Page 66 of Raven's Dawn
Illusions are all. Trust not your eyes within these halls.
I studied him a moment longer, but all that lay behind me was a dead-end. Straight ahead was a man wearing my boyfriend’s face.
Maybe I was being paranoid. Hallucinogens did have that effect, if memory served. But the lady of the lake made one thing clear. This maze was about trusting our instinct, what we felt. My eyes would fool me, but my instinct wouldn’t.
So until we got out of this dead-end, until I had somewhere to run, I did my best to form a genuine smile. “The bushes. I was just making sure they didn’t hurt you.”
“No, I’m just fine, love.” He carried on ahead, not so much as glancing my way. “I don’t see the yellow light anymore. Do you?”
Warren never called me love. Rainbow, that was my name. Occasionally, darling, but that was usually Ezra’s. Love was what Ezra called me.
But if I was right, there was no use in saying so. Not until I could defend myself.
I fingered the blade at my hip. “No. The foliage is too high here. I think it wants us to follow the path.”
“That’s what I’d assume, yes,” he agreed. Even his inflection was wrong. Warren’s accent was unusual. Most of the time, he sounded like a modern American. Occasionally, he would use older verbiage, the kind that my grandma would use, but still, like a modern American.
There was the slightest tinge of an English accent on some words this man used.
Probably because he wasn’t a man at all, but an illusion. Or some shape shifting Fae creature I didn’t know enough about.
For a few more strides, we walked in silence. The trail wound in and curved left and right. My sense of direction was distorted already from the tumble through the bushes, but I used the moon as my guiding post. It had been behind me when we were following that yellow ball, but now it was on my left.
“What did the lady of the lake say again?” the man asked. “Something about the stars.”
I remembered every word. But why was he asking? To tail me once I escaped him? Because he, too, was stuck inside the maze and trying to escape?
The question in my mind, I didn’t allow to roll into my voice. “The sky will catch your fall.”
“Right. I knew it was something like that.” The man halted. So abruptly that I almost tumbled into him. I caught myself just in time. “What do you think this means? Should we go through it?”
Craning onto my tiptoes, I peered around him. A body of water, not nearly as big as the lake, lay a few feet before him. Rather than the crystal clear liquid at the lake, this was brown with green algae and lily pads on its top. Roughly twenty feet ahead was another archway carved into the bushes.
“Looks like our only option,” I said. “After you.”
Taking a few steps forward, giving me enough room around the clearing so that I wasn’t stuck directly behind him, he sunk down. “Here. Hop on.”
No fucking way was that happening.
“It’ll be slick in there.” I held out my hand. “Probably better if we just hold on to one another for stability.”
“Sure. Of course.” Twining his warm fingers between mine, he gestured ahead. “Ladies first.”
I did not like this.
I did not like it one bit.
No way was I getting in that swamp with a man who may or may not have been my boyfriend behind me. He was going first, or we weren’t going at all.
The Elvan ore dagger on my hip would kill Warren, if it was truly Warren. I stayed mindful of that.
“Usually, I’d agree with that.” Pointing at the water, I laughed. “But I don’t know, baby. This time, I think I prefer the gentleman to lead the way.”
“If you insist.” He chuckled. Slowly, he edged forward. He lifted his foot as if he was going to take a step forward.
Then yanked my arm.
I collapsed.
