Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
ALLERIA
“Did you rescue her?” The second the question leaves my lips, I know the answer.
The gold of his eyes flares, and his jaw tightens. “Do you think the fae would have still been here thirty years later, if we’d located her and took her home?” His voice drips with ice.
“Maybe?” The word comes out as a whisper, while my mind turns his words over in my head.
Thirty years? The number sits like a lump of stone in my stomach. That isn’t the history I was taught. Every story, every ballad, spoke of centuries of fae attacking our villages, stealing children, crawling out of every wood and dark place until humans rose up and fought back.
Is any of it true?
There’s a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Was it only a queen they could use that way … or any fae?”
He glances at me, then sets off back toward the circle of trees where the Guard has made camp. I jog to catch up to his longer strides.
“Cairn, could the mages use blood from any fae?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“Cairn—”
He spins to face me, and I gasp, lurching back a step when those golden eyes meet mine. The fury in them steals my breath.
“Fae blood harvested soon after death holds a magical potency that—while not even close to what a queen’s power is—can still be used to make focus stones.”
“Focus stones?”
“The staff they carry hold the focus stone at the head to amplify their power. But those stones drain quickly, so the mage has to refill it often.”
My mind goes back to the mage at the garrison. He’d carried a staff. But if the power in it doesn’t last, then—
My mind is doing something horrible. It’s taking the pieces he’s given me and fitting them together … Every connection that clicks into place makes the truth worse.
Focus stones need fae blood. But not just fae blood. Blood harvested at death. The stones drain with use. Which means they need a source. A constant supply.
A steady, ongoing, reliable resource to provide them with dead fae …
I reach for his arm. My fingers hover close to his wrist, then drop without touching him.
“How often?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “How often do the stones need refilling?”
“That depends on the strength of the fae’s blood used to fill them. Some stones can last years. Others burn out in days.”
Which means they always need more.
Oh gods.
There are five preserves scattered across the kingdom. And they all run hunts week after week. I always assumed the bodies were disposed of afterward—buried or burned, the way you’d deal with any dead animal.
But fae are not animals. And the bodies aren’t waste.
“The hunts … What happens to the qua—” The word sticks in my throat. They’re not quarry. “What happens once the fae are killed?”
“What do you think happens?”
But I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to follow this thread any further. Everything inside me is screaming at me to stop.
But I can’t.
“The mages take the blood. That’s why every preserve has a mage on staff. It’s not just for wards or the modifications. They’re there to harvest the kill.” Nausea rolls through me, hot and dizzying.
Cairn watches me. There’s no satisfaction in his expression. No triumph at watching me unravel the truth. Just that terrible, banked fury that never seems to leave him.
“The patrons think they’re paying for an experience, a thrill.
But the real product is—” I press my fist against my mouth.
My stomach is climbing toward my throat.
I close my eyes. “Every hunt,” I whisper.
“Every single hunt across all five preserves … It’s not sport.
It was never just sport. It’s a supply line for the mages. ”
Lord Vessen’s bragging. Lady Harwick’s tusks. My father’s study. All of it is built on a ledger of blood. Forty-three of them mounted on the walls of the Dell’s lodge, just to keep the staff’s skills honed.
All those noble families paying premium prices to chase something through the forest. And behind the prestige and the ceremony, behind the leather-bound guides and the excitement of the hunt, the mages are waiting with their focus stones. Ready to collect what really matters.
But something else is bothering me. I chase down the thought.
“The weapons. The preserves provide the weapons for the hunt. Every patron gets their blades and bows from the huntmaster. They’re not allowed to take their own.”
Cairn tilts his head slightly, and I know he’s waiting for me to figure it out on my own.
I think about the bow and arrows Cowen supplied me with for my hunt.
“They’re all iron. They said it’s the only thing that can hurt a fae. But that’s not the only reason is it?”
“What does iron do to a fae wound? Do you know?”
I know what the stories claim. “It stops you from healing quickly.”
“What happens to a fae run through with iron, Alleria? When they have no magic left to close the wound?”
I stare at him. “They’d bleed out.”
But there’s more to it than that. I can tell from the way he’s looking at me.
“They need the iron weapons, because iron wounds don’t heal. Which means when the mage comes to—” I have to stop. The logic turns foul in my mouth. “The body is still bleeding when they collect it.”
“Now you understand.” He delivers the words with such quiet control that it takes me a moment to register the violence beneath it.
“The patron pays for the hunt. The huntmaster provides the weapons, the wards, and more importantly, the quarry. They have their fun, make their kill, and take a trophy home. The mage takes everything else.”
The ground tilts. My legs give way, and I drop to a crouch, pressing my palms into the damp dirt. I focus on how that feels, on the cold grass, the grit beneath my skin, anything to stop the bile rising in my throat.
My hunt. My birthday hunt. The fae I was going to kill—Cairn—would have ended up on a mage’s table, his blood drained into a focus stone. His antlers would have been mounted on my wall, and his body emptied of everything the mages could use, then discarded like offal after a slaughter.
And I was excited. I stood in my room and fidgeted while Nella braided my hair, and I thought today I get a fae. I’d treated the thought of his death like a prize waiting to be claimed.
“Breathe, Alleria.” Cairn’s voice is soft above me.
I look up at him. He’s standing over me with his arms crossed. The setting sun catches the gold of his eyes, and for the first time I truly understand the depth of the rage he carries.
It isn’t just about a queen being taken. Or collars. Or cages. Or even centuries of captivity. It’s about being reduced to nothing more than raw material. Bled dry to power a magic that isn’t even natural to the people wielding it.
I take in a deep breath, then push myself to my feet. Cairn waits until the tremors in my legs subside, and once he’s certain I won’t collapse, he turns and sets off through the trees.
I follow him.
The distance between us and the circle of trees shrinks with every step forward.
I want to slow down, stay out here where it’s just the two of us and the horrible truth I’ve just discovered.
I don’t want to look at the faces of Serath, Therin, Caelum, and the others because I know all I will see is what has been done to them all.
But Cairn keeps moving, and I keep following, and the trees keep getting closer.
When we step through into the camp, no one even looks in our direction. They have no idea that my entire world has just turned upside down.
Everything I’ve been taught, everything I thought I knew. It’s a lie. I’d thought the cages were the end of the horror. I was wrong. The truth makes the Dell a slaughterhouse instead of a prison.
Laughter breaks out on my left, and I turn my head to see Vessara, Vel, and one of the new females sitting together near the fire. They’re sharing food and a waterskin, their heads close together as they talk.
I trail after Cairn as he crosses to where Serath is sitting beside Brael. They both look up as we approach.
“Alleria, this is Brael.” Cairn waves a hand around the clearing, pointing at each of the newcomers in turn. “Iorel. Maerwyn. Riahn.” Each one gives me a nod before returning to their conversations.
“So you’re our new twelfth.” Brael’s gaze moves over me.
“I—” The denial is on my lips before I catch it.
I’m not. Except … I am.
And right now I can’t reconcile that with the fact I spent all of my life as a human who grew up in a world that has done nothing but destroy fae.
But I’m not human, am I?
My hand reaches for my ear, then drops away when I catch Cairn watching me. Serath frowns, and gets to her feet. She hooks her arm through mine.
“I haven’t had a chance to check how you are. Why don’t we find somewhere quiet?” She looks at Brael. “You stay where you are and rest.”
His smile is crooked. “Whatever you say.”
She leads me past Cairn, who doesn’t stop us, and over to where a shelter has been placed on the opposite side of the campfire.
It’s similar to the ones at the camp near the Dell, made of the same shimmering magic, but instead of being fully enclosed, one side is completely open, giving shelter from the breeze but no privacy.
She indicates the bedroll laid out with one hand. “Sit.”
I do as she says, and she comes down beside me.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m—” I swallow down the lie. Because I’m not fine. I’m not even close to fine. “I don’t know.”
“Do you hurt anywhere?”
Does my heart count?
I shake my head.
“Has your hearing or vision changed at all?”
“What?” My eyes widen. “Should it?”
Serath laughs at the obvious panic in my voice. “Your vision might sharpen. Your hearing could become better. It’s hard to say. It can be different for each …” She looks away.
“You can say it. Cairn said I’m a halfling.”
“Yes … well …” She clears her throat. “So much depends on whether your fae or human side is more dominant. You could retain your vision and hearing from your human parent. Or it could be that you take after your fae parent more.” Her eyes go to my ears.
“Would that be something else the mages blocked when they changed how I looked?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s hard to say. But we should monitor things for a while, especially since you’re now connected to the Nightwild bond as well. That has a tendency to … amplify or wake up existing talents.”
“Wake up? What does that mean?” My thoughts go to Cairn’s comments about teaching me to summon a steed, and I grasp onto it like a lifeline. Because the alternative is imagining Serath bleeding out to give a mage power.
“Sometimes magic needs a nudge before it comes out. Before I became part of Nightwild my powers of healing were there, but limited. The magic has a way of searching out those things that make you who you are and bringing them to light.”
“Cairn said he needs to teach me how to summon a steed. Is that even possible?”
“Our steeds are an integral part of the Nightwild Guard’s magic.” Her eyes move to look somewhere over my left shoulder. “It’s one of the first things we summon when we join the Guard.”
“How?”
“I think that’s something you need to discuss with—”
“Guard, to me.” Cairn’s voice cuts Serath off.
She seems relieved as she jumps to her feet and walks toward the center of the clearing where Cairn waits, the rest of the Guard moving to form a circle around him. I wait until his head lifts and his gaze meets mine.
The two bonds connecting me to him tug sharply, and the message is clear. He expects me to join them.
Pushing to my feet, I make my way to the others, taking the space left beside Vessara. She gives me a small, knowing smile, her shrewd gaze running over me from head to toe.
“You look very pale.”
“I learned some things about our history that I didn’t know,” I mutter.
Cairn cuts in, sparing me from having to explain.
“Tonight, you rest. You eat. You sleep. Build your strength.” His eyes sweep over each member of the Guard, before coming to a stop on me. “At dawn, we break the Seal, and go home.”