For my VIP List members only: I hope you enjoy this inside peek of Fate’s Fury. Please remember, this is my first rough draft and is entirely unedited and will be going through many rounds of changes during the editing process, so please forgive any typos you find here.
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Strong gusts of frigid wind whipped around them, sudden and frightening. Something grabbed Finn from behind, tearing Tove’s hand from his grasp. Silence wrapped around him. Everywhere he looked there was darkness. The forest and stars above had been blotted out.
Finn struggled against the vice-like grip around his waist and arms. Unable to raise his air blade, he twisted around, catching sight of a male face, no more than a silvery smudge within the dark murk he was trapped within. Calling upon the Elder race runes, Finn spoke the invocation for Air to break through the whirling vortex of darkness.
The sharp point of a blade dug painfully against his neck, cutting his summons short.
“Silence.” The word was different, spoken in the Olde language, but the meaning rang through loud and clear.
Panic fired through Finn’s veins. Being caught within this pitch black was disorienting, making it hard to think straight. He needed to get a grip on his fear. This thrashing darkness hadn’t been part of the visions he’d seen of the Falinorin, though his captor was definitely drawing on the power of night.
This could only be the Dregoul. His plan had worked.
Finn stopped resisting altogether, allowing the elven male to take him prisoner. His only hope at that point was that the Dregoul, as well as the Elrinye, would be willing to hear them out before deciding to mete out punishment for trespassing into their valley.
As Finn settled down enough to accept the situation for what it was, he glanced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tove. The shadow veil around him seemed to have thinned, or maybe it was because there was a weak source of light now penetrating the cloak. Squinting at the light coming from high above, he realized they were moving toward it–somehow sailing over the ground, smoothly and swiftly. Thick branch-like shapes moved over the light as they continued on. The light was flickering like fire, and that’s when he realized it must be the Eternal Flame of the Great Oak.
The flame suddenly extinguished, plunging Finn back into pure darkness again. Circling, downward motions had him choking back the bile trying to rise from the instant nausea the velocity created. His fear returned full force when he realized they were dropping deep into the underground. He knew the Dregoul lived within the roots of the Great Oak, while the Elrinye lived in the top branches to attend to the Eternal Flame, but he’d hoped to be presented to the Falinorin as a whole.
They came to a stop and Finn’s feet touched down as the shadow veil dissolved into thin tendrils of mist. The elven male withdrew his blade and released Finn. Still fighting the queasiness in his gut and a skull full of dizziness, Finn widened his stance to keep from falling over. Once he’d regained his equilibrium, he glanced around, fully expecting to be greeted by a prison cell.
Instead, he was presented with a great hall of rough-hewn earthen walls shot through with branching roots gleaming with silver dust. Soft, diffused light emanated from the roots themselves, the only source of illumination within the vast chamber. The ceiling was high and rounded like a cathedral. A long table made of stone lined with chairs, each formed elaborately of bent and braided branches, stood in the middle.
At the other end of the great hall, the elven queen of the Dregoul sat on a throne carved from a block of ebony crystal. The entire royal court stood in attendance just below the throne. More elves arrived in the form of twisting vortexes of black vapor, which they cast off like robes of shredding smoke. Several hundred lined themselves at the end of the hall and down the sidewalls.
The Dregoul were darkly beautiful beings. Fine boned with slanted eyes, raven hair and skin that shone with a silvery sheen as if kissed by starlight. Their long ears curved upward into points like the thick yet delicate bloom of a calla lily. They seemed to embody the night, the moon and stars like nothing Finn had ever seen before.
He turned to his captor, who’d stepped aside, still gripping the dagger he’d held to Finn’s throat. Remembering the elf’s tight, unwavering grip, Finn was surprised by how much slighter in build the warrior was. If he compared weight and muscles alone, he should’ve been able to take the guy, but the elf’s source of power came from the night, maybe even the infinite night that was home to the stars. If that was the case, this was a power greater than even the Elder race runes could supply.
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