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AFTER A FEW MORE DAYS of travel, they came to a fork in the road. One path headed north, towards the Unseelie palace. The other continued eastward, heading for the mountain range where the goblins dwelled.
It was hard to see more than a hundred yards through the pelting rain even with their enhanced vision. Without their fae senses, they would have walked into the ambush that lay ahead. Hexam smelled the band at the same time as Dacrith and Asha felt them. They couldn’t tell if it was warriors or brigands, but they knew they were fairies.
“There’s twenty fairies blocking our way,” Asha whispered.
“We’ll have to try to go around them,” Dacrith said just as quietly.
“If we’ve sensed them, they’ll have sensed us, too,” she pointed out even as the band went into action.
Splitting into four teams, they moved to surround the travelers. Their leader strode forward to study them. Not that he could see much with their hoods covering their faces. They were all drenched and didn’t have waterproof cloaks to cover their clothes. None of them wore armor, which meant they were robbers. “We’ll be taking the girl,” he said to Dacrith with an audible leer. “If you have any brains, you’ll walk away right now.”
Hexam immediately began to growl, all three heads focused on the leader. The fairy drew his sword and the others followed suit. They were trained, but they weren’t warriors. That much was clear from the way they handled their weapons.
“I would advise you to leave before we have to hurt you,” Dacrith said to the band of thugs. The supreme confidence in his tone gave them pause, but they thought they had the advantage of numbers.
“Take him down,” the leader said and his men leapt to obey. Asha was grabbed by two fairies who dragged her off the path and towards some trees. She didn’t bother to resist them, or to draw her own sword. They were about to find out how dangerous it was to attack their future queen.
She flicked a glance back to see Hexam had grown in size. He was flinging fairies left and right with two of his heads while mauling the leader of the band with his middle one. Screams of pain and terror rang out as Dalrin attacked them with his sword. He moved with fluid, devastating speed and grace. He was a far superior warrior and had probably been trained by the best back when he’d been a soldier. Then she had no more time to worry about her friends as she was dragged into the cover of the trees.
“Let’s take a look at what we’ve got here,” one of the thugs said and lifted her hood. They both hooted in glee. “You’re even more beautiful than most fairies,” he crowed.
All fae were gorgeous, but these men seemed ugly to her. Their lust and depravity had twisted them and was reflected in their sneers. “Don’t touch me,” she warned them as the second fairy stepped behind her and grabbed her arms.
“Or what?” he taunted.
“Or you’ll be sorry.”
The first man laughed, then grabbed hold of her chin. He tried to kiss her, but paused when her skin began to change color. He drew back far enough to meet her eyes and was mesmerized when he saw they’d changed to silver. They began to glow and he took a step back. Before he could flee, her face changed until it resembled a creature from a nightmare. Gray spears protruded from her flesh, shredding her clothes and their bodies. Shrieking in horror, they turned to run.
Asha took a step after them, but the trees shifted their branches to block her. A vine curled around her arm, caressing her soothingly as the trees whispered to her. They warned her that she couldn’t kill them or it would upset the balance even further.
Dacrith defeated the final bandit, cutting his stomach open so his entrails spilled out. Falling with a groan, the fairy gathered up his guts and stuffed them back into the opening. While their magic only worked intermittently, they could still heal quickly.
Hexam spat out the leader of the gang. Unconscious and bleeding from multiple gashes and crushed bones, it would take him a while to recover. The rest were also down, or had fled from the battle.
Looking around, Dacrith was alarmed when he couldn’t see Asha. He sent his senses out and picked up on something monstrous in the nearby trees. Hexam’s ears perked up and he looked towards the grove and whined. The hound put a nose to the ground and followed Asha’s scent with the prince on his heels.
Stepping through the bushes, they halted when they saw Asha in her goblin form. Her back was to them, but she was bent, twisted and her skin had turned gray. Silver light shone from her eyes, illuminating the vines that were holding her in place. Dacrith took a step forward with the intention of slicing through them to free her.
“Don’t,” Asha said sharply in a guttural voice. “They’re my friends.”
“I thought the trees in this realm despised dryads, my lady,” he said cautiously as he sheathed his sword.
Her head turned and he almost flinched at her hideous face. He was glad she’d shown him a vision of what she became when she was under threat or he might have fled from her. “I’m not a full dryad,” she reminded him. At her mental command, the vines uncurled from her body, arms and legs and returned to the trees.
Hexam tentatively walked over to her and butted one of his heads against her chest. Her hand came up to stroke his ears and her skin began to change back to normal. Looking down when she regained her senses, Asha realized she’d shredded her clothes when she’d defended herself from the fairies. “My clothes are full of holes,” she said in a voice that was full of despair.
“We’ll fix that, your highness,” Olsa said briskly as she and Unwin appeared. Both were perched on the hound’s back. With a wave of her hand, the brownie repaired the dryad’s clothing.
“There,” Unwin said soothingly. “It’s all better now.”
“Did you kill the two brigands?” Dacrith asked, still keeping his distance from her.
“No,” Asha replied dully. “The trees stopped me before I could go after them.”
“They have my thanks then,” the warrior said and bowed to the still agitated trees. “We should avoid killing any of our foes or we’ll risk upsetting the balance even further.”
Asha gave him a haunted look. “I didn’t even care,” she admitted in a small voice. “When I turn into my goblin half, I want to kill everyone.”
He gave her a strained smile that didn’t reach his gray-gold eyes. “Then Hexam and I had better make sure to keep you safe so you aren’t required to succumb to your darker side again.”
They all knew that wasn’t going to be easy. They’d already encountered two bands of fairies who had tried to take Asha from him and they hadn’t even known who she was. Word was already spreading and after that attack, everyone would soon know of the girl who could turn into a hideous gray monster. The Unseelie warriors would know she was somewhere in the area and their search would increase. They had to reach the palace before they were discovered and an unscrupulous fairy didn’t try to make Asha his. If he did, she would kill him and even more chaos would be unleashed on the already unstable realm.
