by J. Kearston
“How the hell can you not care?” I finally snap, storming across the room and snatching the knife on its descent before he can.
The blade digs into my palm, but I welcome the pain. Of everything that’s screaming in agony right now, this small knick is the least of my concerns. It gives me something to focus on, a problem that actually has a solution, yet the only one that I don’t care about.
Atlas sits up, swinging his legs over the side and resting his arms over his knees casually. “After all of this time, you honestly don’t believe I care about them just as much as you do? That I’m not freaking out too?” He looks me dead in the eye, pinning me with barely veiled fury that I recognize all too well. His eyes might as well be dark green mirrors reflecting my own turmoil. “What happened in that room, Lucien?”
The blood drains from my face, replaying all of it over. The pain, I can deal with; the feeling of the blade twisting in my shoulder, driving through my stomach when Victor snapped. The screams though...the screams, playing on repeat since I woke up.
A part of me wishes that Atlas didn’t come, that he’d left me for this cursed land to devour. At least while blacked out I had peace, a sweet reprieve. The silence in that room nearly broke me, but the screams will be the thing to drive me to insanity.
My voice sounds raw even to my ears. “Maddox was his brother.”
Atlas’ eyes widen and the hostility in them ebbs. “No, you were his brother, blood or not.”
The words just feel so false, so meaningless. I can still picture his face, cold and lifeless. “He was right. His death was as good as my fault.”
Atlas rises to his feet, prying his knife free of my grip and it’s only then that I realize how tightly I was clenching it. “No, it was my father’s and we all know it. Neither of our hands are clean; we can’t shoulder other people’s sins too.”
My stomach churns, causing the wound on my stomach to send a sharp stab of pain through my gut. It’s cauterized, from the ring, supposedly, but far from healed. I earned every one of the strikes and then some, but I have a feeling even death wouldn’t wash away my guilt, balance my cosmic scales.
And now, because of Cambria, I don’t even get death as something to look forward to. Life is only bearable because we know it will end sooner rather than later, forcing us to put one foot in front of another before we’re out of time. The promise of rest, no matter how much we have to suffer before earning it.
“How bad was she?” My voice is hardly more than a whisper. He said she was in a worse state than me, but that’s it. But the way she screamed...
Atlas says nothing, his jaw tightly clenched as his eyes flick away from me.
“Atlas.”
He rakes a hand through his hair, walking away from me to sink into a chair by the table. “I’m surprised she was still breathing, okay? Can we just leave it at that?”
My eyes close as my stomach plummets and I fight the urge to vomit again. But despite Achlys sending fae to stock the house with food, I can’t bring myself to touch any of it. How can I just sit around, eating and lounging while the rest of my family is enduring gods only know what? So my stomach remains empty; a blessing right about now.
“We should check in with Achlys, see if she’s made a decision yet.” I sit across from Atlas, who’s now taken to carving into the table top to keep his hands busy and thoughts distracted.
“Rushing a queen never ends well, no matter who you are. But I wouldn’t hold my breath, Luce. She didn’t send her forces to rescue Cambria when she actually knew where she was. We don’t even have a direction for her this time. The light and shadow court, the wasteland... You heard what she said; a small blip of land on the massive world of Faerie, no different than a continent on Earth. She’s not going to just scatter her forces when she’s scared of the changelings showing up at her door.”
Resting my elbows on the table, I cradle my head in my hands. “Like finding two yellow needles in a haystack the size of Europe.”
Atlas gouges the wood, chipping away at the solid surface. “Give the two of them more credit. Cambria isn’t going down without a fight.”
“And Dorian?” I glance up, eyeing the pattern he’s carving.
Atlas doesn’t even hesitate. “We might have tried to protect him from the worst of things, but he isn’t stupid. He knew, and by the way he handled that axe, he practiced something behind our backs.” A small, sad smile appears on his face. “I couldn’t have gotten us out without him; even if his aim was a little rusty.”
He swipes his hand over the surface, brushing away the shavings before continuing. “So trust them to love you enough to come back without you pulling the strings to orchestrate it, yeah?”
My back stiffens. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
He raises an eyebrow in challenge, but doesn’t deign to look at me. Whatever he went through in that place changed him as much as it did me, and I doubt any of us can go back to the way we were before. Things were hard then, but they seem so impossible now.
“That’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? You control everything happening around you, making a mental checklist to ensure we’re all getting everything that we need to stay content and happy so we’ll have no reason to leave, so we’ll be forced to rely on you. To stay.” His blade digs in deeper, shaking the table. “Because you’re terrified of being alone. For all your claims of despising chaos and noise, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without it. You’re so convinced that no one would stick around without a reason, so you just keep creating more.”
I grind my teeth, the sound of my blood roaring in my ears, trying to block out the verbal jabs. Because if he’s right...then all of it’s meaningless. Everything that I’ve spent so long cultivating; my business, Dorian, Atlas, my relationship with Cambria. The looks she’s given me, everything she’s said...
Worthless if it wasn’t real.
Sucking down air, it just doesn’t seem to ever completely fill my lungs. “I had nothing else to give.” The words sound as broken as I feel.
He scoffs and I slam my hand on the table, rage growing. He sits here so indifferent, judging like he has everything togeth-
Motherfucker.
“What did you do?” I hiss and he gives me a strange look. I lean forward, nails digging into the table.
“Hell are you talking about?” he demands, not bothering to get up as I stand.
I gesture to him, nostrils flared. “Is this all some sort of game to you? Trying to get a rise out of me by mocking me? Indifferent, cold; I get it, alright? How much you clearly fucking hate me and have just been waiting for the right time to clue me in.”
Shoving away from the table so that I don’t have to look at him, I return to my pacing, anything to burn up the volatile energy thrumming through my veins. “I tried, okay? For the three of you, I fucking tried. You make it seem so damn easy to connect to people, to read between the lines when they’re acting off. It doesn’t work like that for me!” I’m shouting at this point, but now that the floodgates are opened, they’re impossible to shut. “I can’t just sit there and be happy without analyzing the why behind it, what caused it so I can replicate it.”
“Luce,” he states, but I just flip him off without looking.
“So yeah, I can see how that makes it look like I was trying to manipulate you, but that wasn’t it at all. I have to know how to act so I don’t let anyone down, so they aren’t miserable because of me, an-“
“Lucien!”
Whirling to face him, I feel the heat in my cheeks, know my neck must be tinted red. I just glare at this man that I’ve grossly misread all of these years, wondering when exactly it all started to go wrong.
The hatred bleeds from his eyes and he just stares at me with pity. Fucking pity. “I think we figured out what ability you manifested.”
My heart stutters, taking some of the wind from my sails. “What do you mean?”
He smirks, and I want nothing more tha
n to drive my fist into his smug cheek. “Cambria can manipulate emotions. But it looks like you don’t need sheet music to pull it off and you’re manipulating yourself for a change. Fuck, this is beautiful. The unflappable Lucien Avrell grew himself a heart, and it runs on fairy dust and glitter.” He dramatically wiggles his fingers and starts laughing as said heart plummets into my stomach.
And I cold cock him in the face.
Chapter 6
Dorian
We approach the outskirts of the city, entering without issue. My heart hammers, fueled by a sense of urgency and fear of being caught. Last minute, Cambria changed the angle she wanted to play things, as nervous as I am about pulling this off. It took a bit to get the point across, but she got through to the changeling that she needed help funneling energy into me, not as proficient in using the ability to heal people besides herself.
I don’t understand the intricacies and subtle nuances involving the transfer of energy and its capabilities, but I’m certainly not going to sneeze at getting my brutalized back healed and able to walk without pain. Though it makes me appreciate on an entirely new level what she must have gone through growing up if she still has this many scars despite having the ability.
“If it was this easy,” I mutter, barely audible as she leans in to hear, “then why?” There’s no need to point out that I mean what she did to her face and arms.
“I’m not the only one that can see through glamour, remember? This only works if we act fae.”
“You are fae.”
She scoffs. “Insult me to my face, why don’t ya?”
My lip twitches, but I bite back my retort, going along with the plan. I walk with my head held high, as does Cambria. But occasionally she’ll limp once, like her leg is bugging her, and rub at her thigh discreetly. Never for more than two seconds and with a lengthy pause in between acts as I keep my eyes ahead, seemingly oblivious.
We pass by dozens of people without incident, but by the furrowed brow of the man’s eyes that glance at us a second time, I know we have a bite. We carry on as if we haven’t noticed though, and it raises the hairs on the nape of my neck as he starts following us, to give him our backs and out of my line of sight.
We make it several more city blocks, turning a corner towards the poorer section of town. As opposed to the slums under Elorie’s reign, the ones here are just a simpler sort of beauty. The buildings are smaller, made of painted brick. My eyes narrow on that simple fact and I glance at Cambria with a raised eyebrow, the silent question clear on my face.
“Don’t need to pay someone to glamour the buildings or top off the energy to maintain the illusion,” she murmurs, cocking her head to study the sight.
Whoever created it must have spent a year coming up with the design alone. If you stand at the end of the street, the sides of the two buildings on opposite sides of the street make up a picture split in half. But if you shift to one sidewalk and peer down at several shops at an angle, a different image, split in several pieces that have to align just so to become complete. All of the buildings have the same style, like they’re part of a complicated web weaved of paint and one person’s dreams.
“Hey, you alright?” I startle as the man speaks at last, and Cambria pivots slowly, raking her gaze over our stalker.
“Fine.” Her retort is succinct, dismissive. Yet it just causes the man’s eyes to narrow at her defensiveness.
“Don’t look fine,” he challenges, gesturing towards her face and Cambria grits her teeth.
I narrow my eyes at her like we discussed. Two plans, based off of how long it took for someone to notice us. One for if that person watched us enter the city together, and the other for if we were already well in.
“What’s he talking about, love?” My voice is accusatory, forcing hurt and suspicion into my tone.
The man licks his lips, eyes sparkling at the discord his words caused. “The city’s usually pretty peaceful. Whoever decided to mar that pretty face of yours should be reported so that we can handle it.”
My heart skips a beat. We, he says. Like he’s part of the guard, simply out of uniform.
My head whips towards Cambria, fully immersing myself in my role. Palming her cheek, I turn her to face me with a furrowed brow before pulling my hand away, sticky with blood. She reopened the wound just before we crested the last hill, subtly wiping away the dripping blood and using it to coat the marks on her hands that she couldn’t fully conceal, smearing it on her tattered shirt.
“What the fuck, Wren?” We agreed to fake names for this, pulling them from her favorite author’s books.
She glances away, shifting from foot to foot. “I didn’t want you to know. You warned me to stay out of the woods right now with everything going on, but I thought you were being ridiculous and paranoid.” She wraps her arms around her middle and risks a nervous glance at my face. “I didn’t want you to think I was useless.”
The guard glances between the two of us, making his own assumptions. I tilt her chin up and kiss her gently. “Never. It’s just my job to keep you safe until the others come home.” I give her a playful wink to see I’m not mad, just worried. “But you sure like to make that job a challenge.” The playful air dissipates as I hold her out at arm’s length. “How bad?”
She bites her lower lip, dropping her glamour for only a heartbeat before many people around us can get an eyeful. My face twists into a growl as I pull her against my body in a crushing embrace.
“The Mother help me. What the hell happened?”
The stranger’s eyes widen a fraction, like he couldn’t see the complete extent of the damage despite seeing through most of her glamour. “May I?” He offers a hand, palm up, and Cambria hesitantly puts her hand in his.
The undercover guard closes his eyes and the air around him seems to buzz. Cambria’s silver eyes flash, the color swirling like a mist of clouds in her irises. The snake around my neck starts to stir and I bite the inside of my cheek, stroking it and mentally screaming for him not to strike out at the guard, drawn to the power he’s using.
When the man takes a step back, Cambria gently probes the wound on her cheek, her fingers coming away with only the remnants of dried blood instead of anything fresh. He gives her a once over before speaking, lacing authority into his voice.
“Now, what happened?” He leaves no more room for deflection, crossing his arms over his chest. The sun glints off of his dark skin, his golden eyes laser focused on Cambria and mouth pressed into a thin line.
She gulps before rushing out, “There was some girl, and I thought she was lost. Dirty, like she’d been sleeping in the woods. I tried to help, but...” She swallows again, forcing her eyes to turn glassy and I have to remind myself that it’s all bullshit. “It was a trap.” Color rises to her cheeks in a perfect show of deceit, running the emotional gauntlet and getting incensed. “They didn’t even use any abilities, nothing better than the humans.”
She makes a show of taking a breath to compose herself. “She took everything. Forced me to switch clothes while one of her men held a knife to my throat.” A tear tracks down her face, delicate beneath her glamour, but splashing red on the sidewalk as it trailed through the concealed, drying blood. She tentatively brushes her fingertips over where her cheek was just split. “And she did this to buy themselves a head start.”
The guard’s eyes are furious, but in them is a spark of excitement. He knows exactly who she’s talking about and no doubt the price tag that goes along with it. “Where?” he barks and Cambria rattles off a description. He jerks his head in a sharp nod and turns on his heel, calling over his shoulder. “Get yourself cleaned up before anyone else sees through your mask. We don’t want to start a panic or rumors that Altheon isn’t safe; go straight home.” He strides off, each sure step radiating determination and power that has those he passes stepping aside quickly.
I turn back to Cambria, whose eyes are closed in relief. “What next, gorgeous?”
With a devilish
grin as she opens her eyes, she whips her hand out of her back pocket with a flourish to show a wallet. “Now, we get some new clothes and something to eat.”
***
Walking down the street in our new clothes, travel cloaks fastened and billowing behind us, I reach inside of the messenger bag slung over my shoulder, using the fabric of the dark green cloak to conceal it at my hip. My stowaway flicks a tongue over the pad of my finger before striking, and I wince as the razor sharp teeth bury into my flesh. A small bit of fear keeps my heart rate spiked until he removes his teeth, flicking a tongue over the punctures to seal them.
I’ve watched firsthand as he devoured someone, and all I have to ensure that I don’t meet the same fate is fragile, tentative trust, and loose interpretations of a fool’s bargain. But kindness breeds loyalty, and in a world that’s been so cruel to them, my actions carry weight.
It helps to keep the edge of hunger at bay, ensures the changeling doesn’t escape and starts sucking the fae dry around us, blowing our plan to smithereens. Cambria passes me an apple from her own satchel wordlessly, eyes flicking to my bag with concern, but saying nothing.
I always thought that if I was going to be someone’s blood slave, it’d be a bombshell vampire and end in orgasms. But sadly, I ended up in a magical war instead of an erotic anime. Life sucks like that sometimes.
“Karma?”
“Karma?” It takes her a second before it clicks and she laughs. “Karma, karma, chameleon?”
I grin, but it slowly fades away as the changeling slithers out of the bag, getting annoyed at staying trapped in the dark. I look the little creature in the eye, seeming far too cognizant for what it can articulate. A lifetime of misery is held in those obsidian orbs, a shadowy prison in their own right.
“Azazel.”
Helping the snake settle back around my throat as we near the edge of the city, Cambria watches me with a rueful smile. “The scapegoat.” She shakes her head sadly, reaching over to stroke a finger over his head and down his body. “Perfectly poetic for the little demon of legend.”
