Chapter 15 #2
Kallan shrugs my pack off his arm and sets it aside. Then he reaches that black gauntlet toward me and opens his palm. “I can put your book with your things.”
In our flight here, I’d almost forgotten I was holding it. Part of me is reluctant to let it go. After all, chasing after it is what got me into this mess. But still, I do.
He turns toward my pack but stops halfway, frowning down at my battered and bloody notebook.
“You left my wards.” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, not quite turning his head.
“Some furry creatures stole my book. I chased after them. It wasn’t far. I didn’t think—” I start to sit up, wince in pain, and think better of it. My hands ball into fists. Here I am, flat on my back, trying to defend myself to him when he’s the one who lied to me.
“I wish you’d stayed.” He shakes his head solemnly, still staring at my notebook. “You would have—”
This time, I do push myself up, gritting my teeth against the sharp stings of pain.
“I wish you didn’t lie to me!” If we’re playing the blame game, his sins far outweigh mine.
He has the gall to cant his head away before setting my notebook on a nearby table.
“You said your name was Elias,” I accuse. “You never told me you were the Unseelie King!”
Slowly, he turns around, features impassive.
“Fae cannot lie. Not even me. I said you could call me Elias. It’s the name my mother gave to me.
” He says the last part more quietly, almost reverently.
But all that softness vanishes as he continues.
“Kallan was given to me by my father, who was the head of our clan, so it is how I am known.”
“You still misled me. Why?” My voice cracks, and whatever armor I’ve held over my heart does a little too. The betrayal hurts. I thought we were allies, maybe even friends. I thought we had a real connection. My hands ball into fists of their own accord, the scrapes stinging.
“I wanted to know about the human woman wandering alone through my territory. Would you have been so open with me if you knew my title?”
I open my mouth to respond but stop. Would I have been? I needed to find the Unseelie King eventually. To earn his favor. But I would have approached things very differently. Spoken differently. Oh God, when he asked what people think of him.
They call him a monster.
Heat races up my neck. I fight the urge to turn over and bury myself in the covers.
“Then you know why,” he finishes, likely having read the shame on my face.
Shit. I pinch my eyes closed, praying I haven’t destroyed my mission. “I—”
My words cut off in a gasp as a spindly woman hurries through the open doorway, arms full of cloth and a wooden basket. Short antennae poke up through her silvery hair, and as she dips down into a bow before her king, colorful green and blue wings flutter back.
“My king.” She lifts her head, looking from him to me with her multifaceted, glittering blue eyes. “The others come. This is the human woman?”
Kallan addresses me, “Aimee, this is Vada. She is a healer and will take care of your wounds and watch over you while I am gone.”
“Gone?” I echo in a whisper.
But he ignores it, turning instead back to the healer. “Guard her with your life. I must return to the front but will come back here as soon as I am able.”
The healer’s wings flutter again, and she stands a little straighter before dipping into a low bow. “Yes, my king.”
“The front?” I rock backward. Has war already begun?
Kallan turns fully toward me. His gaze moves across me in haste, almost like he’s trying to commit my form to memory. But without a word or answer to any of my questions, he turns and strides purposefully out the door, closing it behind him.
I blink at the door, waiting for him to reappear, but he doesn’t.
I’m startled from my trance as Vada, who now kneels beside the bed, forces a little vial into my hand.
“Take this. It will help.” Fine lines fan out from her eyes. Her hand is wrinkled and spotted with age. It’s so strange to see a fae marked by age when I’ve always thought of them as ethereal and young.
Focus on her as I am, I do as I’m told.
No sooner have I given it back to her than she’s urging me down onto the bed. “Lay still. Let me tend to you. Ease your spirit if you can. Our king is strong. The Seelie shall not best him easily.”
I turn my head toward her, staring into those strange but almost hypnotic eyes. “That’s not what I am worried about.”
Except maybe that’s a lie. War is something I’ve always known about, studied, watched movies on, and read books about.
Yet I’ve never had to face the brutal realities of it.
But Kallan walking out that door and not coming back, leaving me in this strange place with people I don’t know—it’s a suddenly very real possibility that leaves me uneasy about more than just my own well-being.
Vada clicks her tongue as if she knows the lie for what it is.
My eyes close, and for some reason, I have the worst time opening them. I do when the door opens, but I can’t even summon the will to rise. It doesn’t matter. It’s not Kallan, but another stranger, this one with feathers for hair and a beak-like nose.
“Shh, be still,” Vada croons. “Sleep, and we shall heal you.”
Sleep? I try to say, but I’m not sure it comes out. The potion. Oh God, I should know better than to take strange medicines from people, but I didn’t think. I was worried. Hurting.
About what? I can’t remember.
“Sleep now.”
My thoughts turn soupy. The light dims, and I can’t keep my eyes open. Then suddenly, darkness takes me.