That couldn’t be the maze, so I had to assume the Light Fey were watching this, close enough for me to smell their hatred, anticipation and amusement.

  I kept a close eye - or nose - on their scents, using any change in their emotions as an indication of incoming danger. My heart rate escalated even though nothing happened. I wondered if the anticipation was actually theirs or mine.

  I peeked around a corner and saw something in the shadows move. My fingers flexed around the dagger. If I stood still, I knew the danger would come to me eventually. Patience was not one of my better qualities, so I sucked in a breath for air and tore off toward whatever the hell it was that waited, hoping to catch it before it was ready.

  The shadows shifted, morphed, and became a solid form. I noticed the helmet first; it definitely looked Viking. A horn protruded from either side of an upside-down brass bowl. I forgot about the helmet when I realised the thing was a skeleton. Not unlike the skeletons that I could see inside the twisted branches of the walls.

  It let out a shriek of rage and agony as if whatever kept it alive hurt. The pain I could hear in that sound made my body tremble. Injured animals were often the worst. It shambled toward me with an uneven gait. Strips of dried flesh hung off its body, but I could see the leather of what had once been armour. It looked familiar.

  “Hey, big guy,” I said, crooning slightly. “You wouldn’t happen to know any Valkyries, would you?”

  He swung a big fist at me that at one time would have been meaty, but was now nothing more than mummified skin and bones.

  I skipped back, not wanting to cause it any more pain. And then shook my head at the stupidity of that. The creature hadn’t responded to my voice; there was nobody home to negotiate with.

  I spun out of the way of a stumbled swing, landing too close to the maze’s wall. A branch wrapped itself around my ankle, making me lose my concentration. The monster’s fist connected with my stomach, making me double over and gasp.

  Chimes sound out on the air and then a roar of sound that could be only laughter. I couldn’t inhale; I couldn’t breathe. I cradled my stomach and hacked at the vine around my ankle with the dagger, all the while dodging the clumsy swings of the undead creature before me.

  The branch came loose and then the creature charged. At the last second, it opened its arms as if it wanted to give me a bear hug. I swiped with everything I had and took its head from its shoulders.

  In the silence that followed, all I could hear was the rapid beat of my heart.

  Had that thing just committed suicide by Nothus?

  I stumbled into the middle of the maze’s path and stared down at the crumpled form of something that should not have existed.

  “What the hell were you?” I whispered.

  “Draugar,” a voice said in my ear.

  I spun, dagger raised, but all I could see were shadows.

  Then Queen Isoleth’s voice boomed out over the maze.

  “One point to the creature,” she said. The crowd booed as if this were some WWF wrestling match and I was not the odds-on favourite. “Bring in the next! The creature must pay!”

  I turned in a circle, but nothing jumped out at me. Then the branches on the walls at my sides shifted and closed in behind me. Another dead end; I was being herded.

  I checked my dagger; there was nothing on it. No blood or guts or vampire dust. It shone in the light of the stars, a silver that almost called to me. I blinked when the Dark Shadow’s claws raked down my back.

  Note to self: Don’t look at the Fey silver.

  I started forward, wanting nothing but to get this over with. If I could take down each one of the monsters Isoleth threw at me, would she let me go?

  Hardly, but it was the only plan I had right now seeing as there was no obvious entry or exit point to the maze.

  The sound of music met my ears. But it wasn’t just music. In the background, I could hear water tinkling, and wind in the trees, but not the type of wind I could hear wheezing through the maze’s twisted branches. This wind was crisp and clear and reminded me of a forest. It was friendly and welcoming. I took a step nearer.

  “Turn around,” the same voice from earlier said; right in my ear.

  I did turn around, but no one was there, and all I could see was the dead end I’d just left moments earlier.

  “Run,” the voice urged.

  “To where?” I muttered.

  The music grew louder, more melancholy. Beautiful. I ignored the unhelpful voice and walked closer to the sounds of water playing over stones and rocks, and falling over waterfalls.

  A fairy sat on a boulder in the middle of a clearing, playing a fiddle or it could have been a harp; it was hard to determine which because the music wouldn’t let me. He was naked. He was gorgeous.

  The Dark Shadow growled low, but she too was curious. She stepped forward. I did too. The music wrapped around us and lifted our arms until we were swaying and dancing to its oh so beautiful tune.

  “Take his head,” the voice of earlier whispered.

  “Go away,” I whispered back.

  The fairy playing the music had pointed ears. I hadn’t seen such beautiful pointed ears on the fairies I’d met before. I wanted to touch them. He pierced me with too green eyes and sped up his finger movements on the strings.

  “Dance,” he said.

  “Don’t dance,” the voice urged.

  I could no further not dance than I could deny what I was. At one time that might have been an invalid argument, but not anymore. I am Nothus, and I kinda liked it.

  But I liked the music more.

  I twirled and spun and skipped and leapt and danced around the clearing. At one point, I stumbled, my legs feeling weak, but the Dark Shadow fed me more of her Sanguis Vitam, and I kept on moving. Swaying. Twirling. Humming. Pirouetting. I leapt across the clearing to the applause of the audience; soaking in their adulation. My skin was damp with perspiration, my head spun with the effort required to please my adoring fans, my lips were dry and my eyelids droopy.

  I stumbled, my knees giving out, but I could not stop dancing. I would not stop dancing. I pushed up off the ground, my arms giving out and my face slamming back into the dirt. I lay there panting, crying, because I couldn’t get back up again and dance. I needed to dance. I had to.

  The Dark Shadow howled inside; she wanted to dance too.

  See, she said, spinning around inside my head. It is easy. Come. Dance with me.

  I danced inside my head, the Dark Shadow my partner, the forest my music, the world in my memories our audience. And then a sharp sting made me stumble. The Dark Shadow gave me the last of her Sanguis Vitam. The power surged through me and then was swiftly replaced by the searing pain of something cleaving my chest apart.

  I noticed absently that the music had stopped. I blinked open hazy eyes and saw the sprite’s fiddle leaning against a rock, just to the side of where I was lying.

  Another sawing, searing, agonising pain had me gasping.

  Sound rushed back in, and all I could hear were fairies chanting, their chimes making the words sound like a poor imitation of the fiddler’s stunning music.

  “Fossegrim. Fossegrim. Fossegrim,” they chanted.

  I looked down, and the pointy-eared maestro was using the fairy prince’s dagger to make a hole in my chest; directly above my heart.

  I stared at the wound, at the blood that oozed out, at the still-beating organ as he reached into the cavity to take it.

  Oh, hell no, I thought and flailed around with my arm until my fingers latched onto the fiddle.

  It took everything in me to lift the damn thing, and the Dark Shadow had no more Sanguis Vitam to give me. My Light, thin though it was, returned with the desperation of the dying. And I whacked the damn instrument over the fairy’s head.

  He fell back.

  I flopped after him.

  A dagger from my arm sheath stabbed him in the eye.

  His scream would have shattered glass if there had been any glass nearby.

  I silenced him with a desperate swipe of the blade across his throat.

  “Head,” the voice urged beside me. “Take his head, creature.”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, dragging myself across the blood coated dirt.

  I stared down at the pointy-eared bastard and snarled.

  Then with more effort than I cared to acknowledge, I hacked off his fucking head.

  I fell back on the ground and stared up at the stars, panting, the world turning, the skulls in the twisted maze walls dancing just at the edge of my dimming sight.

  Two monsters. That’s all it had taken to bring me so low. Two fucking monsters, no more than a hundred metres of maze, and all of our Sanguis Vitam. That’s it.

  “I need blood,” I murmured.

  “There is none here to sustain you.”

  “Go away.”

  “Four of our kind she has hunted!” the Queen shouted, her voice booming over the maze and making the skulls shudder and hide in the twisted vines. “Four monsters she shall face.”

  Oh, great. I lay there and contemplated that this could very well be where I died. Once and for all.

  “Four she has delivered to Fólkvangr. FOUR!”

  Fuck. This was because of the four spies Aliath had me hunt. He must have killed them, then. And now I was going to pay a debt I didn’t even want. A debt that meant nothing now. Because Samson was my mate and the amor certamen was over. Whatever Jett desired now, it wasn’t me in his bed. It was more likely me under his line. And that I could avoid without a fairy fucker’s help.

  Fuck, I hated fucking fairies.

  “I need blood,” I muttered, determined I’d face my fate standing.

  “I cannot give you blood, but I can give you this,” that annoying voice said in my ear.

  Light washed through me, making me gasp, and my body arched off the ground where I lay. A tingling started in my toes and raced up my legs, over my sexy bits, and then through my torso, settling above my heart. I let out an involuntary moan and rolled over, trying to hide my reaction to whatever the entity had just done.

  Fuck-a-porn-film-fluffing-duck, but that was good.

  I panted through the aftermath of all that glorious Light and then sat up.

  I was still depleted of Sanguis Vitam - my Dark Shadow had retreated entirely, probably curled up somewhere to sulk - but I had my Light back.

  “Let’s do this,” I muttered, jumping to my feet and checking all my weapons.

  I still had the fairy prince’s dagger, but my arm sheath one had done pretty damn well, too. I didn’t bother to check either of them by sight; I was done getting bamboozled by fairy silver and fairy tunes. I looked down at the severed head of the fiddle playing Fey and spat.

  The crowd roared in anger, their chimes climbing higher.

  “Is that the best you’ve got!” I shouted, turning in a slow circle. “You send a boy to do a man’s job! You’re an embarrassment to the supernatural world! Shame on you!”

  The chimes escalated. The maze walls undulated. A foul-smelling breeze wafted past my nose and I huffed.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I sang.

  The ground shook. One single shudder running through it. Then another. And another. Equally spaced, but somehow getting closer. My legs buckled; I stiffened my knees and spread my stance, almost holding my arms out wide to keep my balance. The shudder of the earth continued until I could hear something crashing through the maze walls, heading inexorably toward me.

  I glanced up and saw a mop of dirty silver hair; it splayed out around an oversized head, teased up as if whatever lay claim to the do had stuck their finger in an electrical socket. I arched my brow at what had to be a fourteen or fifteen-foot fairy; thundering through the maze with reckless abandon, green eyes hungry for my blood.

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” I said dryly. Isoleth had a sense of humour.

  I slipped a second dagger free of my arm sheath, and then twirled both in my hands.

  The giant appeared at the end of the corridor I was in and paused. Its misshaped eyes glared at me with obvious malevolence.

  “Jötunn. Jötunn. Jötunn,” the crowd roared.

  “Go for the ankles,” the entity whispered.

  “Ankles. Right,” I said and bounced on my feet. “Easy.” Yep. If I could see his bloody ankles underneath all that hairy skin.

  The giant roared. The crowd roared. Fuck it, I thought and roared too.

  We both sprang forward at the same time, the undulating ground making my progress less ballerina-esque and more drunken barmaid. The giant thundered toward me, swinging a massive club.

  “A club!” I growled. “A fucking club!”

  “Ankles,” the entity urged. “Now!”

  It hadn’t failed me yet, so I dropped to my arse and slid along the dirt, coming out the other side of those massive columns the giant had to have called his legs.

  For a moment nothing happened, and then the giant toppled, a sound of wretched pain leaving its lips.

  Nailed it! Hamstring that motherfucker!

  “Now run,” the entity said happily.

  Run. Running I could do. I kicked into Nosferatin gear and flashed from the scene, the twisted branches of the maze walls reaching out to grab me.

  “Why are you helping me?” I said through panted breaths. Panted breaths I still shouldn’t have needed, but my body demanded I give it.

  “A favour for a favour.”

  Oh, hell no.

  But it was too late to back out of this warped deal I had going on with the disembodied voice because waiting for me in another suddenly-appearing-out-of-thin-air clearing was a freaking horse.

  “And this is the final payment,” the voice said.

  “Nuh-uh.” I shook my head. “No way. That horse has eight legs!”

  The crowd crowed. Chimes rang out. I gritted my teeth, pulling all that gifted Light around me.

  “Sleipnir! Sleipnir! Sleipnir!” the Fey cried.

  “Bring me her head!” Isoleth roared.

  “OK,” I muttered. “I took out a giant. I can take out an eight-legged horse.”

  “You do not need to,” the entity said. “Sleipnir is loyal to me.”

  The horse pawed the ground with two of its eight hooves. Its nostrils flared, and the red of its evil looking eyes bored into me.

  “You sure about that?” I whispered.

  “One moment.”

  I waited. The horse snorted, wafts of black smoke coming out of its massive nostrils. It peeled back its lips and bared blackened teeth at me.

  “It is ironic,” Isoleth said conversationally, but her voice carried to every corner of the maze and no doubt well beyond it, “that the creature shall be ended by the one monster who respects the blades she carries.”

  What? I glanced down at the two daggers in my hands. One was the fairy prince’s, and one was from the arm sheaths on my dress. Which one did Isoleth mean?

  My eyes came back up in time to see the horse charge.

  Ankles? Neck? I shook my head and crouched. Belly.

  The horse lowered its head and blocked the only access I had to a vulnerable part of it. I spun instead. Its massive form passed me, the thunder of its hooves echoed in the maze, the ground shook, and then it swung its head and slammed its enormous skull into my side, sending me flying.

  My body broke through twisted branches and stinging vines and snapping teeth in skeleton heads. I skidded across the dirt to come to rest several hundred feet away; my body aching, my head spinning, my chest throbbing when I tried to breathe. I stopped. I didn’t need to breathe. And it fucking hurt.

  Somewhere ribs had been broken.

  I staggered to my feet, teeth gritted, sweat dripping into my eyes. I rubbed the daggers against my dress, thereby drying my palms while I was at it, and then resettled my grip firmly. I hadn’t even knicked it.

  “Ah,” the voice said, “there it is.” Just as the horse charged.

  I didn’t have much more left in me. I had Light, but I doubted that would do much to something as powerful as this, and really my Light was all that was holding me up. If I used it, I would collapse and be hoof-fodder for eight very hard and very determined hooves.

  But what choice did I have?

  I checked behind me. Not much space to make my stand, but if I fell, I’d still be out of reach of the fucking maze walls. For a while. Perhaps long enough. I gathered my Light. Time seemed to slow. Then I sent it out just as the horse reached me.

  The world swam. My vision dimmed. Dimmer. Dimming. Then my Light hit the horse square in the chest, and it bellowed. I expected its hooves on me at any moment, but the damnedest thing happened. The horse lifted its front legs and then jumped right over the top of me.

  I lay in the dirt and tried not to pant with relief.

  “That was unnecessary,” the entity said. “I had it in hand.”

  I said nothing. The crowd was stunned silent. I could hear the horse galloping away in the distance, the maze crashing around it.

  Any moment now the twisted branches in the walls would converge on me, I had to get up. But I had nothing left to give.

  “Kill her!” Isoleth said, her voice frosted in icicles.

  “Oh, dear,” the entity offered. “And I had such hope that you were the one.”

  I huffed out a laugh and then grimaced as pain swept through me.

  The walls shivered and then started to move closer.

  Any ideas? I asked the Dark Shadow.

  It has been fun, she said in all seriousness.

  What happened to survive at all costs? I demanded.

  You did, she snapped.

  The walls towered above me, the empty sockets-for-eyes in the skulls stared down from their twisted perches, and then a crack of sound rendered the air apart, and the smell of ozone wafted toward me.

  I stilled.

  A hand wrapped around my dress from out of thin air, and then I was jerked unceremoniously through a portal and ended up sprawled across a cold stone floor.

  “You are reckless and irresponsible and one day will be the death of me,” Aliath said.

  “Good to see you too, fairy,” I mumbled, and then everything turned black.