Wylde Magic | Book 3

Thirty Seven: The Summer Lands

Even for fae, we had walked for a long time.

No breaks, no food. It was more important to put distance between us and the sieging city. If... if for some reason the city were to fall, the army would very likely turn to our heels instead.

It had grown dark, then light, then dark again as we walked. We crossed out of the Autumn lands not long after nightfall. Not an ideal time to be walking through the unclaimed Wyldes, but if anything were to attack us it would be taking on hundreds of us at once. Our best hope was that our numbers alone would scare off most things that lived out here.

Spaulder said he was fine, though I could tell his movements grew stiff. He walked now, landing after we had gained some distance from the walls we left behind and he had walked with us since. For every step he took, we took several to match him. He seemed hardy enough, if not tired. Even so, how often did a dragon need to feed? Spaulder ate regular meals when we did while he was transformed, but now that he was so much bigger I had no idea what he needed to keep his body healthy.

Schula was dead on her feet. The anxiety seeped into her every thought, wearing her down faster than if she were keeping her spirits up. I tried my best to distract her, but even that grew difficult as my own worries kept surfacing.

The moon, when we could glimpse it through the treetops, was thin and cruel. Scattering little light, even for the eyes of fae creatures to see by. I was nearly numb from the fear of the unclaimed Wyldes by now, we had been walking in them for so long. The feeling of being hunted creeping around every bend.

More than once I could swear there were eyes on me, but of course if I looked into the dark tree line I found nothing was there.

I stopped a yawn on my lips, not waning to let the ones we led know that I was tiring. My eyes shifted up to Spaulder, wondering how he was holding up. Then my thoughts drifted far behind us to a city lit with passionate war.

'What will happen to Thanantholl?'

My question prodded after our long stretch of silent travel. Schula and I walked on either side of Spaulder with Puko on his back, and Aithne followed a distance behind Schula. The rest of the Autumn court a little further back.

The Summer fae, with the red patterned skin and the blazing golden hair, was proud as ever as she led her people to accompany us to their borders. Somewhere she had reconnected with the two fae I had seen her with at the outpost. The feisty green water sprite and the smaller ginger haired fae, though the smirk he once wore was now gone. Both happy to follow their proud leader.

But I knew. She wasn't fooling me. I could see in the way she looked at Spaulder, the way her eyes bounced between Schula, Spaulder, and I. She was nervous, a likely unfamiliar feeling. 

I would be too, in her place. She had made no friends between us, her pride and arrogance building a solid wall there. But now she had an unpredictable dragon of legend, the frightening and forbidden witches as well as the enemy elves walking side by side in me, and Schula, who was now widely acknowledged as DuVarick's flesh and blood. 

Yes, in her place I would be nervous too. But I was not in her place, I was in my own, and my nerves were not for what sort of enemy Aithne and her people would make, but with the uncertainty of what we left behind. 

'The time to fret for the city behind us is later, little one,' Spaulder answered. I jumped in my tracks a little. His answer was so delayed from when I had asked it that I had forgotten I brought it up at all. 

'Thain and Eb will keep it safe,' Schula added, but her thoughts seemed strained. 'They have to.'

Spaulder hummed, but not in our minds. The rumble of it sounded in his chest, loud and abrupt, causing more than a few of the fae around us to jump.