Chapter 10
E lias reappears almost as suddenly as he vanished.
One moment, I’m sitting there jotting down my notes about Faery in a little journal—a present for Matt when I get home—listening to the rare bird and insect sound.
The next moment, there’s a crunch of leaves and snap of twigs.
It’s so unexpected that my hand slips, leaving a slash of ink across the page.
Fear rises, pulling me to my feet, but it ebbs as soon as I spot Elias crossing the wards back into my circle of protection.
His next few steps make almost no sound, and I realize that he was intentional about making sure I heard his approach and not sneaking up on me too badly. Could have just said hi though.
“You’re back,” I say, by way of greeting, true joy accenting my words. Being alone here after having company was more unnerving than I’d ever admit.
He grins at me in return, a hint of white fangs visible in his smile.
“You stayed.” His words are more than a statement, almost like an answered prayer. Like he thought I wouldn’t.
“You’re surprised?”
“I’m pleased to see you.” He pulls back the edge of his cloak and reaches into a little pack at his waist. “And I have something that I believe will delight you.”
My thoughts immediately go to food. More nuts? Because they were surprisingly delicious, and we don’t have that many left.
Instead, he pulls out something new. It’s as long as his hand and resembles a brown bean pod. It’s startlingly similar to the sketch from the book. “Clava Beans!”
I gasp, rushing over, my notebook forgotten. “You found another one already!”
I could kiss him for that. Not that I will.
“Another common one, but yes, this is all yours.” He hands it off to me like the precious bundle it is. “And I believe I know where to find another, whenever you are ready to go.”
My eyes bulge. “Really?”
His grin broadens. “I wouldn’t leave without reason.”
Now that he mentions it… “You did pretty much vanish once you left the hill.”
One shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Fae can move faster than humans. I told you it would be easier to scout ahead on my own.”
I nearly laugh at that. I almost want to ask him to sprint, just to see how fast he really can move. But instead, I say, “If you’re that quick, maybe I should just ask you to go find all the ingredients for me.”
Deep laughter fills the air. “They are not all so easy. Besides, then I wouldn’t get to spend as much time in your company.”
“As if that’s such a treat,” I huff before I think better of it. Can’t say anyone outside my immediate family has been too eager to have me around for a while. Well, other than my boss. I’m pretty good at meeting quotas, and she’s all about that.
Something equally sad and hopeful glimmers in his golden eyes. “It’s more than you know.”
*****
While we moved quickly yesterday, leaving little time for conversation, today, he slows his stride, letting me walk at a more reasonable pace.
More than that though, it leaves some breath for conversation.
Much of it is one-sided, with Elias asking about my life.
But I’m happy to share with him. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, someone who is actually interested.
At my job, I’m just a workaholic perfectionist. Half the people think I have no life.
Which is sadly kind of true. The other half think I’m trying to show them up and make them all look bad.
Totally not my goal. There are only a few, like Nadia, who even bother to talk to me, and then it’s still mostly surface-level stuff.
The land around us has shifted from flatter rolling hills spotted with corpses of dead and dying trees to a rockier landscape with towers of gray stone that spear up to the sky, some smooth, some jagged, and the occasional crevice opening into the ground below that could be deadly to someone moving too quickly.
Elias brought me near one to show me, as he had several things along the way.
But after I shivered and hugged my arms around myself, he said he’d keep us well away from them and has.
“What do you know of the Unseelie?” he asks eventually.
“Not as much as I’d like to,” I say honestly.
I wrote down several things while he was gone this morning, observations and thoughts mostly.
It’s for Matt . Though in the back of my mind, I know the coven would love to get their hands on this information.
Matt would probably enjoy sharing it with them.
Maybe it would even improve his chances with Selena.
But a niggling sensation in the back of my mind gives me pause. The coven views the Unseelie as an enemy. So do our Seelie allies. Anything I learn and share won’t be simply tucked away as interesting knowledge. It will be used.
They want that. As much as they want me to lead the Unseelie King to death and ruin.
I swallow down that thought as a worry for later. “I know that your land is dying,” I say. “We are told that the last Unseelie King died many years ago, taking his power with him as it did not land on an heir. Between that and the lack of humans, the magic has vanished until little is left.”
Though there is some. Elias warded the area around me. That’s magic. Unless they were just little lines in the ground written in hope rather than power.
“But,” I hurry on when he doesn’t speak, “they say a new king has risen to power now and is gathering the fractured clans of the Unseelie together to terrorize the Seelie courts.”
Ahead of me, Elias gives a derisive huff. “Terrorize the Seelie?” he says in a low voice, almost to himself. “As if they have not been as much the aggressors this age.”
Have they been? I glance up at him, taking in the hard set of his shoulders and the stiffness in his form that not even his cloak can hide.
I suppose no one has bothered to ask the Unseelie for their point-of-view.
Despite the sun still being high in the sky, the temperature seems to drop, and I hug my arms closer around myself as I focus my attention back on the rocky landscape and not breaking an ankle.
“What else do they say about our new king?” he asks, voice calmer now.
“They call him a monster.”
Boots skid on stone as Elias comes to an abrupt halt. I can’t help but flinch and lean away as he twists toward me, a hard look on his face.
“A monster,” he all but snarls.
I swallow the knot in my throat. “Yes.”
“Because we are different than them, the Seelie?” His lip curls over the word.
Is that what he thinks? That this conflict is all some kind of racial prejudice? God knows that might be part of it. Hell, we have a horrible history of it on Earth, so why not in Faery too? But it’s something much more poignant that has the coven and their Seelie fae allies seeking vengeance.
“No,” I snap, fiery for a reason I can’t even explain. “It’s because he murdered the King of Fire! Beheaded him and threw his head at his brother like it was nothing!” My voice echoes back at us from the surrounding pillars of stone, an eerie note in the quiet.
Elias positively smolders in response, lips thin, fists clenched at this side, and eyes blazing with fury. “And you?”
I blink, taking a step back, my arm reflexively rising in front of me. “What about me?”
He turns fully, his stature so much more imposing than it was only moments ago. “You said ‘they call him a monster.’ What do you think?”
Hearing about what the Unseelie King had done to the King of Fire made me sick to my stomach. How the new king, Lysandir, felt seeing that, I can only imagine. It made sense that he rallied the Seelie courts together to try to stop the Unseelie. Who wouldn’t want vengeance against a murderer?
“I think—” My voice wavers. “I think if someone killed my brother, I would hate them too.”
A shiver races across my skin as I do my best to hold his unflinching gaze, to not turn away from his obvious anger and disgust. My stomach has become a hollow pit.
I regret every word I’ve said these past minutes.
They were true. I thought that was what he would want.
But maybe no one really wants truth when it’s sharp and jagged.
His fist clenches and unclenches at his side. “I’m helping you try to save your brother.”
“You are.” I raise my hands in front of me like a sign of surrender before slowly lowering them. “You’re not like him. You’re good.”
He huffs air through his nose and turns his head away. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” It’s strange how much one can garner about another person in a short time when they’re alone together.
There are people I’ve known in passing for much of a decade that I feel like I know less than Elias, even though the length I’ve known him is a drop of water in an ocean.
“You didn’t attack me. You offered help.
You’ve brought me two ingredients I need and are helping me find others.
You brought me food. You kept me safe.” And warm , though that part catches on my tongue.
It’s more than most people have ever done for me, to be honest. “That says a lot about you.”
His nose twitches, and in a few determined steps, he’s right in front of me, staring down at me like I’m some kind of enigma. It takes all my strength of will not to retreat, but I truly don’t think he’ll hurt me, despite his anger moments ago.
Slowly, gently, he pushes a lock of hair back from my cheek, his clawed fingertips caressing my skin but not cutting. “My reasons for helping you are not selfless.”
The intensity of his gaze mixed with his deep voice pulls me in. “I know.”
He doesn’t drop his hand. Instead, his palm splays out, cupping the back of my head in a loose embrace. I shudder.
“It-it’s a trade,” I stutter, trying to remember what we were talking about.
“You help me find what I need, and my presence helps you…” I twirl my hand around, searching for the right words and nearly brushing the edge of his cloak in the process.
“However, it helps you,” I say at last. Maybe that’s really why he held me close last night, why he could move so fast earlier today.
“The Seelie fae want to end the Unseelie King’s reign.”
It’s not a question so much as a statement, but still I say, “Yes.”
He nods once. “And what do you think happens if they are successful?”
“He dies.”
His head cocks to the side, fingers tightening ever so slightly on my hair. “And?”
It’s so hard to think with him this close. “Your land continues to die?”
Elias releases me and steps back. Cool air rushes into the space he vacated, and it’s like I can breathe again.
“If our king does not succeed in restoring his power, we are doomed,” he says. “This land and everyone in it.”
Even him. I hadn’t considered that.
“The Seelie mourn their King of Fire, but he was foolish and cruel.” The vicious edge returns to his voice, and I miss the man of moments ago. “Do you know what he did? Do you know why he was shown no mercy?”
I shake my head.
“He came into the Unseelie lands and attacked our people unawares. He killed indiscriminately.”
No, that— Now I do step back.
“Not just warriors but children.”
The urge to clamp my hands over my ears and block out his words is so strong.
“And the elderly. It was not the first time he did so. He had no mercy and deserved none in return.”
I’m shaking my head. I knew there were losses on both sides. But no one in the coven ever said… They didn’t mention…
“You said you would hate someone who killed your brother,” he says. His voice is slightly calmer and controlled, but then I glimpse the tight fist at his side, the drip of crimson that falls to the earth. “How do you think I feel about someone who killed so many?”
There’s no word that feels adequate. Anger. Fury. Disgust. Sorrow. They’re not enough. Life is so, so precious. I’ve spent all of my adult years studying medicine, looking for ways to help and heal people. The thought of indiscriminately ending so many lives hurts on a soul-deep level.
“You didn’t know,” he says, his gaze intent, like he can pick the horror from my thoughts. “But now you do.” Elias uncurls his fist and hisses at the self-inflicted wound. Then he turns on his heel and starts off in the way we were headed. “Let’s go.”
I follow. And I wonder what he’s lost, who he’s lost, but I don’t have the heart to ask him.