THE DARKENING (The Divided Realms: Book 2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Willow's eyes flew open. She catapulted to a sitting position, sucking in air in wheezing gasps. She jerked her arms up and stared at them. The tiger had clawed her. Had bit into her collarbone. But she saw nothing. Not a mark, not a speck of blood. Nothing. Her hand trailed away from her unmarred neck. She stared uncomprehendingly at her dress. Not white and bloody but whole and blue, the one she was wearing when she'd arrived in Clarion. She whipped her head around, searching the dim room. Brand!

"He's fine." Dacia appeared before Willow. She stepped aside and Willow glimpsed Brand's dark hair. He lay stretched out on a stone slab, apparently unharmed. "He's just sleeping," said Dacia. "I will wake him shortly."

"But the ... the ..." Sobs suddenly shook Willow. She still felt Brand's arms around her. Protecting her.

Dacia touched her cheek. "Forgive me. I was forbidden to explain the Menagerie Game to you."

"Game?" Willow pushed Dacia's hand away. "What do you mean Game?"

"The Menagerie is a Game. A Game of terror and fear and ... pain."

"I ... I don't understand. Those tigers were real. They ... they ... I felt them."

Dacia slipped to the edge of Willow's stone bed. A wall lined with shelves swam into view. Dacia pulled something from a high shelf and brought it to Willow.

Cold. The object Dacia placed in Willow's hand was cold as ice, and heavy. Willow stared at it. Shiny cat eyes stared back. Encased in a crystal ball that resembled a snow globe crouched a black panther, teeth bared, one clawed paw ready to strike. Willow tilted the globe's golden base. No sparkly snow. Only a viscous green mist surrounded the cat. "I don't understand." She returned the globe to Dacia. "What is this thing?"

"This is how we play Games." Dacia's finger traced over the markings on the globe's stand. "In the courts of Dark, Games are played in the mind, not body. No death. But fear and pain as real as death." Her eyes grew large and luminous. "My brother Nezeral placed me and Theon in the Menagerie Game when we were children. The cats devoured us many times before he released us."

Children? Willow gaped at Dacia, horrified. Saw a tender, fragile child, tow-haired and achingly beautiful, like ... like Nezzie. She blocked out the rest of the grisly scenario. "Then the ... the cave ..." Willow remembered the two little rag piles, the rock and shell decorations. "That was you, then, wasn't it?"

Dacia nodded. "There was no cage in our Game. We didn't discover the cave until ... later."

"But why? Why would Nezeral do that to you?" Willow just couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of small children being in the position she'd just been in. It was too sick. Too – Willow studied Dacia a moment. How old was the faerie girl, anyway? She could have been fifteen or thirty in human age, or neither. All faeries had that weird agelessness about them.

Dacia studied her as well, frowning. "Theon and I are twins."

"Twins?"

"Yes. Twins. Symbols of duality, one the bearer of Light, the other of Dark. But there is no certainty which of us is which." Her silver irises dimmed to gray shadows. "The House of Jarlath serves Dark." She tipped the globe again, watching as green mists shrouded the panther. "We are the Dark faeries of ancient Earth." She glanced back to Willow. "You know of us as the Unseelie Court, don't you?"

The Unseelie Court. Willow's breath caught in her throat. Of course she'd heard of the Unseelie Court. Both the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts were mentioned in the faerie books she'd read on Earth at home with Nana. Courts of Light and Dark. Her hand fluttered back to her undamaged collarbone. The Unseelie Court – the Dark Court.