by Jada Fisher
“Yeah… I still can’t believe that he fooled us for so long. I’m such an idiot.”
I caught his face in my hands and made him look in my eyes. “No, no, no. You don’t get to do that. I can literally see the future, and I couldn’t even figure out he was bad in time to stop anything. He used your kindness and trust against you, so don’t hold that against yourself.”
“Easier said than done. He was my cousin. My righthand man. I should have noticed something.”
“Hey, let’s agree on something. If I can’t guilt myself for the sorry state of the world then you can’t either.”
He chuckled lightly and pulled me to him, his arms wrapping around me. It was startling to feel his firm, muscular form pressed against me, knowing that there was a whole dragon contained just underneath his skin. But after a moment, I managed to relax, melting into his strong form.
Had we ever hugged in a situation where I wasn’t just recovering from passing out, or some other dramatic battle? Had we ever just…held each other?
I didn’t know, and I certainly couldn’t remember. Sometimes, my life before my death seemed foggy and out of focus. Sure, certain details were in sharp relief, but others were slippery. Sloughing right out of my fingers at the worst of times.
I rested my head against his chest, feeling the hard muscle there. For being a relatively slender guy, he certainly was built. It made me feel a flash of self-consciousness, but I quickly dismissed it. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, especially since I felt safe for once. Like nothing could hurt me.
“This is nice,” Bronn murmured, squeezing me ever-so-slightly. “I wish we could stay like that forever.”
“No more war, no more fighting. Just standing in a driveway, huggin’ real good?”
“Oh, I’m real good, am I?”
“You’re not doing a half-bad job.”
He chuckled slightly. “You know, eventually, we’ll need to go eat.”
“Eh, details. I’m sure we could have delivery.”
“Ah yes, pizza to a driveway. I’m sure that one of the franchises is still going.”
“Oh yeah. Business is booming. Absolutely.”
He let out another small laugh, and I felt his breath across the top of my head. Titling my face up, I saw that he was looking right down at me, eyes full of so many things. I let my lids lower slowly, viewing him through my lashes, before pushing up on my toes.
Our lips touched tentatively at first, barely a whisper. But then whatever hesitation was in me was gone and I pressed us more firmly together. I could feel his fingers tighten their hold on me, not enough to hurt, but enough to ground me through the rush of everything else. Heat. Hormones. Relief. Contentment. It was a heady mix that made my head spin.
We gripped each other as only two twenty-somethings trying to avoid the apocalypse could, the rest of the world falling away. I wished that I could just keep my eyes closed and stay in that moment forever. Just be a normal girl, with a normal—albeit super-hot—boyfriend, who lived a normal life.
A throat clearing somewhere nearby us had us jumping apart, Bronn’s eyes flashing and teeth growing while I raised my fist, like that was going to do anything. It had been an age, it seemed, since my relative brawn had been useful for anything. It was certainly weird to have gone from a bruiser to a support position.
My eyes landed on the source of the noise and I saw one of the dwarves I had met before. Ah… Right.
Memories and facts came swirling back to me, having fluttered to the floor from our kiss, and my back snapped ramrod straight.
“Yes?” I heard myself ask tersely.
The man looked between the two of us impassively before slipping a manila envelope through the gate.
“The trial of those you reported to us will be starting soon. Our leaders would appreciate your attendance.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, taking the envelope and clutching it in my fingers. “It’s the middle of a crisis and you guys have time for law and order right now?”
But Bronn was stepping forward, his expression shocked. “Are you… Is this a meeting of an official Fey Court?”
The dwarf nodded. “The first in centuries. You may bring your dragon and your charges, Seer, but we ask for no other shapeshifters. After all, it is one of their kind that drove our ancestors from their homelands.”
“Uh, right. Sure,” I said quickly, glossing over the whole ‘my dragon’ part. Yeah, I had just been kissing the prince, but that didn’t make him mine. “Uh… I didn’t know that, uh, that this was a thing.”
“Well, now you do. This is your chance for justice, Seer. It would be a shame if you missed it.”
He gave us a nod, then walked a few steps to what I recognized as some sort of motorcycle. He sped off, leaving me with a concerned Bronn.
“Your expression tells me that Fey Court isn’t a joke.”
“I…I wouldn’t quite know,” he answered slowly. “The only dragons who have ever seen it were only able to see it because they were being executed for war crimes.”
“Oh… Great. Just what we need.”
3
Trial by Fire
I stared up at the community center, which was still surprisingly fortified after the attack. There were people stationed outside, completing small tasks as if they were still trying to be standard citizens. But I recognized three of them from the confrontation when they gave us weapons and I could just feel…something radiating from the others.
“Hey, Bronn,” I muttered quietly, keeping my eyes straight ahead as we walked up to the main entrance. “Are there, uh, other kinds of fey besides dragons and dwarves?”
“I mean… There’s not really supposed to be. Almost all of them have been wiped out. There were once elves, which is where the oracle bloodline comes from, and witches and dryads, which is another type of shifter, but…”
“But?”
“Well, dragons haven’t exactly gotten along with fey in the past. Our reunion with them has been relatively recent and is…tenuous.” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, but we both knew that wasn’t going to alleviate the tension we both carried there. “At best.”
“Great. So, we’re going to the first Fey Court in centuries and they already don’t like us.”
“Actually, most of them probably like you,” Mal said. “I know I’m not from your world an’ all, but I remember my family praying that a seer would come and somehow save us.”
“For some reason, that doesn’t make me any less uncomfortable.”
“Didn’t these people try to kill you?” Krisjian asked quietly.
“Some of them did,” I answered, chewing on my lip. “And those people are on trial now. That’s why we’re here to, uh…testify? I don’t really know much about their legal system. Maybe we’re just here to cast stones.”
“Cast stones?” he asked, brows coming together.
“Nothing. Just a saying.”
“Okay.”
We fell quiet, my fingers laced with Bronn’s, and we reached the door. There was already someone waiting for us, a short woman dressed in tactical pants, a green tank, and what looked like some sort of bulletproof vest or other official armor. It was so incongruous to the fantasy world I was used to where men exploded into dragons and spirits of death went flying around to shepherd people to their afterlives.
“Seers,” the woman said, tilting her head. “I hope you didn’t have trouble getting here.”
“Not any more than you would expect,” Mickey said, holding her hand out to shake. I didn’t miss that it was her burned one. Ah, she was coming out swinging. Well, that was alright. “And you are?”
“Lorelei. I’m your guard.”
“And do we need one?”
She made an ambivalent gesture. “Who can say? It’s better to have and not need than need and not have. Shall we? They’re already gathering.”
I licked my lips, looking around the entrance that we were standing in. Technically, we could be w
alking into a trap. I knew that much. But considering we had three seers, our own dwarf who had an insane streak in survival, and the prince of the local dragon order, it seemed unlikely that they would all try to take us all down at once.
Then again, I had seen some of the weapons they hoarded, and they certainly weren’t lacking in that aspect.
I felt both Mickey and Bronn look to me, so I nodded. I wanted justice and this was how we were supposed to get it, so I figured we might as well get a move on.
We followed Lorelei down the hall and then a set of stairs. Flashes of memories went through my head from the few times my sister and I had gone to the community center when we were in the foster system.
We hadn’t often, because it had been on the other side of the city and a couple of our foster families forbade it. They hadn’t wanted to look bad by having their charges running off to use ‘poor people services.’ I would never forget the day that Mickey was aged out of the system only to immediately turn around and file for custody of me. We’d gone to the community center a few times after that too, but it never felt very comfortable.
Funny, in hindsight that was probably our seer-ness telling us that something was up.
Except there was nothing funny about it, really.
I shoved all those thoughts and memories out of my head. Hadn’t I just been internally complaining about my lack of recall most days? Maybe I needed to be grateful for my fuzziness. Maybe it was more of a protective measure than anything else.
I didn’t really have time to examine that hypothesis, however, because we were going through a set of double-doors and into what looked like a gymnasium.
Except it clearly wasn’t being used for any sort of athletic purposes. No, instead, the bleachers on either side were filled with far more people than I had expected, and there was a circle of twenty or so sitting in folding chairs right in the center.
My eyes roved over the whole room, a habit I had gotten into, and my breath hitched when my gaze landed on none other than Mallory’s parents, sitting on the other side of the room with a small crowd of their compatriots.
It was then that the moment really hit me. We were in some sort of strange trial, and my parents were finally going to have justice. All the oracles that never got to draw a breath were going to have justice.
It also meant that something bad was going to happen to my best friend’s parents.
Or…my former best friend?
Ugh. It was all so confusing.
My sight scuttled away from the lot, some sitting there looking regretful or rageful, and landed on who else but Mallory. She was sitting to the side with others, her face pale, and deep circles under her eyes. She was hugging herself, as if she was cold, and I wondered if she had gotten sick.
Could dwarves even really get sick from regular human illnesses? Looking back, I couldn’t remember her ever being sick as we grew up. Then again, I had already addressed my shoddy memory just a few moments earlier.
“This way,” Lorelei said, cutting off my staring and leading us to the opposite wall, where we were arranged in a mirror to Mallory and the folks around her. Were we witnesses? I was trying to figure it out, but law shows had never really been my thing.
Nevertheless, I knew enough to be quiet as we sat, and just about as soon as we were settled, one of the circle stood to address everyone.
“Fellow fey and descendants of fey,” the woman said, voice booming. “We have called you here for the Fey Court. A call that has not been sounded in many of our lifetimes, and hopefully will not need to be sounded again.
“But we have discovered that some of our own flock has carried out egregious acts of violence and malice against our own, working in a concentrated effort to completely eradicate an entire line of fey, a line that has been particularly vulnerable to violence throughout our history in this realm.”
Oh. Huh. I hadn’t expected them to come right out and believe us. But if they were already phrasing what happened to us as fact, where was the trial part supposed to come in?
“But we are not our parents. We will not let our fear of others who would hurt us be an excuse for us to hurt others. So today, brothers, sisters and other siblings, we bring this to you.
“We will present evidence and confessions, so that you know the accusations of the court hold true. We will hear words from the only seers to survive this purposeful genocide. We will hear words from those who would defend the accused. And it is only when no more words are left to speak that we will ask you, our family, to decide where the fate of the accused lies.
“Do you understand your missive?”
There was a murmur of affirmative responses, and Mickey shifted next to me to whisper in my ear. “This isn’t a trial at all,” she said, sounding both excited and a little concerned. “It’s a sentencing.”
I nodded dully, trying to sit still and not let my brain shoot off at warp speed like it was often wont to do. I sure had imagined the trial going every which way but one, but none of those imaginary scenarios involved there being no trial at all.
Once more, I found myself far too surprised about a situation for being someone who could see the future, and I worried my lip as things began to start.
“We bring to you first the confessions of the accused, from their mouths to your ears. Their crimes are many, and terrible, but we ask that you listen to all of it, that you do not shy away from the truth. It is only by facing it that we can understand what has happened and begin retribution for those who have been hurt.”
The woman sat and another nodded to a couple of shorter men who were standing by the accused. There were no ropes or chains or anything that I could see, and yet none of them looked like they were going to bolt. Or fight back. Even the ones simmering with rage still sat patiently.
Was that the power of the Fey Court? Seemed like it. Even Bronn was ramrod straight beside me, tension radiating from him even as he held himself still.
It was Mavis that they brought forward first. She walked with her head low and refused to look at me. Refused to look at anyone, really. She just walked dutifully to the center of the circle and stood quietly.
“Accused, speak your truth.”
“My…truth?” She took a shaking breath. “I suppose that’s what it is, isn’t it? Truth, that is. I’ve spent these past couple of decades thinking that what my husband and I did didn’t define us. That we were who we were despite what we did. But I think… I think when you do something so horrible, it becomes exactly what defines you.”
“What were these horrible actions?”
“My husband and I participated in plots to kill seers before they could come to power, and facilitated in the deaths of at least...eight individuals. Maybe more.”
“And why did you and your compatriots target seers?”
“Well, for some of them, it was because they were scared of what would happen if that bloodline suddenly returned. I heard stories about wars over them, and how they were basically priceless. How tyrants had risen to power with just a single one to their name. They thought it was for the greater good, that they were protecting the rest of us, especially since peace with the dragons is still relatively new to us.”
Another in the circle stood, asking his questions slowly and measuredly. “You say ‘they.’ Did you and your husband not hold these beliefs?”
“…no. No, we didn’t.”
“Then why would you commit such violent acts against what were essentially children? The unborn, the sick, and the vulnerable?”
Mavis was quiet for a long moment, licking her lips and shivering slightly. Part of me automatically felt protective toward the woman. After all, she’d helped me so much as a kid. But that part was small compared to the angry, bitter part that screamed she had no right to look so helpless. No right to stand there and be sympathetic after everything she’d done.
“We… My husband and I had difficulty having children. The doctors said my uterus was a hostile environment and it wasn�
��t going to happen. So when we found out that we were pregnant after ten years of trying, and that we had a little girl, it felt like everything was finally falling into place.
“But then things started to go wrong. The pregnancy was much harder than expected. I had to go on bedrest for the entire last half and bills started to pile up. I went into labor early, and when our little girl was delivered, there were…there were complications.”
“Such as?”
“She was small, so small, even for us. And her heart wasn’t inside her body.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head up. Even with her lids shut tight, I could see the anguish on her features as she recalled that day. “It beat on the outside, you know. I can still see it, fluttering almost, it was so quick. There were surgeries that could help, but there would need to be several of them. And they were expensive. We quickly burned through our insurance. Then another mortgage on our house. She wasn’t even two when we were facing homelessness and her being turned down for a surgery that she needed to fully get her heart back inside.”
“And what would have happened if your daughter didn’t have this surgery?”
“She would have died.”
“Are you certain of that? Died how?”
“Yes, I’m certain. The doctors made it very clear to us that it was something that had to be addressed. As for how, there were too many ways to count. An infection could get into her newly-made chest cavity. Something could touch her heart and damage it. Arrythmia. Torn aortic valves. I can’t even list all the painful and horrifying ways they told me my little girl could die suddenly.
“And that was when Estelle came to us. She had connections. She knew doctors and lawyers and told us that she could get our little girl’s surgery covered. All we had to do was help them with…something.”
“And what was that something?”
Another pause. “She wanted us to spread gasoline at the site of two supposed seers and block all the exit routes.”
“And you did as such?”
