The Faerie Curses

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The East Tunnel

I doubled over, tears streaming down my face as my heart contracted inside me. I couldn't breathe, only gasp for life. The tattooed sprite grasped my shoulders and pinned me against the floor of bones.

"The Dagger of Darkness is a marvelous weapon," he mused softly. His words were rotten against my face. "And to think that one little curse will destroy two souls."

Two souls?

The tattooed Sprite read the confusion on my contorted face and howled with laughter.

"You naive little knight, you won't be the only one devastated by the fatal curse." His eyes wandered the cavern and fell onto Glen. "Don't you see the way that he looks at you?" He grinned down at me wickedly as I struggled against my failing heart. "You know, the prince reminds me of a man that I once knew. A man that crumbles when the things he desires are taken from him." For a moment, the tattooed Sprite's eyes clouded with unreadable memories. "And once you're gone, his kingdom will surely fall. Your death will wound him more than any arrow."

"You're...wrong." I hissed, grinding out the words between my teeth as I fought against the curse. "Glen will...kill you...first." I smiled at him through the pain. "He's...strong. Maybe even...stronger than me."

The tattooed sprite pinned me down harder. My back pressed down further against the bones on the floor, muffled breaking noises filling my ears as the battle raged around us. My lungs burned as my heart pumped against the darkness flooding through me.

"No man is strong enough to watch the death of the one he cares for." The tattooed sprite told me softly. "Not even the crown prince of Summer Court."

A golden flash darted behind his head, and I gasped. There was a loud thunk! as something hard connected with the back of the the tattooed sprite's skull. He fell away from me with a roar of agony, rolling across the floor.

"Finish off this Sprite!" The Protector barked to her fellow mermaids, appearing above me brandishing her trident.

She reached a bronze arm down at me, helping me to my feet. I hovered in the water, catching my breath as the curse began to reduce to a throbbing in my chest. But I could still feel its lingering presence inside me.

I steadied myself after a few moments.

"Thank you," I said to The Protector. "That was a nice swing, by the way."

The mermaid flicked her golden tail pridefully and twirled her trident in her hands.

"I've had some practice." She replied with a wry smile. The fleeting moment vanished in a heartbeat as blood and screams clouded the water. The Protector's expression darkened.

I looked down, and with a stab of wild fear I realized that the tattooed Sprite had disappeared after The Protector had hit him with her trident. I peered around the cavern, but he was no where to be seen. Only the sensation of his rough fingers on my wrist remained.

"My sisters are risking their lives for your people." The Protector fixated her sizzling gaze on me, jolting my gaze away from the vacant floor. "You and your friends must leave immediately with the scepter if you wish to also retrieve the Winter Wand before the attack at The Midsummer Festival."

I picked up my ice sword, deflecting a Sprite as it charged towards me. The Protector spun around me, whipping her trident into another's body. Her brown hair trickled behind her in a chestnut stream as she let out an enraged war-cry.