4. Pretty Little Neck
four
Pretty Little Neck
C aeludor was not the city I had imagined.
In fact, I hardly considered it much of a city at all.
It was more like a wasteland. Lucais had spoken of the Ruins to me when we first travelled through the Court of Light and encountered the Banshee on the road.
He’d said it was a vacant and discarded place to which they had been exiled—and if I didn’t know any better, I would think that I was descending upon it with Wrenlock.
The mist was incredibly disconcerting because it obscured most of the infrastructure from my view.
Fog as thick as rain clouds and dark as a lightning storm had settled over the city like a heavy blanket, barely allowing the tallest buildings the space to breathe.
I could discern the shadowed outline of certain architecture with telltale features in their designs, such as the buildings lined up on winding streets with chimneys ascending from slanted rooftops or the symbolic spires floating over larger buildings.
Even some half-dead trees were visible, anchored in the mist like macabre beacons.
Overall, though, visibility was severely restricted, and it was much darker and colder than I’d have ever thought possible during the rule of a High King from the Court of Light .
Caeludor, I had learned through my studies in the House’s library when I was alone, was a neutral part of Faerie.
The only neutral part. There was a permanent ceasefire in place that even the Gift War had not violated.
It was home to the High King or High Queen of the time and their inner circle, as well as faeries from any other Court who wished to make the city their home.
Predictably, it was protected and fuelled by the magic of its High King or High Queen, and as a result, the colloquial name changed to match the primary element of Faerie’s ruler in different reigns.
It was the City of Light while Lucais Starfire was High King, but had Enyd become the High Queen, it would have been called the City of Wind.
Because of that, the city’s bones and soil thrived on every kind of magic.
One might have even found Witches living in Caeludor, according to some of the books I’d read.
I’d never seen any pictures of it, but if it was truly the same city I was venturing into, I could understand why there were no visual depictions.
There would simply be no point in painting it when the canvas would have to remain so incredibly bleak. The artist may as well spill milk onto a blank page and call it a day.
Built in a valley, Caeludor emerged from the ground like a felled beast between the tall peaks of four mountains.
At my back, the hillside was a walk through a field of daisies on a warm, sunny day compared to the three striking monsters in front of us that curled around the north, south, and east of the city like a scaled serpent.
I was certain they were the Metal Mountains because they looked to be made from the blades of fallen swords and had a sinister, mystifying hue.
Steel glinting in the surviving light from the persistent skies above, the peaks were jagged and appeared fragile at their highest points. It was as though their astounding height was artificial, and the structures were in as much disrepair as the city beneath them.
“Why do they look like that?” I asked my sullen companion, who was a quiet and constant warmth at my side despite his lack of a shirt.
Wrenlock had discarded it on the ground near the handcuffs, and when I peered down at them to discern why, I realised the iron had found a way to burn through the fabric to get to his skin when he had freed me.
At the sight of his shirt, riddled with scorch marks and holes, the newly formed ice around my heart began to crack again.
I was fearful that a chunk of it might be due to fall off soon if I wasn’t careful.
Is it really that bad? Isn’t he hurt, too?
“The Metal Mountains?” he asked, confirming my suspicions.
“They’re covered in the swords of fallen soldiers from the Gift War.
” He squinted as he peered up at them, the ghost of long-buried sadness catching in his eyes before he blinked.
“After it ended, there was so much weaponry left discarded across the realm that we didn’t know what to do with it.
Especially since there were so many families who never knew for certain when or where their loved ones had died.
We couldn’t identify and return all of the lost possessions, but we couldn’t destroy them all, either.
Lucais decided to drop the swords on top of the mountain ranges around Caeludor as a tribute… and a reminder of the price we paid.”
A shudder buried itself at the base of my spine and began to snake its way up to the nape of my neck while he spoke.
The landscape surrounding Caeludor had such a gruesome history—it was no wonder the city looked like a graveyard with its tombstone buildings and corpse-like flora crawling up out of the mist.
“And the fog?” I enquired, as we made it to the base of the slope, and a few figures became partially discernible on the road up ahead. They moved about like wraiths beneath dark waters. “Is this another one of those faerie-ruler-mood-swings?”
Wrenlock regarded me doubtfully, as if he was trying to recall when we’d had that conversation.
He wasn’t the one who had told me, though.
It was Fake Wren—the wolf in sheep’s clothing, draped in romantic faelight beside the bookcase in my bedroom at the House.
The High King of Faerie, undercover. The jerk.
“No,” Wrenlock replied at last. Raising his brows, he stretched a hand back to rub his shoulder thoughtfully.
I faltered a step. His arm was smooth, the skin entirely unblemished.
My stomach twisted, a pit of ravenous vipers curling against the sides, striking me with truths.
For so long, I had been looking at Wren and imagining him with the tattoos from my dreams hidden beneath the long sleeves he always wore.
But he’d never had any tattoos at all. He wasn’t the man from my dreams—except he was .
“This is essentially the perpetual state of the weather here now—most days, at least. I can’t even tell you why, but I can tell you that it wasn’t always like this.
In its glory days, Caeludor was a powerhouse of magic, infinite in its beauty.
Underneath all this,” he continued, waving a hand at the fog as if he could wish it away, “I’m sure it still is. ”
I wonder if I’ll get the chance to see it—
Mid-thought, I stopped myself, because that was not helpful. Who cares about the city and what it looks like underneath the eerie fog?
I could not afford to get caught up in thoughts like that.
Caeludor’s cryptic horror and ambiguity were merely another set of lines on a very long list for me to scratch off, and the paper was about to be scrunched up and discarded.
I didn’t even care to figure out the nightmares I’d had about Lucais anymore.
The thought of trying sent a wave of heavy exhaustion straight to the marrow of my bones, and my head positively swam with it in all of the worst ways.
Truthfully, the High King had made his bed. If someone abducted and tortured him in a dungeon, he probably did something to deserve it. I’d believe it. A jury wouldn’t be hard to convince, either. And even if he didn’t deserve it…
Why should I care?
He lied to me. He lied to me , of all people.
He knew that I was supposed to be his fated mate, and yet he palmed me off to his traitorous best friend—or former best friend, I still hadn’t figured that out yet, and it was another line I didn’t care to waste my limited energy reserves on crossing out—and then he had the nerve to get mad at me about it.
Like it was my fault, like I’d done something wrong.
And his best friend. Wrenlock. Something incredibly annoying and sticky was telling me not to hold him so personally responsible for the actions he took during an elaborate hoax that his High King had concocted and forced his hand in, but that seemed to go against all of my better instincts. I just couldn’t shake it…
But I couldn’t trust him, either.
Or Morgoya. Or anyone I’d met in Faerie at all.
They wanted me to find my biological father—yet another man I couldn’t care less about.
My list of deplorable men was getting longer every single day, and it was truly beginning to concern me.
Nonetheless, why should I have cared about a man who had a one-night stand with a married woman, knocked her up with his half-breed offspring, and then abandoned them both?
Why would I want to find him only for another controlling man to try to lay his claim on me?
No, thank you.
Not even with a thank you. Just no and fuck off.
Even the Court of Darkness, too.
Blythe? I didn’t know her.
What do I owe her? What do I owe any of them?
Nothing .
I was sick and tired of Faerie, and all of its lies and deceit.
Sick to the point of violence. I wanted my magic back—even though it was a snivelling little traitor, too—and I wanted to go to the Forest of Eyes and Ears.
I could trust the Forest in a way I could never trust any living person— or their horses or their Houses, for that matter.
The Forest would protect me while I practised some of the more basic magic tricks, and once I’d mastered a shield for myself and Brynn, I would go home.
Even if I couldn’t build a shield in the end, at least I’d go home knowing I tried.
Fuck Wrenlock. Fuck Lucais. Fuck Caeludor.
The Malum? Over it.
Court of Darkness? Not interested.
The Oracle? Unsubscribed, bitch.
“Aura.” Wrenlock’s deep, rumbling voice cut through my consciousness, and I shook my head as I resurfaced in the present moment, blinking rapidly to realign myself with my surroundings.