Chapter 4 #5
I look down at the table and ready myself for talking about my past. I never speak of it, but I need them to understand, even though I know that they should still condemn me.
‘When Nanna and the others were taken, I made a vow. Did you know that?’
‘No,’ Jak says quietly.
‘I promised myself, the gods, the Light Realm itself, that I would do whatever it took. Whatever it took to ensure that what befell those I cared about the most, the ones who kept me safe and sheltered me, wouldn’t happen to others.’
I let out a harsh breath.
‘How foolish I was to think that it was an isolated incident, that my family was the only one taken. I had no idea back then how many there were. How many families were being and have been torn to pieces for the greed of the few.’
Morgan and Jak say nothing, so I continue.
‘In the Dark Realms, we saw many things. Injustices of all kinds, the treatment of the humans, the laws that keep them subjugated, the casual cruelty meted out to them. I steeled myself to it. I had to or I wouldn’t have been able to do what I was tasked to do by the Underhill.’
‘As we all did,’ Morgan says, eyes narrow.
Jak nods. ‘But Bryn…’
‘I steeled myself to her as well,’ I admit.
‘Perhaps more so. The way you both were with her… I feared for the mission. I feared for my vow when we were so close to the finish line. I had Bere’s full loyalty for the first time.
He was letting me in. I didn’t want your feelings for her to jeopardize it all, not when we had only two avenues open to us to find out about Fiana’s operation. ’
‘We have Tori and Soreno,’ Jak says. ‘They’re perfectly placed to find out more.’
‘They’re a gamble at best,’ I hiss. ‘And you know it! I needed Bere to take me to the pits, to speak freely in my presence.’
I look away. ‘And Bryn was always going to be the sacrificial lamb as much as I didn’t wish for it to be true. As soon as Bere told us where he was thinking of selling her, we knew it. She became part of the plan.’
Jak opens his mouth to speak but I cut him off.
‘No, Jak. We knew it!’ I say again ‘I speak the truth.’
Jak concedes, nodding. ‘But we couldn’t do it.’
‘No. You couldn’t do it,’ I echo. ‘It’s why I was chosen to lead. Remember? To bear the worst. To make the difficult decisions.’
I stand, pacing the room. ‘In Merediea, after I sent you both home, I tried to keep my distance from her.’
I stare at the floor. ‘But I couldn’t. Every time one of Bere’s men laid a finger on her, I wanted to cut it off. I worked a conjure on them all to ignore her. But then she…escaped the paddock and went wandering. She was…how she was at the cave. I took her to my room and I…did what she needed.’
Closing my eyes, I heave a breath. ‘Afterward, she was upset. She hated that she’d succumbed, that she’d had to ask me.’
I look up and stare into their eyes properly. ‘So I took the memory of it from her. I knew the pits would not serve her well if she was carrying recollections of something better, her time dressed as a fae, the happiness we saw in her. So, I took those weeks we traveled together too.’
‘Was it right? No. Was it necessary?’ I sit down heavily. ‘As a fae loyal to the Underhill, I still consider it so, yes. As a fae that was close to being her friend? No.’
‘But you?—’
I hold up my hand.
‘Let me finish. I knew the pits would be… Humans barely survive and she was being sold as a pleasure slave. But we were only going to be there for a few hours at most, so I hoped to spare her being thrown in a cell to entertain. I knew that if she was sold as a fighter herself, she’d have more time.
They do nothing but train them for weeks at first.’
‘The night before, I spoke to Bere. I told him I saw spirit in her over the weeks we traveled with her. That she was formidable, that he was wasting his coin selling her for sex when he could get more for her if they could see that she would be a champion in the arenas. He listened. I worked another conjure on her to ensure her survival. I made certain she would do whatever it took to live. But that was the last thing that went to plan.’
I take a long gulp and I peer across at the sleeping woman in my room. I pour myself yet another rum when I reach the bottom of my cup.
‘Go on then,’ Morgan mutters derisively. ‘Don’t leave us in suspense. Tell us what befell our little human. Tell us what scars she bears that we must heal. Tell us the reasons for the changes in her that we see. What happened to her in that place?’
‘I don’t know the specifics,’ I admit. ‘Not yet. But, as I say, we were meant to be there for hours, a day at most, before I escaped with her. I was intending to bring her here directly. You must know that. I was never going to leave her in the pits to die. I just needed to get the information. But, then, the orcs believed her to be too slight for winning and Bere made a deal that she would be put in the lowest pit, a trial to see if she was what Bere said. They took her somewhere I couldn’t follow.
It was done quickly, without my knowledge.
I was trying to work out how I was going to get her back up to escape with her when Warrior appeared. ’
Morgan’s eyes narrow. ‘I thought I misheard you in Merediea. That’s impossible. I practically twisted the cunt’s head off in Dead City.’
I glance at him. ‘I do not lie. He’s not fae, at least not all fae. He’s Dark Realm through and through. Half his face and head was burned to shit, but he was very much alive.’ I snort. ‘So, you can guess how that went.’
‘You were caught.’
I push the hazy memories of my weeks of torment in the pits that begin to surface away. I’ll deal with them in due course.
‘Aye,’ I say. ‘Bound in iron. Tortured for…weeks, I suppose. Time held little meaning.’
‘And Bryn?’
‘She was in the training pits. I saw it from above. There were many humans there. Many more than we suspected. And mortality was high. They have enough of a supply of humans, all breeding age, that they don’t care how many die before they even get them to the arenas in the First Circle.’
‘They’re using ones taken from the Light to fight?’ Jak asks, brow furrowing.
I shake my head. ‘I thought that might be the case at first, but I saw a group come through. All Light. They weren’t for the pits.
Most seemed destined for Fiana’s court, I believe.
But the numbers of humans in the pits were…
disturbing. The orcs are able to flaunt the laws around the keeping of breeding age humans, which I believe means they have a surplus of Dark Realm slaves to use as they will. ’
‘But the numbers were dwindling,’ Morgan argues. ‘It’s why they began breeding them in the first place after the Light was cut off from the Dark. That’s the reason they enacted all those laws regarding their ‘better’ treatment.’
‘All I know is that something isn’t how we thought it was. Whether it’s because there are many more human slaves in the Dark than we suspected, or,’ I shrug, ‘I don’t know.’
‘And Bryn? How did you escape with her?’
‘One day they decided to bind me to a wall. In front of me was a room with a viewing window. They brought her up from below.’
My jaw tightens as I remember how she looked when I saw her for the first time since I’d put her in harm’s way.
‘She was thin. Eyes dull. They put her in the room with a human male. To fight, they said, but it was really to watch her fail. The orcs had already decided to buy her at Bere’s price because she survived.
This was just…’ I swallow hard, ‘entertainment. She fought him and she somehow won. And then everyone in the room, Bere, the orcs, the guards, fell down dead except for Warrior. He’d poisoned them all. ’
‘But why? He was Bere’s, one of his group. What was the point of killing him?’
Staring at the table, I wonder if I should betray what Warrior said about Bryn, about what she is.
I look over at my room, at her sleeping in my bed.
I need to make it up to her, what I did.
I don’t know how, or even if I ever can, but I promise it silently, here and now, that, even if she spends her life hating me, I will do whatever I can to ensure it is a good one.
And she will not be sent back to the Dark. I won’t allow it.
‘There’s something about Bryn…Warrior knew it. I didn’t believe it at first, but he was sure enough to kill Bere and risk his life to try to get out of the pits with her before anyone realized what he’d done.’
‘She’s Fate Touched,’ Jak says, eyes flicking to Morgan. ‘I know.’
‘How?’ I demand.
‘Because she told me, or, rather, she showed me. It was the night of the Moon Festival.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Morgan says. ‘She can’t be Kismet. She’s a human.’
‘Well, she is Kismet,’ Jak replies. ‘I’ve seen it. She ensured her hand was cut with a knife by some demon. It was an accident, but Fate’s retribution was swift. There was no mistaking it. I assume that Warrior was taking her to use her, to try to enslave Fate itself?’
I nod. ‘He brought her out of the room, gave her a slave’s dress and told her the bare bones of his plan.
I think she was going to go with him at first. She didn’t remember him.
She didn’t know how dangerous he was. I tried to do something, but the iron stopped me from reaching my magick.
I could do naught but watch. But when he told her that he knew what she was, and that he had some kind of plan, she slid one of his daggers into his kidney to the hilt.
I doubt very much he’ll stay dead, but it gave her time.
She came to me, remembered enough to make a deal.
She’d help me if I brought her here. I could do little else but nod. She freed me.’
Jak and Morgan are quiet for a moment.
‘And so what did you learn about Fiana then?’ Morgan mutters, now taking a long pull of his drink.
‘What made it all worth it for you?’ he sneers.
‘The Breach opened there from the Light.’
‘Directly?’ Jak asks with a frown. ‘To a main Ring?’
I nod.