by D. N. Hoxa
Why couldn’t I turn to look at her?
“Please,” I said, trying to turn around with all my strength. It wasn’t working. “Please, I just want to see you one more time.”
The wind blew. The trees whispered. The sky groaned.
“Please!” I needed to see them. I needed to remember their faces while I faced death. They would be my rock, in death as they had been in life.
“Follow the pain,” they said, but I couldn’t tell which one of them said it.
And fire burned down my throat once more.
My eyes opened, and I found myself holding onto my neck, nearly choking. It felt like I couldn’t breathe, but air was sliding down my throat, filling my lungs. Had the fae made me drink something? Had he poisoned me, too? Because that’s what the poison had felt like—fire.
But when I raised my head and saw that the fae was on his bed and nobody else was in the room, I realized I wasn’t burning because I’d been poisoned. It was the pain coming from the fae that had my whole body shaking.
I couldn’t stand it. The gut-wrenching feeling consumed me completely. It was dark in the room now, the gas lamp was off, and only the moonlight shone through the windows. My teeth were chattering from the cold, but I barely noticed it. I just needed to take that pain, that’s all. Just the pain, and I’d be okay.
The inside of my mind still felt like a dream while I put my hand on the chain around my ankle. Magic shot out from me, cutting through everything in its path like a sword. I worked it around the thick lock with my mind until the lock clicked.
Had the sound woken the fae? I looked at the bed, just as he moved. He pushed off his thin blanket and moaned. The sound was filled with what I yearned for. If I’d had any doubts until then, they were wiped clean from my mind. It needed to stop—now.
I took the chains from around my ankle as slowly as my impatience allowed. I stood up, legs shaking, arms wrapped around myself. I walked to the bed and looked down at the naked torso of the fae, his arms spread wide to his sides, taking over the bed completely. His eyes were closed, his brows narrowed, the pain that was tormenting him now set free by his unconscious mind. I reached out my hand, the need to touch every one of his scars overwhelming, but I caught myself before my skin touched his.
The pain. That was all I was here for. And it called to me like an angel’s song.
I put my hands over his chest, as close as I could without touching him, and I closed my eyes. Then, my magic called. The pain heard. It responded eagerly, just like it always did, and then it began to fill me.
It happened rarely that an elf was blessed with an active kind of magic. We were made to withstand it, to resist the magic that the fae had in abundance. It served us well in the war, which was the only reason why we hadn’t been wiped clean off Gaena a long time ago.
But every once in a while, an elf was born with magic.
They call my kind Pain Seekers. We seek pain or the pain seeks us—I haven’t quite figured that part out yet. But pain fuels us. It fuels our magic and our souls, and it is irresistible. We consume it, take away the bad and the ugly, and in doing so, we heal.
We can also take away the good, if we wish. I could kill the fae within seconds now, and he wouldn’t even realize it. The more pain I took from him, the more the muscles on his face loosened up. He moaned, turning his head to the side, and it was less charged. Less heavy than before. The pain left him, and my magic healed him, closing the wounds that were still open.
My heartbeat slammed against my chest by the time I took the last bit of it. The new energy burned my skin but in a very different way now. The cold could no longer touch me.
The fae moved. He turned away from me for a second, then toward me very fast. I was frozen in front of his bed, looking down at him, my hand inches away from his body. Would he wake up?
His eyes remained closed. Every muscle in his body was relaxed now. No more pain plagued him. Like that, he looked…beautiful. Peaceful. A man, rather than fae or elf. Just a man, sleeping.
It made me want to be just a woman, sleeping, too.
Breathing in through my nose, afraid I’d wake him up, I stepped back toward the windows and to my chain. I saw the knives he had lined up on the stand next to his bed. I saw the handle of his sword peeking from under his pillow. I stopped moving once more.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to end this now, while I could? This man might torture me—rape me before he killed me, but what if he never had the chance? Any one of those knives by the bed would do, even the smallest one, small enough to hide in my palm. It would kill me if I used it properly.
But I was too much of a coward to take my own life.
Here I was, healing a man who’d spent his night murdering twelve of my own people, and I couldn’t find it in me to even hate him, let alone kill him. Or myself.
Maybe this was the fate I deserved. Maybe the gods were right in humiliating me like this, in taking away my life in this manner. I had never been normal. I had never wanted war. I had never seen the point of it. I had never hated the fae like I should have.
And maybe this was my punishment.
I went back to my place, chained myself to the wall again, and rested against the stool of the window. Like that, I waited for my last sunrise, while the fae slept peacefully behind me.
Chapter 4
Mace
The cold in the air gave me energy. I lay in bed, staring at the stone ceiling, wondering how this day would end.
Just another day. Just another fight. Just another waste. I’d get through it, no matter what I had to do.
For the first time since I came to this place, I wasn’t alone in my room. I could hear her breathing, could feel her shivering from the cold. She was an elf. She needed clothes in winter. How had I forgotten that?
I sat up silently, confused for a moment. Everything about this morning was different—and it wasn’t just the elf. It was my body, too. I looked down at my hands. My wounds from last night’s battle had healed, which was no surprise. The fae healed as fast as elves. But there was something more to it. I felt…good.
Was it the cold? Or maybe the Shade? With the amount of magic it had, it could be persuaded to do all kinds of miracles for you if it wanted, but I hadn’t asked the Shade for anything. So where was my energy coming from?
I looked ahead, at the elf standing in front of the windows, facing the rising sun. The orange glow bathed her, erasing every smear of dirt on her skin. Her hair, as white as the snow outside, almost touched the backs of her knees, and the wind blowing in moved it like it was playing with it. I couldn’t see her face, but I didn’t need to, to see her beauty. It was in the air around her, in the way she held her shoulders, in the way she breathed, in the way she enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her skin.
What was her story?
She was not a fighter. The night before, I’d gone close to her, to test her, and she hadn’t attacked like an elf soldier would, even when I’d reached for my sword. She hadn’t insulted me—she hadn’t spoken at all. The chain was still around her ankle. My sword and all my weapons were still exactly as I’d left them. I was normally a very light sleeper, so I knew I would hear her every movement when I slept the night before, but I hadn’t been entirely convinced that she wouldn’t break free.
Break free and kill me in my sleep.
I rubbed my eyes as the disappointment spread over me. Had I really gone to sleep with an elf in my room, hoping to die a quick death before the sun rose?
Weak, my father would say. Tame. You are no Winter prince, Maceno.
I pushed the cover to the side and stood up. The elf didn’t move at all, like the cold had frozen her in place. With my sword in hand, I went closer to her. I needed to finish this, before it messed up my already messed up head even more. She was an elf on faeland. There was no place for her here.
She needed to die. Her story didn’t matter. How she ended up here wasn’t my concern. All I had to do was run my sword through
her neck, and it would be over. I would have done what was expected of me.
The guilt overpowered my disappointment in a matter of seconds. It also made me angry. Where did it come from? Why did it always come for me? How dare I feel guilt for taking an elf life?
It is your birthright, Maceno. You were born for it.
I was born for this.
The guilt was unreasonable. If anything, I was doing her a favor. If I didn’t kill her now, somebody else would, and they wouldn’t be as merciful as me.
Merciful. A clean cut through the neck—that was all it was going to take.
As if she could hear the fight in my head, the elf turned around. She moved so gracefully, so soundlessly, like she was mute to the world. Dirt still covered her, but her cheeks were clean, revealing flawless ivory skin. Had she cried? Her big, sharp eyes almost shone like silver moons, and the sun at her back made her look like she was burning.
Peace on her face, on every line. She kept her hands to her sides to show me that she wasn’t going to fight me. She wasn’t a fighter. A maid, perhaps? Maybe an assistant? Or a soldier’s wife, lost in the battle?
I took another step closer and unsheathed my sword. I had to do this. I was strong enough.
But the guilt, my worst enemy, didn’t let me move.
Battles were a different story. On the battlefield, I fought to survive. I killed so I didn’t get killed.
Here, this elf was completely defenseless against me. She had no weapons. She wasn’t threatening my life in any way.
Who was I to take such beauty from the world? The excuse of war was not excuse enough. The pain spread in me, burning me from within. I held myself, never moving an inch, just like always. What went on inside me was not the world’s business. I’d learned to keep it in since I was a boy.
The elf closed her eyes, as if she was suddenly hurting. Her hand wrapped around her dress under her breasts. She held on tightly to the fabric, like she was afraid she would fall if she didn’t. The peacefulness was gone from her face. She now looked tortured.
“What is your name?” I heard myself asking. Her name didn’t matter, but I was curious. I had tried to talk to her the night before, but she had refused to say a single word. “Who are you?”
Silence was all she gave me. My hand shook together with the sword in it. Her eyes were still closed. It was the perfect opportunity to end this. There was no point in dragging it on. Her fate was already decided by the gods when she ended up in that carriage.
Guilt suffocated me.
I put my sword back in its sheath before I lost my mind.
The relief was instant. I was not going to kill this elf today. I was too much of a coward. And the moment I decided that, I could breathe easy.
The elf opened her eyes. She saw the sword in its sheath.
Surprised.
Confused.
Angry.
The emotions changed in her eyes as she watched me step back. A loud breath left her parted lips. I turned to my clothes, the need to be away from her overwhelming me. She was a testament of my weakness. I knew it, but out there, in the world, I could forget.
But before I left the room, I couldn’t help but look at her again. Another emotion filled her eyes. The desperation in them mirrored my own. I lowered my head and walked out of the room.
My brother mocked me without having to say a single word. I watched him atop his black stallion, riding toward me, contempt in his eyes, a smile on his face. I held onto the reins of Storm, my horse, and patted the side of her white neck when she moved to the side. My brother made her uncomfortable.
My brother made me uncomfortable, too.
Still, I put on my best smile when he was close enough to see it, then looked behind me at Chastin and Trinam on their own horses, ten feet behind me. I winked at them, as that was expected of me. I was expected not to care that my brother had come to meet with me today.
“Mace,” he called, his black horse stopping right in front of mine. Storm didn’t like it. At least the five soldiers who accompanied him stayed back a good distance and didn’t approach us. “Good to see you, brother.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Arin. I wish you hadn’t bothered,” I made myself say.
My brother didn’t look all that different from me. Six feet three inches tall, a head full of hair as black as his stallion’s. The only identical feature we shared were our eyes. Both of us, as well as our five other brothers had the same eyes—those of my father.
“Nonsense. I haven’t seen you in two months. I miss you, little brother.” He managed to make even those words mocking. “Tell me, how was last night’s battle? How many did you kill?”
And that was the reason why he’d come here, in the first place.
I was stationed at the edge of the Winter Court, right at the border of the elflands owned by House Moneir. Compared to all other border points between our lands, this place had the least battles because House Moneir wasn’t a House of soldiers. Most of them were farmers and relied on soldiers from the other elf Houses to protect them. That wasn’t to say that they wouldn’t attack when they saw an opportunity—like they had last night. It just meant the attacks weren’t as frequent.
The elf in my room had probably come from House Moneir, too. You could never tell by appearance. All elves had the same features—white hair, silver eyes, tipped ears. But the way she’d watched me, the way she’d already surrendered to death, made it obvious that she wasn’t a soldier.
“It was a good battle. We killed twelve. We would have killed more if they hadn’t retreated,” I told my brother with a grin.
“I mean, how many did you kill, personally?” Arin said.
I forced out a laugh. “Why do you think I keep count?” I shouted, then leaned closer to him on the horse, and whispered: “All of them.” Lie. I’d only killed two elves the night before. Their lives weighed down my shoulders, even now.
My brother laughed, his eyes sparkling with greed. He might not look like a warrior, with the brown fur wrapped around his shoulders, the silver emblem of our Court keeping it together—a circle with a naked tree in the middle, with branches that looked more like thorns. He preferred his books, Arin, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight. On the contrary. He was one of the best swordsmen I had ever fought against.
Back when I thought I alone could make a difference in Gaena.
Which was the reason why I was stationed in this gods’ forsaken place. Why my father had put me as far away from him and our people as he could, without officially banishing me from the Court. I still don’t understand why he didn’t. I’d betrayed him, the Court, the entire faefolk. I’d deliberately sabotaged a very important mission for him, and the penalty for everyone else was death.
Not for me, though. Not for the son of a king.
“That’s what I wanna hear, little brother,” Arin said, bringing his stallion to the side of Storm, so he could pat me on the back. I grinned for him, but on the inside, it was all I could do not to twist his arm and stab him in the heart for it. He belittled me in front of my men. Trinam I didn’t mind, but Chastin could see it, too.
I put my hand on his shoulder, too. “I know what’s expected of me, brother. Now go back and tell him that I’m doing my job, just like he wants me to,” I whispered.
His smile faltered as he leaned closer. “Be wary of ideas, Mace. They’re more dangerous than swords. But keep this up, kill as many elves as you can kill, and I promise you, by next winter, you will be home again. You will be forgiven.”
The thing I both wanted and hated most in the world, and he promised it to me like it mattered very little.
“We both know that’s not going to happen.” The Winter King was not one to forgive and forget. He might have let me live, but he was going to punish me for it for the rest of eternity. Pity, because I didn’t want to be part of this place anymore. I just wanted to go home.
“Just don’t do anything stupid again, and you might be surprised
. We’re in this together, brother. Remember who you are, and everything will fall in place.”
I remembered who I was every second. I was fae.
“Everything is already in place,” I told Arin. “I’m right where I want to be, and if I’m really lucky, they will attack us again tonight.”
The smile tried to reach his eyes but failed. He didn’t believe me, not because I was a bad liar—I was very good at it. But because I’d betrayed them once. They were always going to expect me to do it again.
“I will tell Father that. Maybe he’ll send some luck your way,” Arin said and straightened on his horse. “What else has been going on here? How are the soldiers treating you?”
The same way they were supposed to treat a traitor and a son of a king.
“They’re afraid of me. It’s all as it’s supposed to be.”
“Good,” my brother said.
“We have a slave!” Chastin called from his horse. Even the blood in my veins turned ice cold.
“A slave?” Arin turned to look at me, his black brows raised in question. “Why did I not hear of this?”
I shot a look at Chastin, then reminded myself why killing him now, here, was a bad idea.
“I was just about to tell you about it, actually. We found her in the battle last night. She’s from House Moneir—a maid, if I had to guess.”
“And where is she now?” Arin asked his eyes moving to the castle atop the hill. I could barely see the three windows that marked my room—and the elf wasn’t there. I don’t know why I was so relieved.
“Chained to my room.” I forced a grin on my face.
Arin laughed—and I knew exactly why. He thought exactly what I wanted him to think.
“Do I have to ask why she’s still alive?”
Because I’m weak. “There’s only one reason why, and you already know it.”
My brother, Chastin, and Trinam laughed their hearts out. I wasn’t required to in that situation—I was only expected to smile and look smug, and that was what I did.
