by Cilla Raven
It’s not as if those flowers are easy to come by since they’re so rare, and those who know how to grow them and dry them out properly are few and far between.
“Pay up,” Quinn says to Lazlo, jerking my attention to him and out of my own thoughts.
Lazlo smiles, reaches into his pocket, and throws a coin, Quinn snatching it out of the air so fast it reminds me of a snake ambushing a mouse.
Turning to me as he pockets the coin, Quinn says, “I bet Lazlo that you’d find a way to escape and make a run for it,” and I don’t know why, but the thought makes me angry. “Poor Laz thought you liked him enough that we could actually untie you, and you’d stay.” Quinn laughs at that, and I glance over to Lazlo, where he has rolled over onto his back to stare up into the tree branches as if he doesn’t even hear Quinn.
“She’ll want to stay eventually,” Priya says with a smirk, looking at me like a predator who’s just found their next meal, and I look back at Quinn, ignoring the thoughts her expression gives me.
“I need to pee,” I say, my voice sounding more reliable than I thought it would.
Quinn chuckles some more as he says, “Why didn’t you handle that while you were on your little field trip? You were certainly gone long enough.”
I sigh in response, my shoulders sagging some as I’m forced to wonder how this is all going to go.
“To kee. Meh fla weh,” Roan says as he stands up and makes his way over to Priya. She lets go of the handle on the spit and stands up while he takes her vacated spot and starts turning the spit in her stead.
“Come on, I’ll take you to pee. I’ve got to go too,” she says, and I get up, following behind her as she leads me into the forest away from where the group can see me.
Pretty quickly, she stops, slides her pants down, and squats beside a tree, bracing her back up against it, making her wings slide out on either side of the tree at her back.
I don’t hesitate for long before I go to a nearby tree and relieve myself like Priya is doing, and I lean my head back with how good it feels to release the pressure that had been building up inside me for far too long.
She grabs a leaf to clean herself up, and as nasty as that seems to me, I don’t call attention to how I’m feeling as I do the same, pulling my pants back up when I’m done as best I can with bound hands.
Priya doesn’t touch me to make me go back to the group, just holds her hand out in front of her and expects me to move on my own, daring me to try and make a run for it with her eyes. I think she wants to chase me, but it really shouldn’t surprise me, all of these fae seem like they have a few too many screws loose up top.
Too soon, we’re settling back by the fire as Quinn levels me with a glare. “I’m assuming you’ve decided not to join us or the rebels since you just tried to escape, but I’m really hoping you come to reconsider.”
Anger dumps into my system at his words, at the pure insanity it would take for me to do such a thing, and I just can’t understand what would make him think I’d ever join them. “You make it seem like you aren’t a part of the rebellion, but all of you have a position within their ranks. What was it? Lieutenants and captains, the lot of you. So why do you make it seem like this group and the rebellion are separate entities?”
“Because we are separate,” Lazlo says with a disinterested sigh.
Quinn picks up a drink that was sitting beside him where I couldn’t see it and swallows half of it before he speaks.
“We call ourselves ‘Doconqueh.’ There’s not really a direct translation from Roan’s language into Tavatikan for it, but a word that gets close is ‘family.’ The next closest would be ‘my soul.’ We met years before any of us even thought about the rebellion, and have been thick as thieves ever since. Yes, we are technically ‘in’ with the rebellion, but we only do the tasks we agree with for them, and we make sure they pay us fairly for the jobs we do,” Quinn explains.
“We will only stay with the rebellion as long as their values align with ours,” Priya further defines, and I’m surprised by how passionate she sounds as she says it.
“And what exactly are these ‘values’ you hold so dear?” I ask, derision for the crimes I know the rebellion has committed seeping into my words. “I don’t think letting people starve or go without the basic necessities of life for monetary gain is what I would consider a valuable motto in any circumstance.”
Priya looks at me and huffs air out of her nose again. “We told you already that the rebellion isn’t to be blamed for disrupting the trade routes. We’re just as upset about that as you seem to be.”
I try to understand what she’s telling me, but I know the rebellion is responsible… aren’t they? I surprise myself by even considering the thought, but Priya continues, shifting how she sits, so she’s facing me full-on, hands in her lap, and a serious, but understanding expression on her face.
“Look,” she starts, “my parents were both scribes in Tavatika. You might’ve even heard of them, Trent and Bunny Ravenskull.”
I nod at her because the names ring of familiarity in my mind, but I can’t place why.
“They were too outspoken about what they believed because of what they learned and thought, and ended up having their wings taken right before they were banished to live in the slums for their crimes. I was away at scribe boarding school when all of this went down, and when I realized what had happened, it was already too late. My parents were lucky to escape with their lives. All because they told the truth that history was doomed to repeat itself if drastic changes weren’t made quickly.”
“Repeat itself, how? What changes?” I ask, wrapped up in her story and the smooth cadence of her voice.
Priya’s face turns serious as she answers me. “The classist system we have in Arorial does nothing but breed contempt, and in the case of wing color, inbreeding,” she pauses for a dark laugh, but I have to admit that that particular issue has become a bit of a problem lately. “But as that contempt within our society grows, there is no other possible outcome than war. The harder you tamp down on a populous, the harder they’re willing to fight to ensure their survival.”
“What are you saying?” I ask. “What does this have to do with you guys and the rebels?”
Quinn speaks up from across the fire and says, “We believe the hierarchy needs an overhaul, that people shouldn’t be starving to death in their homes because they can’t afford to buy food, that there’s no reason in Arorial for kids to be sentenced into lives of servitude, and a whole lot of other things we’re willing to die for in order to change how things are done. We’ve all been victims of this country’s systemic faeshit, and we, this group, banded together over our shared beliefs, all of us willing to do whatever it takes, in any circumstance, to ensure the future generations of this shithole don’t experience what we did.”
I’m shocked into silence by his words, my brain struggling to reconcile what he’s just said with everything I’ve ever learned.
“How can you possibly tout all that when you single-handedly murdered seven nobles, in their homes, no less!” I’m practically screaming. “I read your bounty sheet. I know the crimes you’ve been accused of, and the fact that you weren’t willing to stay around and defend yourself proves you’re guilty!”
Quinn chuckles at me, and the rage I feel inside has hardly ever been caused by anyone other than my father.
“Oh, you mean the bounty sheets we filled in on ourselves and turned in so that you would hunt us down and we could capture you?” he smirks. “Yeah, every crime listed on them is true. But let me ask you this: did you even think to ask yourself, or anyone else for that matter, why I killed those nobles?” he asks, and my mind stutters as it comes up empty.
“I killed each and every one of them without an ounce of remorse because those faefuckers were part of a ring of pedophiles who got their rocks off by stealing human children, doing the disgusting shit they did to them, simply because they were human children and ‘no one would care to miss th
em.’” He says that last part sarcastically with hate lacing his words. “Then, when they tired of the children they’d broken on purpose, they sold them off into even deeper trenches of the slave trade where the treatment of humans is even worse than it is everywhere else and goes completely unnoticed.”
Tears prick the backs of my eyes and a lump forms thickly in my throat at the story he just told me, my heart bleeding inside my chest as I imagine the reality and likelihood of what he said. There’s no doubt in my mind that that kind of thing has happened because everything in Arorial is fucked if stuff like that is allowed to go on.
“The rebellion, and us for that matter,” Quinn says, gesturing to the people surrounding the fire, “we’re not your enemies, but the people you’ve been protecting behind those walls are.”
Chapter 11
An hour or so later, I’m lying on the ground next to Priya, everyone fast asleep while my mind runs away with everything that’s happened today and won’t shut the fae up. Priya tied another rope around the one holding my wings, right in the center of my back where I’d have no hope of reaching it even if I could get my hands free, and then wrapped the rest of its length around her waist so I wouldn’t try to escape again while she slept.
I’m lying on my back even though it’s uncomfortable because I can’t bear to give her my back willingly, but I also couldn’t turn my back on everyone else sleeping near me, around the fire that’s steadily dying out the longer the night wears on.
No matter the honorable shit they claim to stand for, I don’t trust any of them, and honestly, it’s almost impossible to believe everything they’ve told me tonight because it goes against everything I’ve heard up to this point.
I don’t doubt what Quinn said - the story he told about the nobles and why he killed them, at least - but to be frank, most everyone could agree that what those nobles were doing was atrocious. It doesn’t make him any better just because he murdered them. Murder is a crime just as much as everything those nobles were doing was.
There’s a system in place to handle things like that for a reason. The police and courts of Tavatika may not be perfect, but they do their job well enough from what I understand. Granted, I’ve never really had to deal with them much, seeing as how I get my bounties directly from Uncle, but still, if Quinn knew there was a problem with those nobles, he should’ve gone through the proper channels, not gone all mercenary on their asses.
Had he done that, those nobles could’ve been charged, gone to trial, and faced the consequences for their actions in front of their victims, offering those children some form of closure.
Well, unless they ran, that is.
The law states that if you run before your trial, it’s an admission of guilt on your part, and you are automatically exiled to Eruxus without your wings if you’re a fae, killed on sight if you’re a human. I don’t hunt and kill humans; I couldn’t if I tried. It’s those fae that have been charged but not yet tried that make up my bounties. And even I’ll admit that the law doesn’t seem exactly fair, but if you didn’t do it, why would you run? Why wouldn’t you defend yourself in court to prove your innocence?
Why am I even thinking about all of this? I wonder as I reposition myself in an attempt to get comfortable, but it's a wasted effort since nothing I do works in that regard.
Priya rolls over on her side toward me, and for a solid minute, I can’t force my eyes to leave her sleeping face. She’s stunning and beautiful… but in a hard way when she’s awake. In slumber, her features aren’t so wary or fierce; as if in sleep, the demons she hides within, leave her alone, and she’s at peace for a while.
Not that I know much about her demons, but I definitely caught a glimpse of them as she recounted her story earlier. Like behind those light brown eyes of hers, raged a sea of pain and sadness, but the level of control she held it all in with, couldn’t be denied. And the way she told me about her parents, the conviction I heard in her voice, the way she spoke about her beliefs, I’d be lying if I said her words didn’t affect me.
I can’t even begin to understand why I’m thinking the way I am, but there’s something about these fae, all of them, that makes me want to second guess myself… something I rarely, if ever, do, and I’m beating myself up for it.
The way my body responds to all of them is ridiculous. Absolutely unreasonable.
I shouldn’t quiver at almost everything Lazlo says, or feel heat rising through me every time Quinn looks my way, or wonder excitedly about what Priya thinks of me. I shouldn’t have let Roan shove those flowers in my mouth as if I were that starving servant from earlier, and those flowers would mean another day I get to live. I shouldn’t be having to tell myself to simmer down and get my head right to stop myself from being attracted to these fae.
Attraction and curiosity shouldn’t come into this at all, whatsoever.
I need to be ruthless, unforgiving, relentless in my attempts to escape or capture them, not lying here thinking about how great they look while they sleep because, dammit, they all do.
They’re criminals…
At least, I think they are.
With that ominous thought parading through my head, I dismiss everything I’m thinking with a huff of effort and finally close my eyes for the night.
When I wake, the sun is streaming into my eyes from a direct path through the branches above me, and I blink a few times trying to remember where I am and what’s going on.
It doesn’t take me long, but as I glance around the remnants of last night’s fire, I see it wasn’t all a nightmare of cataclysmic proportions. I’m actually here, and this is really my life right now.
Roan sits up then, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head as I stare at him in awe.
His wings are all different colors like his feathers grew in without a clue as to who he was supposed to be. Purple, brown, red, black, blue, light purple, green, teal… all of the ranks are represented behind his back, and at my sharp intake of breath at seeing his wings, Roan looks over at me, a knowing expression painted across his face.
He stands up to his full and giant glory, stretching his wings out behind him, so I get a fantastic look at them, and a smile dances at the corners of his lips as he watches me drink him all in. They’re absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like them.
Breeding with anyone other than your own wing color is against the law.
Well, except for mating with a black winged royal because all of those babies' wings turn out black…
But Roan’s haven’t, and there are definitely black feathers in there, resting right up against all the other colors.
Silently, he makes his way over and squats down before me, his light green eyes staring into the depths of my mind, making it seem like he’s reading every single one of my thoughts as I think them.
He plops some of the brown flowers in his mouth, and instantly, his wings start shaking as they change color, a sadness at watching the colors fade settling inside me no matter how hard I try to stop it. Those wings shouldn’t exist, but they’re amazing too.
Pulling out more of the flowers, he moves his hand toward my mouth, gesturing with his head to indicate my wings, and I glance back, seeing they are still brown.
It only takes me a second to realize what he’s doing though. He’s making sure that by giving me another dose now, while everyone is still asleep, my wings will stay brown for the rest of the day, and something inside me shifts about Roan as I open my mouth for him to place them on my tongue.
He has no reason to be nice to me. No reason not to rat me out like every other fae in Arorial would if they discovered what and who I am, and something about that does weird things in my heart region.
However, the moment is fleeting since as soon as I’ve chewed up the flowers, he stands up and shouts, “Pocat uh,” rousing everyone from their sleep with the sound of his booming voice.
I sit up as Priya does, and she looks over at me sleepily, a cute expression lighting across her fea
tures. “What? Do I have some drool or something?” she asks as she swipes her hand over her mouth to check, just in case.
“No, you’re good,” I say, and I can’t keep myself from smiling at her.
She looks away quickly, and if I’m not mistaken, her cheeks blush some, which only makes me smile more.
“Quit looking at me like that before I do something about it,” she says, and I get the feeling she’s only half-joking as butterflies swarm in my belly unexpectedly. “Come on, I’ve got to pee again.”
We get up, and she unties the rope that binds her to me, and we handle our business quickly before making our way back to the rest of the ‘Doconqueh,’ or whatever it is they call themselves.
Lazlo has walked over to check on the horses that have been tied to a nearby tree. He unhooks one of the horse’s reins and leads it over to the cart, where he then starts strapping the cart to it before he goes back for the other horse. Quinn is looking through the items in the back of the cart as if he’s counting in his head while murmuring to himself while Roan climbs up into the front of the cart, making the whole thing sway under his weight.
“Aren’t we going to eat before we leave?” I ask without thinking, and as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said them.
Priya looks over at me in confusion, but answers me anyway, “We’re not going to waste time hunting first thing in the morning when we have places to be. What? That rabbit last night wasn’t enough to tide you over?”
I don’t really answer as I try to brush the situation off like it doesn’t matter one way or another to me, but my belly betrays me by grumbling loudly, and Priya laughs when she hears it.
