The Faerie War by rachel morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

opening. I hastily pull on Farah’s jersey, followed by my jacket.
    I expect to see more light at the entrance, but there’s a boulder positioned on the mountainside in front of it, with just enough space on either side for a person to slip in or out. Guards line the walls of the tunnel, and Jamon tells me there are more guards scattered across the mountainside.
    I stop and wait for Jamon to pull on some gloves and wrap a scarf around his neck. I guess he can’t magically add warmth to his outfit like I can. “What do we do if Draven or his followers find this entrance?” I ask.
    “The architect faeries who carved out the inside of this mountain are busy creating a tunnel that leads through to the other side of the mountain, goes around a lake, and ends up in a forest. We’ll obviously have guards there too.”
    “And, of course, most of you can vanish from here if the mountain is ever under attack.”
    “Yes.”
    We slide past the boulder into a world whiter than I expected. A thin layer of snow covers the ground beneath my boots. “Snow?” I say to no one in particular. “Seriously? Oh, wait.” I turn to Jamon. “If Draven’s controlling the weather here, doesn’t that mean he must be somewhere nearby?”
    Jamon shakes his head as he looks down at Creepy Hollow forest. From the foot of the mountain, snow-dusted trees extend as far as I can see. “It seems like he can change the weather all across the fae realm.”
    My head snaps up. Is Jamon being serious? “All across the fae realm?” He nods, not looking at me. “The whole realm ? That’s not possible. That’s . . . that’s . . .” Freaking mind-boggling.
    “That’s who we’re up against,” Jamon says grimly. He turns and peers up at the mountain looming above us. “Let’s climb. I still feel like I need more space.” We make our way up between the rocks and clumps of scraggly plants the sudden winter hasn’t killed yet. “So,” Jamon says as we climb, “the first thing we found out from our prisoner is that the brainwashing thing is true. He didn’t call it that, though. He kept talking about marked and unmarked people.”
    “Marked?”
    “Yeah. Did you get a look at his right hand?”
    A grunt escapes me as my fingers slip on wet rock. The spell heating my hands keeps melting the snow whenever I reach for a new handhold. I shift my fingers into a better grip and pull myself up. “No, I was too busy saving your life.”
    Jamon ignores my comment and continues. “He has an open circle tattooed on his right palm. It’s actually a snake that’s curled around so that its head almost meets its tail. It comes from a different symbol, one created by—”
    “Tharros,” I say, stopping my ascent as I remember suddenly. “He represented himself with the symbol of a griffin that has a snake instead of a tail, and the snake curls around the whole griffin.” Why does my brain choose to remember this of all things?
    Jamon looks down at me and nods. “Draven’s using the same symbol, I guess because it’s Tharros’ power he’s got inside him. It’s the symbol stitched onto the blue uniforms all his faeries wear. But according to the prisoner, Draven’s only using part of the symbol to mark his followers because he thought it was simpler and clearer.”
    Jamon turns and continues climbing. I follow. “Did someone have to tattoo every single one of his followers?” I ask. I try not to sound breathless when I speak. Damn, I really need to get my fitness level back up to guardian standard.
    “No, he’s using some kind of magic to brainwash everyone into supporting him. As soon as the spell touches someone, no matter what kind of fae they are, the mark shows up on their right palm. Oh, and he’s got these invisible magical sensors all over the place to detect anyone who’s unmarked.”
     “So that’s what that faerie woman was talking about. The one we hid from when you took me above ground.”
    “Yeah. Just as we guessed,