Where did you go? (Infatuated fae #3)

8. Caly

8

CALY

“W e won’t make it.” Mendax spoke sharply after we had made our way to the first large slant of mountain. “Perhaps their plans of killing us are simply to cause us to expire through our attempts at finding this miserable place.”

The Unseelie prince had been in a mood ever since we’d left Lake Sheridon. I couldn’t say as I felt much different. Who would go through with all this? Why the macabre scavenger hunt before they murdered one of us?

“Can the Fates be killed?” I asked Mendax as we trudged through the sharp rocks.

“Calypso!” Eli gasped. “They are the deciders of everything. You do not want to piss them off. They know everything that is going to happen.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then they already know I’m planning to rip out my father’s throat, and now I’m thinking about how I could hang them with it.”

Mendax let out a deep rumble of a laugh. My chest bloomed with sudden warmth. It felt so good being the one to cause his rare laugh.

Eli caught my not so discreet smile and rolled his eyes to the back of his head. “You two are so fucked up,” he teased.

“How do we know how to get to the weathered?” I asked as my foot settled on the ledge of the rock. Eli had suggested we follow our instincts to get to the weathered since we had been given no directions. Somehow along the way, Eli had developed this all-encompassing faith in the Fates, speaking about them as though he trusted them with his life. I suppose for a fae, it must have been a big deal to get a letter from the Fates. They were more infamous than most of the gods.

“My feet are sopping wet and frigid, and my boots are blocks of ice,” I complained. I was so tired of walking, and if I never saw another flake of fucking snow again, I’d be the happiest woman alive.

“How big is your foot?” Mendax asked.

Eli’s head snapped to me as he pointed at the other fae, mouthing, Likes ogre feet .

I smiled and tried to stifle my snort as Mendax looked at us. It felt like a father suspecting his unruly children of stealing cookies.

“Why do you ask? Are you going to cobble me a new pair of boots atop the mountain, my love?” I nearly choked on my words, meaning them to be silly. I had not meant to say the last part.

Mendax smiled victoriously and looked at Eli. Why had I said that? I shrugged it away. I supposed the only reason for it to truly be inappropriate had already been settled with Eli back at the lake.

A soft breeze removed some of the snow that dusted our path, revealing more of the sparkling quartz of the mountain. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. The ice was almost indecipherable from chunks of clear crystal that stuck out from the granite of the mountain we traversed. Little bits of amethyst mixed in with the ice and quartz, sparkling in the small patches of sun that were visible through the dappling of snow that clung to the tight, winding ledge of the mountain. It was still nowhere near as cold as snow and winter were in the human realm, but it was cold nonetheless, and we had been out here for what felt like ages.

“No, my love,” Mendax said. “I was going to offer you Aurelius’s boots. They are no doubt smaller and daintier than mine. Much more likely to fit you.”

“And then what would I wear?” Eli asked with a broad grin.

Mendax looked at Eli, his features blanketed with disgust. “I don’t care if your feet freeze into stumps. I find it foolish that you think I care what happens to your feet at all.”

Eli winked at him, and I pushed to the front, tired of hearing the two of them.

The boys had explained that “the weathered” was the keeper of—you guessed it—the weather.

“So this one person controls all the weather?” I asked.

“Not that much is known of the weathered other than that they are responsible for the weather in all the realms,” said Eli.

“How much farther are we going to go?” I questioned. Every one of us was beginning to struggle more. Neither of the men had much power left, and I could see that it was physically starting to take a toll on each of them.

“How should I know? I’ve never been here,” grumbled Eli. Even the good-tempered Seelie’s attitude had begun to sour with fatigue.

“Then of all the excursions for us to attempt to find the weathered, why was a mountain the first?” I snapped but immediately felt bad for taking my exhaustion out on him.

The path we were on seemed to spiral around the mountain, gaining in altitude with each pass. We continued in silence. My own mind swirled with questions about how we would know we’d found the so-called weathered.

The higher up the mountain we trekked, the crisper and more pleasant the air was to breathe in. The skies had lost most of the gray, and the glittering mountain gave us a beautiful view of the forest and lake below—deceptively beautiful looking down on it, as opposed to being in it.

By now, Mendax had moved to the front of our little ensemble, as he had a tendency to do. His broad shoulders moved like a wall in front of me. Eli was behind me, giving me small nudges when I slowed down too much or stopped to look at the view for too long.

All the fresh air had gone straight to my head as my thoughts began to clear.

If one of us had to die, then it would be me.

They were likely going to kill me after I beheaded my father anyway. I deserved it the most. All these men had ever done to get in this position was love me, and there were already too many who had been punished for the same reason. They were both idiots if they thought I would ever let either one of them die for me—die without me. I’d spent a lifetime wishing I could have joined my mother and sister, praying to anyone who would listen to turn back time and place me in the car with them.

My hand found my sister’s ashes, and I squeezed it tight, and for a single moment, I could practically feel the hug I would give to her when I saw her. I could be with Adrianna again. My pulse quickened—I could take care of her the way a big sister was supposed to.

I shook the senseless thoughts from my head. I was human with only a drop of Adrianna’s powers. It wasn’t enough to send me to the Elysian Fields to spend my afterlife with her. The only other way you got into the Elysian Fields was if you were an official Seelie royal?—

Wait a minute.

I stopped in my tracks. Eli’s hard chest shoved into my back at the unexpected stop. I waved him off, discretely gathered myself, and forged on. Technically , I had just been dubbed a Seelie royal by Eli when we were back at the lake. Of course he had been joking, but with both the Seelie king and queen dead, his statement was no longer powerless. As far as faerie laws were concerned, the highest-ranking member of the Seelie royal family had just given me a position among the court and the Elysian Fields. I had to bite my lips together to stop myself from squealing. Of course, Eli would have bestowed me the honor anyways had I asked. But the fact of the matter now was that I didn’t have to ask.

My skin tingled as it did when a plan began to come together in my mind. Excitement caused my heart rate to pick up yet again, and I silently swore when the men looked back, no doubt having clocked the uptick.

The plan was settled. I would wait until the perfect time, when all the dominoes were lined up perfectly, and then I would tip them over. When we got to Moirai, I would wait until my father was calm and relaxed around me. I would make certain that if Eli or I died while in Moirai, it just severed the tie and didn’t kill the other, and then I would sever his head. Boom. Easy.

I debated a less gruesome and faster method, but I needed to be certain that his head was removed completely, and also, I didn’t come all this way to fuck around. After I killed my father, I would turn the blade on myself. With me dead, the bond and the tie would be broken, and the Fates would be appeased and allow Mendax and Eli to live.

And I would finally get to hold my baby sister in the Elysian Fields.

“You okay, Cal?” Eli asked, making me jump.

Even after all my quiet excitement, just hearing his voice made my stomach knot and churn. How was I ever going to leave these two?

I nodded and smiled, continuing to walk as if nothing was wrong. My eyes found the back of Mendax’s head and his handsome silhouette, and I silently cursed myself for my decision to leave. Leaving Eli gave me an unfamiliar warm feeling, like for once, I would be his hero and save his life. But when I imagined being separated from Mendax, all the warm feelings turned to cold emptiness. It would destroy him. He would turn shades of dark the world had never seen, but then his life would go on. The world didn’t stop for heartbreak or devastation. That I knew.