by D. N. Hoxa
But until then, I had a battle to get to and an elf to see back in the Shade. I walked out of the hallway with my head high and led my men to end lives or to be ended.
Chapter 26
Elo
I opened the door and looked out at the dining hall, completely empty. It had been that way all morning. I doubted anybody would come, but I still felt like I was walking on needles as I made my way down the stairs to find food.
The prince had been gone for two days now, and there was no sign of him coming back soon. His people hadn’t brought me food, but that was okay. Each day, I’d gone out and I’d taken all the food I needed, everything I could find.
Each day, the three fae women who were always in the dining hall, cleaning, rearranging things, never stopped me. That didn’t make me less nervous. Perhaps it was Hiss. I’d felt perfectly comfortable taking food from the counter when he’d been here with me.
But he hadn't returned, either.
I found half a bread loaf in the wooden box at the edge of the counter and some fresh vegetables on the other side. I had to climb on a stool to reach them, but I got everything I could carry. It would be more than enough for the day.
I didn't notice anyone coming in from anywhere. No door opened so the fae woman must have already been there, possibly in the kitchen behind the counter. I only heard her when she put her hand over the countertop.
I jumped, holding the food against my chest, startled. Not that I feared what they could do to me—I'd already decided two days ago that death was no longer an option. I was going to fight against whoever wanted to bring it for me, and there was little doubt in my mind that I would win. I had the element of surprise. None of these people here knew about the magic that infused my veins.
But the fae woman didn’t attack me. Instead, she simply looked at me and took her hand back, leaving behind a leather tie on the shiny countertop.
“For your hair. It’s awfully long,” she said with a flinch. In her other hand were three baskets, all of them empty, and she walked around me to the other side to put them in their places. As she did, every time her right foot connected with the floor, she felt a stabbing pain shoot up across her leg. My magic only picked it up when she passed by me. It wasn’t a lot of pain—very little. Possibly a broken bone that hadn’t healed right. She would have to break it again for it to heal and the pain to pass, but I doubted she would agree to that.
More confused than before, I slowly moved to the leather tie and grabbed it in my hand, barely holding onto the food against my chest.
“Thank you,” I whispered, despite myself.
“Don't thank me. It bothers me to just look at it all over you like that. I can’t imagine what it feels like to you.” She took a rag from the other side of the counter—just reached out her hand without looking, like she knew exactly where it would be. And she started to clean the already clean countertop.
I hadn’t seen her as often as the other two, but I had seen her plenty of times. Her grey dress covered most of her body, except her hands, and her dark brown hair didn’t look as dark as from afar. She had it tied up in a delicate bun behind her head, not a strand out of place.
“Actually, it doesn't really bother me.” Especially now that it was clean. I’d cleaned it myself, too, the night before, in the tub. Now it was soft, and it felt good around my shoulders, when I wasn’t wearing the cardigan the prince had left for me. The entire room of the prince was now very warm, like on a summer day, thanks to the Shade, but out here in the dining hall, it was still cold.
The fae woman looked at me, her black eyes analyzing me for a second. “I suppose it wouldn’t bother me, either, if I was a prince’s whore with death closer than the collar of my dress is to my neck.” She shook her head, but at least she stopped pretending to clean the countertop.
“When is he coming back? Do you know?” I asked, then bit my tongue in regret. I shouldn’t have said that.
It didn’t surprise the fae woman, though. Not in the least. “Possibly tomorrow, but what do I know? I’m just a cook. Go now, elf. Enjoy your food. Maybe it will be your last.”
Maybe the loneliness and the isolation had messed with my mind, but I could have sworn I saw pity in her eyes. Pity—for an elf. She pressed her lips into a forced smile and waved toward the prince’s room. I bowed my head slightly and did as she asked.
I had always hated pity in the eyes of anyone who looked at me, especially after my parents died, but this pity I cherished. It wasn't hate. It was a sign, if I had ever received one.
When I walked back into the room, I almost dropped all the food from my arms again.
Hiss was lying on the prince’s bed, his tail wrapped in a bundle beneath him, a smile on his strange face.
“Hello, Pain Seeker,” he said, his tongue slithering out from between his curved fangs.
“You scared me, Hiss,” I whispered and pushed the door closed with my foot. I put the food and the leather tie on the desk, where there were two gas lamps, both empty. I hadn’t bothered to take a new one the night before because the Shade had given me light. All I’d had to do was remember the blue balls floating in the air in the cave below us and ask it for them. It had complied, and they’d shone over my head while I slept until sunrise.
“That was not my intention,” Hiss said. “What do you have there? I love fresh tomatoes.”
I smiled. “Where have you been? I missed you.” I missed the prince, too. Would I tell him that when he came back? Hopefully not.
“Wandering, as always,” he said, and all his ten golden eyes gleamed as he watched me take a tomato to the faucet to wash it. The painting was still there, on the wall of the bathroom. I wondered if the prince would see it the next time.
I was always wondering about him lately.
“You look…different,” Hiss said when I put the tomato on the stone floor. He’d make a mess out of the bed if he ate it there. He didn't seem to mind. His black wings sprouted, and he jumped to the floor eagerly.
“I feel different, too. You will never guess what happened.”
His fangs were halfway to the tomato when he raised his head again to look at me. “Oh?”
“I was in the New Orleans Shade. With the prince,” I started, as if I’d been yearning to share this story with someone since it happened. Maybe I really had been.
His tongue slithered out and he started climbing up my leg until he stopped on my lap, the tomato forgotten.
“Tell me everything.”
For the next hour, we ate, and I told him everything that had happened while he was away. Hiss listened intently, absorbing every word that came out of my mouth, asking a million questions, demanding details, and I eagerly provided. Telling him the story was like living every moment for the second time, and by the end, I found myself smiling, perfectly content.
Then, I remembered where I was and what still needed doing.
“There is so much life out there, Hiss. I always thought…” My voice trailed off and I shook my head, going to the window, my stomach full now. There was no more snow left, and the sky kept getting bluer by the day. More beautiful. “What if I knew then what I know now?” What if I’d known what could be back when I had the chance to do something about it, when I was at home, ruling my House?
“Teachings can be a burden, Pain Seeker. Worse yet—they can be ignored when the time isn’t right. That is why they come to you when they are needed, not simply wanted,” Hiss said. “Trust that the gods know better.”
I wished it were that easy.
“If they can do it, so can we. We’re not all that different. We look almost exactly the same as terrans. We enjoy the same things, we laugh and we talk—we communicate. We have magic. We bleed red, are born, and live and die…” We were all basically the same.
“If over a thousand years of war can be erased, then you certainly can live the way they live on Earth,” Hiss said, slithering up the wall. He came close to me, rested his head on my shoulder and e
very once in a while, the tips of his tongue touched my cheek. It was very comforting.
“They don't need to be erased, do they? We just need to learn from them.” Learn what not to do in the future and maybe we’d all have a future that was better than the one ahead of us now.
“You’re talking about two nations, Pain Seeker. It won’t be as easy,” he reminded me.
“I know.” It wasn’t just not easy—it was akin to impossible. “I don’t know…” I whispered, and my mind went to the prince again. He’d said that to me one night, before I’d spoken a word to him. Back then, I’d wondered what he meant. Now I knew—he hadn’t known what to think or do at all, either. “I don’t know what to do, Hiss. I feel more trapped now than I did when I first woke up here.”
“You do what you always do in a difficult situation,” Hiss said. I turned my head toward him, but he hid his under my neck and whispered: “You pray.”
“Pray?” Here I was, hoping for a clear answer for once.
“Yes, pray,” he confirmed. “When you pray, you only focus on what matters the most, on what you truly want divine intervention for. And while you’re praying, you think about what you expect the gods to do for you.” He paused to lick my neck for a second. “That is how you find out what you must do to get what you want.” When he chuckled, I considered that he was just teasing me, but no. He meant every word. “And just like that, half the job is already done.”
With a sigh, I rubbed my eyes. “You know, for a collector of wisdom, you should be able to give me clearer answers.” His were as frustrating as the thoughts inside my head.
“Ask less, do more. That is how you get to clearer answers.”
I rolled my eyes. He was probably messing with me.
“What are you?” I wondered, for probably the hundredth time. “Tell me the truth, really.”
“I am a soul, just like every other soul in every other body out there.”
I pushed him to the side so I could look at his eyes. All ten of them. “You’re a snake who speaks, with wings, and ten eyes. There is no other body like yours out there.” Was there? I would have remembered if I’d read about creatures like Hiss.
“My nature is irrelevant. I am your friend, and that is all you need to know for now,” he insisted and pressed his back against my palm, like he wanted me to caress him.
I watched him for a little while, holding up my hand for him while he pressed against it, all ten of his eyes closed.
“Were you back in House Heivar?” I whispered, unsure of whether I wanted to know more or not.
“Yes, I was,” he said, turning to me with a sneaky smile. “And I’m glad you decided to ask about it.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing much. They are still working on the new order of weapons. The smiths are complaining about the quality of their work. They’re being rushed, made to work with two hours of sleep a night, and they don’t feel their work represents them and their ancestors properly—but your brother doesn’t seem to care about that,” Hiss said.
Heivar elves took great pride in their work. It was our face to the world, our legacy. Even though I did not approve of weapons made for battle, making them was the only thing my people knew. It was our whole life outside of war.
“Did you see him?” I asked despite myself.
“I certainly did. He didn’t cry this time, but he was angry. He was afraid, I think. He refuses to talk to anyone about it,” Hiss said, almost in wonder.
“Why? What’s he afraid of?”
“I don’t know, but they are preparing. Half your army is being sent to another House as we speak. They left before dawn tonight. It seems a battle is happening nearby.”
My heart sank. “Close to the Autumn border?” That’s where the prince and his army were.
“I don’t know,” Hiss said reluctantly. “But your brother won’t be leading the army. Another will.”
“Orah Meverick,” I whispered, as the face of the man who’d been my father’s best friend came to my mind. My brother was the commander of our House’s army for the past two years, since he came of age. Until then, it had been Orah. He was now the general, my brother’s second-in-command. Out of the betrayal of all my people, his stung the most after my brother’s. Because my brother couldn’t have done this to me without him. Orah had known—he always knew everything. I’d spent my whole childhood on his lap, and he’d even let me braid his hair every time I asked as a girl, something my father never allowed. And he’d thrown me to the fae, just like that.
“Possible. I am not very good with names,” Hiss said. “But your brother is not comfortable with this at all. He’s locked himself in his chambers for hours, all alone.”
I looked out at the sky again and wondered what plagued his mind. I wanted to be angry at him still, but a lifetime of taking care of him and understanding him because he was younger than me was a hard habit to break. I wanted to know what bothered him, what kept him locked away when he always loved the company of people. Before, I always talked to him about it, bribed him with treats and paintings to get to his secrets. Now, I guess I would never know.
“Tell me about you, Hiss. Take my mind off my life, and tell me stories from yours. How about that?” I said, and I took him in my arms to go lie down on the bed. It was comfortable now, as comfortable as if it were my own.
We lay there and watched the sky, the world outside, and Hiss told me stories of everything he'd seen, the people he’d met, the lessons he’d learned. We didn’t move from our place until sundown.
Chapter 27
I was asleep when I heard the shouts and the footsteps. Asleep in the prince’s bed, with Hiss lying right beside me.
Before I knew it, I was by the windows, back pressed against the wall, eyes on the door, heart racing. I barely breathed and didn't even realize how cold it was in the room as I waited. Hiss was behind me, on the window stool, hissing and staring at the door, too.
And it opened.
The prince walked inside, a terrified look on his bloody face, but he wasn't alone. In his arms was a fae, the tall and skinny one I had seen before. Two other soldiers were behind him.
The prince looked at me, almost every inch of his face covered in blood. His hands, his armor, his boots were drenched in it. He put his friend on his bed, on the pillow still warm from my head. The other soldiers rushed to his side, too, but the prince grabbed them both by the shoulders.
“Out!” he shouted and threw them toward the door. They barely managed to keep their balance as the prince rushed them out, where the woman who’d given me the leather tie stood with a bowl in her hand, looking at him.
The prince slammed the door in their faces and turned to me.
I had no time to think about all the pain in the room, how I’d missed him, where he’d been, or what had happened. He reached out his hand for me, and my body moved without hesitation.
“My friend,” he said, wrapping his bloody hand around mine and leading me to the bed. “He’s been wounded badly. Heal him, Taran. Please, I’ll give you anything you ask.”
He fell to his knees in front of the bed, and I did the same, my magic responding to his words as if it belonged to him, not me. I held my hands over the chest of the prince’s friend and let it out into him.
He was more than badly wounded. Half his armor plates were gone, his clothes torn almost completely off, his skin raw and cut, revealing almost everything underneath it on his torso.
The biggest wound of all was on his chest. He’d been stabbed, possibly by a sword, and it had gone right through the heart. Most fae would manage to heal from it, but the sword had cut to the sides, too, like it had been twisted while inside the fae's body.
He was cut on the side of the neck, too. He’d lost so much blood, and one of his lungs had already collapsed. His limbs were paralyzed. His heart was barely beating.
He was not going to survive. There simply wasn’t enough time.
I squeezed my eye
s shut and pressed both my hands over his chest, over the wounds. I let out as much magic as my body allowed me and ordered it to save this man, no matter what. I didn't care about the reason. I didn’t care if he was fae or elf—he was a man, first and foremost. And it was my job as a Pain Seeker to help a man in need.
My magic filled every cell of the fae’s body, searching for damage to mend, taking pain away by the loads. The prince kneeled beside me, silent as the walls of the room. I couldn't even remember where Hiss was. My entire focus was on the fae.
My eyes popped open.
My magic had covered his heart completely and was pushing it together, forcing it to heal.
It refused.
When a heart refused to heal, there wasn't much my magic or any other thing in the worlds could do about it.
“I’m sorry, Mace,” I whispered, tears flooding my eyes. “I’m sorry, he’s already gone.”
“No,” the prince said, touching his friend’s face. “No, please. I can’t lose him. I need to…” His voice trailed off as he shook his friend, trying to wake him.
My heart ached but not with someone else’s pain now. With my own. I pressed my hands harder on the fae lying in the bed, half dead. And I gave him every ounce of energy in my body.
I would give it to him for as long as my magic allowed before it snapped back into my body.
I had only ever done this once before, a long time ago, with one of my father’s soldiers. He’d needed information that only that man could give him, and the man, half dead, had woken up for a few minutes, while I’d taken his place on death’s doorstep.
It was exactly the same now—the same nightmare. My body paralyzed completely. My eyes remained open, and so did my lips. I felt all the pain of this man as my own, felt my heart ripped in two, refusing to beat. My lungs no longer wanted air. They wanted to be left in peace.
But the fae took in a mouthful of air now and opened his eyes, raised his head up, suddenly alive again.
“Trinam, look at me,” said the prince, taking his face in his hands. “Look at me, Trinam.”
