“Do not try to speak,” Adam warned. “I will only make it more painful for you.” I could not begin to understand what he felt, or what he’d been through. I could not process years and years of whatever pain he had known. I could only watch.
We could only watch.
But watching was the problem.
“Argh!”
I immediately jerked to attention, screaming, “Adam!” Because he was not standing any longer, not looming over her.
He was down, a thin blond form on top of him, scrambling to grab him.
“Wren,” Luka’s arms caught me, holding me back as I struggled, furiously wailing. Adam was on the ground, Adam had been knocked down, there was someone on him—
Theo. His hands were wrapped around Adam’s throat.
“You will not kill her!” The King yelled. I knocked Luka over as I scrambled underneath him, desperate to grab purchase as the others could only watch as just feet away Adam struggled for his life. “Try as you like, you cannot hurt me! We made a deal, lest you forget,” Theo’s hands tightened around Adam’s throat, struggling to close off his air.
And Adam didn’t even raise his arms.
“A fae mark,” I heard Kristin whisper hollowly as I tried to elbow Luka, successfully knocking him off me a little. “No wonder.”
There was no use fighting. If Adam so much as raised a hand, the fae mark on his neck would rebel against him, forcing him to pay for the bargain he had not fulfilled.
“You can’t save him,” Luka said, pinning me down to the ground. “Don’t try to save him, Wren.” He was begging me, pleading me to stay.
But how could I not? How could I not save him? I was his only chance. Even if I had to die, I would do it, because Adam couldn’t defend himself, not anymore.
“Adam,” I wailed, fresh tears traveling down my face as I grabbed fistfuls of grass, the sun rising in the background. “Adam!”
“You were mine,” Theo said, his hand pinning Adam’s head to the ground. “You were always mine. From the moment you were born, until the moment you die, you will still be mine. You were born to serve me, just as your kids will be, just as their children will be, and just as your father before you was. Do not forget that I own you.” Theo snarled, leering down at Adam, “do not let that stupid girl change anything. You love me just as you were meant to, you will protect me just as you were meant to. You are mine.”
I thought I would kill Luka, that I would be the one to strangle him as we struggled, my eyes only briefly catching Adam’s expression as a wave of calm overcame him.
He was going to accept it.
“Adam!” I didn’t even know if he could hear me. “Adam, please.” He had to get away somehow. He had to push him off, squirm away, or something--
“Shhh,” Luka tried to calm me, his voice shaky as he shoved his hand over my mouth. “Wren, please.” And yet I couldn’t even breathe. “Wren, I love you, but you can’t fix this. You can’t save him. I will not see you die too.”
Adam looked at Theo and I stopped fighting and started whimpering. Started wishing that I could stop it all.
He was gone. Lost to us.
“I do love you,” Adam said, and I gave up the struggle, gave up the fight. Because he was gone, and there was no point. “I have always loved you, and I always will. In ways that you cannot understand, in ways that the world frowns upon. I have loved you a million times over, Theo.” His voice was soft, gentle even, I saw the man above him stiffen as Adam’s eyes met his. What did he see? I imagined it was the same thing I saw in Luka’s eyes just that morning, an endless promise tinged by sadness, by a wish for the impossible.
The world went silent. I could only hear the rushing of my blood through my veins, and the strong heartbeat above me. There might have been noise, but I did not hear it. It did not reach me.
“And that’s why I cannot let you become this.”
And then he was not Adam Harlow anymore, but flames.
I don’t know if Theo’s scream or Camden’s was louder.
All I knew was the fire. Endless fire. A blaze that overcame both Adam and Theo, that sent Adam curling into the ground and Theo reeling backwards, his hands alight as he tried desperately to put them out. The King stumbled, falling next to Camden, and then they sunk, right into the ground, the fire reaching at the very last moment to the edge of the crater.
Luka held me against him, trying to protect me from the sight. He was scared, terrified even.
A solitary scream hit the air.
“Adam.” It wasn’t me who spoke, and it wasn’t me who screamed. No, I was too busy choking on tears, my stomach rebelling at the reality I had witnessed.
I would not have been able to save him.
I knew that.
Nothing I could have done would have stopped it.
I felt my body seize, the whole world crashing down around me.
“Wren,” Luka’s voice was at my ear as someone else took off up the hill. “Wren, Wren, Wren,” he repeated my name as if to confirm that I was really there, that I was still this tangible thing. He pulled me to his chest, tears escaping him and soaking through the shoulder of my worn-down tunic. “Wren, Nettles. You’re still here. You’re still okay. I need you to hear me. Don’t look away.”
I wailed, my forehead pressing against his chest as I clawed desperately at him, needing to be closer. Adam. I’d been so terrified of him once, of everything he represented. But he was my friend, he called me his other half, a compliment to who I was. He was like me, even when I hated him, he was like me. I loved him.
It wasn’t the same love as what I felt for Luka, or that which coursed through Adam’s veins for Theo. But it was love all the same. Love for someone I knew dearly.
Luka pulled me up, hesitant to move up the mountain but also far more wary of upsetting me further. I needed to go there, I knew it. I had to see Adam one last time. The mountain had stopped shaking, but how long would that last? This was my only chance to say goodbye, or so I thought.
“You wake up, you bastard! For god’s sake!” I heard Kristin growl as we grew closer, along with the harsh slap of a hand across skin. But Adam didn’t wake up, Adam wasn’t there anymore—someone had to tell Kristin that. “You will not die today. You listen to me; you will not die today. You stay awake. Don’t leave me here without you.”
My heart stopped at the sound that followed, my hand dropping Luka’s and my body charging at the noise.
“It hurts,” a hoarse voice whispered. “I have not known a greater pain.”
Luka rushed after me, the two of us stumbling as we made our way up the steep slope.
“Someone get up here and singe this mark off,” Kristin demanded as my eyes met Luka’s, Luka pulling me back to my feet one last time before we reached the top. “Now!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“You’re going to make a deal with me,” Kristin said. Adam’s head sat in his lap as my hand rested on Adam’s neck, the man barely breathing as he looked up at everyone. I gritted my teeth at the raw, angry skin beneath mine. This was the solution, the only thing we could think to do. He was still alive; I wasn’t going to let him die. “You’re going to sit up and you’re going to make a deal with me,” Kristin insisted. “Because otherwise you are going to die.”
“What do you know about deals,” Adam hissed as he writhed in pain.
“Believe it or not,” Kristin said with a charming grin that I think was meant to distract the man, “Luka and I have the same father, and he was a man of science.” Never mind the fact that there was no science to magic. I took the smile as my sign to shock Adam once again, slowly scabbing over the scar that sat at the base of his neck.
Adam laid across Kristin’s lap, his body soaked in sweat, his eyes clenched shut in pain. Every second another rush of agony raced through him, the consequences to breaking a deal with a fae. Theo had asked for something in return, Adam’s protection, and Adam had failed to protect him. Now, as a human, there was only one option, the r
eason why fae marks were never to be taken lightly.
When he was on that hill, when he was writhing in agony, that was just the beginning. There were dire consequences to breaking a deal with a fae. He had to have known that. He had to have been aware when he went against Theo that were would be an aftermath.
But he seemed all too willing to die. In fact, I think he wanted it.
No, I knew he wanted it, seeing as how he refused to make any sort of deal or accept the bargain Kristin was trying to make with him, one which could have saved his life. He didn’t care that the people around him didn’t want him to die. In fact, the fact that death was on the table seemed quite enticing for him.
“Another round,” Kristin commanded, and I sent another sting of electricity across Adam’s skin.
“Believe it or not, I can barely feel it,” Adam breathed, his tears long since having dried up as the agony forced sweat out of every pore. “Everything is becoming numb.”
“Make a deal with me,” Kristin grunted, slapping Adam again. He was awfully rough with the nearly dead. “I will heal you, so just accept it and take the stupid deal.”
“I am a traitor, and I have nothing to give you,” Adam said, looking at his friend. “I’m the King’s dog.”
“You’re an idiot is what you are,” Kristin cut in, his voice still kind but his words sounding more like Luka’s every minute. “Now take my offer, give me something in kind. Accept the bargain. You’re not going to die tonight.”
“I deserve to die,” Adam insisted.
Lindy kneeled by his side, growling into Adam’s ear, “accept the bargain, dog.” She was not giving up on him. This was how it was meant to go, it seemed, all of us gathered around him trying and failing to bargain with him, to get him to give Kristin anything of value, or to accept Kristin’s offer. Winry was not strong enough to make a mark, and Luka?
Adam would never negotiate with Luka.
“Eternal servitude, a cup of coffee in the mornings, half of your earnings for the rest of your life—I do not care, Harlow, just give me something and make it last, because unfortunately it is a requirement for you to die with me rather than right now,” Kristin insisted. “Offer to drive me back from the bars, to keep me from walking in the woods when I’ve had too many—Something, anything. You’re my friend, you idiot. Don’t die on me.”
“I have nothing,” Adam said. “Nothing at all. Not anymore.” A part of me was angered enough to leave him to die if he wanted it so badly. It was a shame that I was so dedicated to the whole keeping him alive thing.
“You’re friends, right?” Luka asked Adam. “How long have you been friends?”
“For a while,” Adam said, struggling to close his eyes but finding that every time he tried, a sting of cold awakened him.
“How long did you plan on being friends?” Luka tried. He was very obviously angling for something immense like, ‘for the rest of our lives’.
“I’m not stupid,” Adam scoffed, his voice trailing off as his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “Let me die,” he said quietly.
“Promise to kill me if I save your life,” Kristin attempted, patting the man’s face. “You don’t have to do it right away.”
“Let me die,” Adam reiterated, flinching as another round of pain overtook him, dragging him closer and closer to the end. “You two just let me die,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “I’ve had enough of you Kinsleys.”
“Make a promise, fire man,” Lindy howled, punching his chest. “Promise the man something.”
I felt Adam’s skin beneath my fingers scabbing over, the wound’s healing process accelerated by Kristin’s magic. Theo’s mark was gone.
However, even though he was released from his bargain; he had failed to do as he promised or make it up somehow. Adam’s life was no longer tied to Theo’s. Adam’s life was tied to nothing—it was no longer his to have.
“I promise you this,” gasped Adam, his back arching from the overwhelming pain. Perhaps he could see a white light, the one that would take him away from this hell and give him some sense of peace. I think he wanted it to be his last moment. “When I die, I will walk beside you and watch over you—”
“I’ll take it,” sighed Kristin, smashing his mouth down onto Adam’s. At first Adam was motionless, but then he realized what was happening and he struggled, trying to push Kristin off. Kristin pulled back with a pop and Adam stared back at him wide eyed.
His chest rose and fell in rapid succession, his mouth slightly open as he gaped at the boldness of his friend.
“Enjoy the bond,” said Kristin, wiping his lips off with the back of his hand. “I won’t be taking it back, so.” A small scar formed at the side of Adam’s lip as Kristin stood up, walking away, likely not wanting to argue with Adam about what he had just done.
Adam realized that he was not going to die.
His lungs emptied themselves with a wheeze, the shock still painted across his features as he laid back, staring up at the sky. For a moment, he said nothing.
No one said anything as the color returned to his cheeks and the bags left his eyes; he was healing. I think we could only watch. It was amazing, in a way. I think it was the biggest relief I’d had that day.
“Adam?” I asked, my hands pulling away from him, shaking with relief. He was so inordinately quiet.
“I should have promised to kill him,” muttered Adam, touching his lips and then frowning at his hand. “Kristin Kinsley,” he said, “that awful drunk.”
“Who just saved your life,” corrected Luka, standing up from him. “Despite everything you’ve done, and the hand you played in helping to ruin the life he knew.”
“And tied it to his,” Adam informed him, sounding almost amused. “For however long he lives.” He didn’t look mad, not in the slightest, just amazed at his new situation.
“It could be worse,” Luka said, offering his hand to me as everyone began to pull away from Adam, allowing him his moment. I took Luka’s hand, letting him help me up, still jarred by all that had happened. “Your life could be tied to mine,” he chided, his thumb running over the back of my hand as he pulled me to his side.
Something flickered across Adam’s face at that, a strange look overcoming his features as he looked at the two of us. And then, a laugh, a soft laugh that I didn’t understand. Maybe Adam was just happy to be alive. I hoped that was true.
Luka and I sat shoulder to shoulder on the mountain, so much of it having crumbled away. The rocks had finally settled and, from where we sat, we could look up and see the lights on in the palace—all of the lights. No doubt that they were all lit at once, announcing the return of the King.
Where he would sit and wonder. Where the woman beside him would whisper vile things to him, planning her revenge. Where they would wait, trying to figure out another way to hold their power.
The palace, with all of its towers and blazing lights, looked like a candle. It burned and flickered like a flame, warding off the Unseelie—at least for the time being. The palace served as a beacon, shining in the distance to remind its subjects of the horrors that were in our midst. Little did the subjects know that the real terrors of Whynne resided within that very same palace.
“The world changes,” Adam said to Luka and I as we stared towards the palace, likely knowing what both of us were thinking. “Stories change, people move on. Sometimes you are the bad guy, and sometimes you are the good guy. Sometimes you trust the wrong people, and sometimes you find your place.” He knelt beside us, his voice sounding like how I imagined an older brother’s would, “you can be the good guy in one story, and the bad guy in another.”
“But that’s the king,” I said sadly, tucking my knees into my chest, “he is the country.”
“Theo is far from the country of Whynne,” Adam reassured, patting my shoulder. “a ruler does not make the country, it’s the people in it who decide what it will become.”
“And what is Whynne now?” I asked.
“Ours,” Adam said with a shrug, as if it was as simple as that. “If we want it, it’s ours.”
I frowned, looking up at him as he made to leave. His face was neither happy nor sad, just that of a man who did not know where his life would go next.
“He’s right,” Luka said. “If we want it,” he repeated, his hand reaching for mine, “it’s ours.” But that did not settle me.
The future loomed over us, an ominous cloud. What would we do?
Hours passed, yet we had barely moved. All we did was head a little further into the forest, to an area where the trees were sparse and the view was clearer. An area that was declared safe, for the moment, seeing as how no one could make the journey back down, not yet.
And as the King’s guards had not yet returned to the forest, we could stay there while we waited for daylight to hit and the exhaustion of fighting to leave our muscles.
We needed our spirits to return and the shock of what had happened to fade away.
“What do we do now?” I asked Luka, settling into his side. Behind us, everyone else gathered around a fire, so far unbothered by the Unseelie. Our group ate what little they could find and basked in the heat of the flames of their campfire. Nothing had come for us yet, not from the woods. It almost seemed like the Unseelie and the trees had parted for us as we began to leave the forest.
I think it was an act of thankfulness on the Unseelie’s part, one to reward the group for not having destroyed them and the home they lived in. Likely the truce would be broken tomorrow. Likely, the Gancanagh still wandered the forest.
We could not stay in the woods, not forever. Not as we were.
“What do you think they want to do?” Luka asked, his eyes only momentarily looking back to them. At the fire, Kristin was showing Lindy how to properly skewer something, a squirrel I think, while Winry grimaced and Adam sat by her side still occasionally looking rather put off by the whole living thing.
“I think Lindy is the only one who can go home, and that’s if she’s lucky,” I said. There was no way the others could return to Whynne, not after this. “The Laurents have a house in Audon, I’m sure Winry wants to go there, she was never one for violence, believe it or not. Maybe she could stay there for a while, she could grow a garden even, since there is a yard. But…”
Quill and Cobweb (The Chronicles of Whynne Book 2) Page 24
