queen.
    Roudette knew Talia was waiting for the right moment to break free and attack. Roudette would be her first target. Talia would fight, hoping either to kill Roudette for her betrayal or else to force Roudette to kill her in return, robbing Zestan of her prize. She tightened her grip on the rope, keeping Talia off-balance the best she could.
    Roudette wasn’t sure who would win such a fight, not with her body burned from within. The pain had been worst in her shoulder, but the fire had spread quickly through her body. Pain continued to burst through her chest with every heartbeat, making her feel as though she had been stabbed. Naghesh had ended the curse, but she couldn’t reverse the damage it had already done.
    As she neared the palace, she could make out the destruction left by the hedge. Stone blocks the size of wagons lay cracked, strangled by dead vines. An entire tower had collapsed to the west. A lone windcatcher hummed in the breeze, shutters long since broken away. Fallen masonry lay half buried in the sand.
    Pain stabbed Roudette’s foot as though she had trodden on shards of glass. She tugged Talia back. “What is that?”
    A line of stone cut through the dirt in front of them. It appeared to be the ruins of a wall, crumbled save for the very foundation. Though only one or two stones high, the line extended unbroken in both directions, circling the palace.
    “A simple boundary wall,” said Naghesh, stepping over the stone. “Fairy magic, to keep out the unwanted. You have my word it will not harm you.”
    Roudette shoved Talia forward, letting her cross first to make sure nothing happened. There were too many things that might not fall under the exact meaning of “harm.” She hoped her cape would protect her.
    Talia appeared unharmed. Roudette braced herself and stepped over the wall. She grimaced as pain coursed through her. Thanks to the cape, her body reacted to fairy magic the same way some fairies reacted to iron. The pain was soon forgotten, however, as she looked around.
    Within the bounds of this wall lay another world, a fairy world. The moon had tripled in size, the light transforming the sand to silver dust. The ruins of the palace had changed as well, as if a giant spider had wrapped a web of green crystal over the walls and towers that remained.
    Roudette tightened her grip on Talia as a small army poured forth from the closest tower. The stench of death identified them not as fairy guardians, but as the spirits of the dead. Here within the bounds of the fairy wall, these men appeared as real as Roudette or Talia, as if the moonlight gave them form and solidity.
    They stood in the garments they had worn in life, silken sashes and carefully tooled leather, golden rings and jeweled crowns. Most carried ornately decorated weapons, swords encrusted with enough gemstones to feed half a city.
    “They’re princes,” Talia whispered. “These are the men who died trying to reach me. The hedge killed them all.”
    “Killed them and kept them, from the look of it.” Kept them until Zestan arrived to use them as her protectors. There had to be more than a hundred ghosts filling the open land in front of the palace. Roudette spotted one with a gray beard hanging to the middle of his chest. Beside him stood a boy who couldn’t have been more than five years of age. His parents had probably hoped his smaller size would allow him to slip through the hedge where larger men had failed.
    “I never realized there were so many,” said Talia. Her breath caught, and she pulled toward a middle-aged man in a long blue jacket. Bloodless holes in his chest showed how he had died. “Prince Amabar. He was my cousin. Amabar, it’s Talia.”
    Amabar didn’t move. None of them seemed to recognize the prize they had died trying to