Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
It took us almost the entire day to journey to the labyrinth and in that time, fewer and fewer words passed between me and Ferris.
When we’d left the tower, I’d half expected her to race for the trees even after the night we’d shared.
I’d believed that the reality of what I was would sit fully with her in the cold light of day and she would no longer be able to bear it.
But she seemed to have truly decided on remaining at my side.
I had to admit I was overjoyed by that – especially since the roiling power of death had stopped spilling from me unbidden – but I didn’t know what plot she might have in mind yet.
For now at least, she was staying with me despite what she knew about me.
Every time I thought to ask why, I found the words stalling in my throat.
I was cautious of learning her reasoning in case I despised the truth of it.
She was a clever thing and perhaps her decision to stay with me wasn’t solely based on our unusual connection.
I had the key to the labyrinth after all and perhaps that was her main reason to stay with me now.
Or had last night really changed things between us?
Had she fallen into the pull of desire for her own pleasure?
Or were there true feelings involved from her side?
I couldn’t pluck answers from the air. All I really knew was that she’d withdrawn from me slowly as we approached the labyrinth.
With each step we took closer to the Great Elm, the words she offered me became more and more focused on the task at hand.
Perhaps it was solely because of the pressure she felt to break the curse or maybe it was because she knew just as I did that we were approaching the final moments before the boon would be seized.
Did the sound of my footsteps at her back remind her of the lies I’d already told?
Was she starting to remember the fear which haunted my presence once more?
Was the name Bane Crownthief echoing in her mind alongside all the tales of my destruction?
My name was a tar across Rathian, a black seed sewn into the hearts of its people. She’d likely heard countless stories of my merciless violence and each were as good as fact to her. I couldn’t even deny how true they were.
No, I certainly wasn’t blameless. I had doled out my revenge to the Coterie every chance I’d gotten over the years since I’d left Rivenspire.
I’d favoured a dramatic style when it came to their deaths, wanting to cast terror into the hearts of all those I hunted and make a statement about my desire for vengeance.
I’d wished to kill every single Fae who had watched my family die and had cheered their demise.
Any who had survived the wrath of the Hollows deserved a bloody conclusion at my hands.
Ferris may have seen her fair share of brutality between these trees but she hadn’t seen anything yet when it came to me.
Still, here she was. Knowing my name and letting me walk in her shadow regardless. Honestly? I was content to selfishly take whatever I could get from her even if I was just a pawn in her plans now.
The Hollows shifted around us in the woods, all kept at bay by a will of my mind, none of them ever showing their faces in Ferris’s presence. But they were here, doggedly tracking my footsteps.
A haunting tune started up in the trees and I caught Ferris by the elbow, tugging her to a firm halt as my muscles tensed in preparation of an ambush.
The Lost Children peered down at us from the shadows between the branches, bare feet making a passage from one bough to the next while they sang. I hadn’t even noticed their approach and the thought of that set me on edge. No creature was capable of creeping up on me.
“Brave the maze if you dare.
The Great Elm waits, the deal is fair.
Return her darlings to her door,
She’ll tame her trees and take no more.”
“It’s still daylight,” I muttered in confusion. “They shouldn’t be here yet.”
“They won’t hurt us,” Ferris whispered, her violet eyes trained on the Lost Children as she brushed her fingers over the amulets at her throat. “I think they’ve come to watch us succeed.”
“Or fail,” I said darkly and her gaze fell to meet mine.
I realised how long it had been since my eyes had met hers and I was gravitationally drawn closer to her as we locked sights, my fingers curling tighter around her arm.
“Ever the pessimist,” she teased, though I could see the way her mind was turning over the facts, planning for the worst. She was afraid of what was coming. And so she should be. After all this time, I couldn’t believe the end would be a simple affair.
“I think you know as well as I do that I’ll fight tooth and nail to get you to the Great Elm, lightwing.”
“Then prove it and let’s finish this thing.” She took a step away but my infatuation with her overwhelmed me. I grabbed her, pulling her to me, knowing what I had come here to do and that my last chance at a moment of pure sin with her was now or never again.
“Ferris Creed, you’re my last everything. My last desire, my last want in all the world. So spare me one more moment of intoxication in your presence beneath these trees. Remember what we were here, not what we are beyond all of this.”
There was a ragged plea to my voice, my need for her a tangible thing inside me that was invulnerable to all jeopardies.
“Why do you say it like that? Do you plan to die?” she asked, the crack of emotion in her voice telling me she didn’t want that. And I was so fucking delighted to know it.
“We may yet survive this,” I admitted in a rough tone.
“But I have long had a taste for death upon the air and something tells me it is hounding our footsteps closer than ever before today.” I glanced over my shoulder, not finding her Falcon’s face gazing out at me, but I sensed her there all the same. And she was hungry.
The leaves stirred and the Lost Children’s song halted as if they were listening to the omen in my words.
“We should go,” Ferris said urgently, but I didn’t release her.
“I ask of you one thing, lightwing… one more kiss. My last. If you have spent this day remembering all the worst things that I am then hate me while you offer it but give it willingly if there is still a part of me that you believe is worth more than the dirt we stand upon. Kiss me if you believe I hold any value at all in your eyes because I have come to realise that you are the only living creature I have met during a thousand lifetimes who I care to be worth something to.”
Ferris’s eyes widened at my words, drinking me into their bright, shimmering sea of violet. Then she tiptoed up and her lips met mine with a firm and hard passion that tasted like the nectar of my salvation.
I fisted a hand in her silver hair and kissed her like the sinner I had long ago been branded.
And within that kiss, she melted. Her fears giving way to something so much purer, a want for me that crossed all boundaries that had been drawn between my kind and hers.
We were not Fae and human while we stood beneath those whispering trees, we were our desires.
Desires which wanted nothing more than for us to shed the skins that housed our souls and become one and the same creature.
Long before I was ready to part, she was gone, pulling away and turning to her path with no more words to offer me.
But she had given me all I needed to walk this trail to the end.
A taste of what could have been. And though what I’d had of her would never sate me, it was enough to settle the torment inside my soul upon this final hour and keep me walking toward the conclusion of our journey side by side.
Ferris reached the top of a rocky outcrop and the vines hanging in front of her parted like a curtain at her touch, revealing a path which led to a stone door with the emblem of the Great Elm carved into its surface.
It was set into a rockface that towered up toward the sky and I had no doubt that the labyrinth lay within this hill.
We were not the first to arrive.
Princess Drava had come after all. She stood with her flowing ebony hair braided down her spine, a curved dagger in grip and a ferocious look on her striking face.
Her full eyebrows were lowered over charcoal eyes and I noted the Phoenix and Stag amulets shining at her throat.
She had no entourage in tow – or perhaps they had not survived if she’d had one to begin with.
An axe was strapped to her back and her clothes were a fine, hardwearing navy fabric fit for the task of breaking the curse of the forest.
Two humans stood away from the door, casting wary looks at the Fae princess and talking in low voices.
Ferris lowered to a crouch, gesturing for me to join her and I did so, gazing down at the three Champions below. We were far enough away to remain undetected and with the shadows of the trees still shrouding us, I doubted we would be spotted easily.
“That’s Devlan,” Ferris whispered, pointing out the muscular human man with silvered hair who was sporting the Carp amulet around his neck. “And that’s Helga.” She pointed to the tough-looking human woman who had won the Boar spirit.
I made a mental count. Islasees possessed two of the other amulets, the Tiger and the Rat, leaving only the Serpent unaccounted for.
That would become a problem if no one appeared with it.
We would be forced to go searching for it and with only a few days left before the Great Hunt finished for good, we might be facing failure already.
So I just had to hope someone would turn up with it soon.