Chapter 17 #2
The hall has gone silent, every eye upon us.
Vessen’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out.
“Would you piss your pants? Would you cry? Or would you scream?”
I don’t wait for his answer, whirling around so fast, the skirt of my gown flares out. I walk out of the hall. No one stops me.
I walk as fast as I can, my heart pounding like a drum in my ears, putting as much distance as I can between myself and all those eyes. My hands are shaking. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry or both.
I make it to my chambers before the tears come.
They hit me all at once. Great, heaving sobs that wrack my entire body. I slide down the wall and sit there on the floor, my face buried in my hands, crying harder than I’ve cried since I was a child … since my mother died.
I don’t know how long I stay like that. Long enough for the tears to run dry and my breathing to slow.
There’s a soft knock at the door. “Alleria?”
Long enough for Nella to finish her duties at the meal and come and find me, I guess.
She slips inside, closing the door behind her. When she sees me on the floor, she doesn’t say anything. She just slides down the wall beside me, and takes my hand. We sit there in silence for a while, the fire crackling in the hearth and the sun starting its downward journey outside the window.
“I heard you made quite the scene,” she says finally.
“I know.”
“The cook said Lord Vessen looked like he was going to be sick.”
“Good.”
She squeezes my fingers. “Do you want to tell me what really happened out there?”
I could tell her. I so desperately want to tell someone. Nella has kept every secret I’ve ever shared with her. But I don’t know how she’d react to this one.
How do I explain what I saw in those cages? How do I describe the way he looked at me in that clearing? How do I make her understand that everything we’ve been taught about the fae is wrong?
“Not yet.” I shake my head. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“When you’re ready.” Her voice is soft. “I’ll be here to listen.”
She helps me up from the floor and into my nightclothes, then throws back the sheets of the bed.
“Try and get some sleep.” She blows out the lamps, and I’m alone with only the light of the fire and the thoughts I can’t escape keeping me company.
I stare at the canopy above my bed. I don’t need to see it to know it’s embroidered with hunting scenes.
Dogs chasing deer. Hawks diving for rabbits.
Men on horsebacks with spears raised. I’ve slept under these images my entire life and never really focused on them before.
Now all I can see is the terror in the deer’s eyes.
The rabbit’s desperate flight … and the way the hunters smile as they close in.
I turn my face away, and watch the fire instead.
Sleep comes slowly. I fight it off as long as I can, afraid of what might wait for me on the other side, but exhaustion wins eventually, and my eyes slide shut.
Blood.
The smell of it fills my nose, thick and coppery. I’m walking through darkness, torchlight flickering at the edges, giving me glimpses of bodies on the ground, throats gaping open, blood pooling beneath them. One is still twitching, fingers scrabbling weakly at the dirt.
My hands are wet, and when I look down, the long fingers are covered in blood.
Should have killed him slower. Should have made him watch. The thought slides through my head, casual and cold. Not my voice.
There are more bodies near a brazier, and in the darkness beyond it, there are shadows whispering.
A building looms ahead, coming into view as I move toward it.
The lodge. I’m at the Dell!
Lights are burning in the windows, but the main door is open wide. I glide inside, ignoring the trophies mounting the walls and walk down the hallway to a door, which crashes open before I touch it.
Cowen is at his desk. Papers scattered in front of him, a drink at his elbow. He looks up at the sound, confusion filling his face, and then his eyes find me, and the confusion becomes terror. He lurches up from his chair and bolts toward a door at the far side of the room.
Good. I was hoping he’d run.
I let him almost reach the door before I’m on him, moving with a speed that blurs the air at the edges of vision.
My hand closes on the back of his collar and I shove him toward the wall.
He hits it, bounces off, and trips, crashing to the floor.
My boot pins his hand to the floorboards as he tries to push himself up. Bones crunch. Cowen screams.
That’s for the collar.
My boot grinds down.
And that’s for the antlers.
I crouch over him and tangle my fingers in his hair.
“Look at me.”
That voice. I know that voice. It is not mine.
Cowen’s eyes roll. His mouth is working, trying to form words, but fear won’t let him.
“I want to know where the other preserves are. Names and locations.” The voice is silky, nothing like I’ve ever heard before. “Tell me everything, and I might make your death quick.”
Cowen doesn’t even try to resist. He gives up everything. Names, places, contacts. And when he runs out of words, there’s a moment of silence.
“Thank you.” I release his hair. “That was very helpful.”
Hope flickers across Cowen’s face.
“We’re not done yet.” I drag him to his feet and haul him back to the main hall where the trophies hang, and rage floods through me. Yet my voice that isn’t my voice is calm when I speak.
“What were their names?”
Cowen stares at me.
“The fae.” The voice that isn’t mine has lost its gentleness. “The ones you turned into decorations for your wall. What were their names?”
“I don’t … they're just … We don’t keep records of—”
“You don’t know.” It’s not a question. “You tortured them. You watched them scream while their bodies were reshaped into whatever your patrons requested. And you don’t even know their names.”
“They’re animals.” The words come out pleading. “They’re just animals. They don’t have—”
My fist connects with his mouth. Teeth scatter across the floor.
Wrong answer.
I hit him again … and again … breaking bones one at a time. His nose, his cheekbone, his jaw.
The impact shudders up my arm. The wet, meaty sounds of flesh splitting reaches my ears. And satisfaction floods through me. I’m enjoying this. I’ve been waiting for this.
How many of my people died in your forest? How many did you turn into trophies for human walls? How many names did you never bother to learn?
Cowen isn’t screaming any more. He’s making small animal sounds. Broken whimpers that barely sound human.
Power surges through me. Magic flowing like liquid fire through veins that have been empty for too long. Metal flows over my skin, black and gleaming, chased with silver thorns that catch the light wrong.
Armor … armor manifesting out of nothing, settling into place with a buzz of rightness.
Finally.
The satisfaction is bone-deep.
Cowen’s eyes go so wide, the whites show all around the irises. Blood bubbles from his ruined mouth, and whatever hope he’s been clinging to dies.
I drag him to the fireplace, where the poker, glowing red, sits in the coals.
“Three hundred years.” My not-voice is conversational. “That’s how long I wore a collar. Do you know what iron feels like against fae skin?”
I wrap my fingers around the poker, draw it out of the fire, and press it against Cowen's cheek.
A scream tears out of him. His body convulses. The smell of burning flesh makes me smile.
That’s one.
I pull the poker away. Bits of flesh come with it.
“How many times did you stand there watching? How many of my people screamed while your mage worked?”
The poker comes down again. Different spot. Same scream.
Two.
“Do you know what it feels like? Bone forcing its way through your skull?”
Again. Burning a line down the front of his tunic and along his ribs. Cowen’s body jackknifes.
Three.
I drop the poker. It clatters against the hearth, still glowing, while I haul Cowen up and drag him to the wall of trophies and slam his face into the nearest plaque. The brass edge opens his forehead to the bone.
Again. And again. Blood smears across the wood, and drips down.
“These were fae.” Each word is punctuated by another impact. “They had names.” Crack. “They had families.” Crack. “They had lives before you took them, and your hunters put arrows through their hearts.”
I let him drop. The huntmaster crumples to the floor, blood pooling beneath him.
I curl my fingers, and a blade appears in my grip.
Black as night, chased with silver, gleaming in the moonlight.
I place the edge against the first knuckle of Cowen’s index finger and press down, letting him feel every fraction of the blade sinking through flesh and bone.
His scream is a ragged, broken thing. When the finger comes free, I hold it up in front of his face.
“One. You have nine more. And then we move on to other things.”
The second finger. The third. He stops screaming somewhere around the sixth. His voice has given out, leaving only wet, whistling sounds that escape through his broken teeth. But he’s still aware, still watching. And that’s all that matters.
I want him to feel every moment. I want him to understand exactly what he held here.
When I’m done with his fingers, I move to his feet, cauterizing each wound with the poker as I go. I don’t want him to die just yet.
I’m not rushing. I’m savoring each cut, every whimper, every fresh bloom of blood.
This is what I am. This is what they forgot.
When there’s nothing left to take, when Cowen is barely recognizable as human anymore, I crouch beside him. The huntmaster’s eyes are glassy, but still moving, still aware on some level that can’t escape into unconsciousness, no matter how badly he wants to.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “For the information. And for this.”
The blade comes down one final time.
The cut is clean. A single stroke through the neck, the edge passing through flesh, tendon and bone like they’re nothing. Cowen’s head rolls free, coming to rest against the wall.
I pick it up by the hair, walk to an empty hook between two mounted racks, and slam the head onto it.
Forty-four.
I take a step back to look at my work. The head hangs crooked, blood still dripping from the neck, Cowen’s eyes half-open and staring at nothing.
Not enough. Not nearly enough. But this is just the beginning.
I turn away, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the window. There is blood everywhere—on my hands, my face, and splattered against the thorned metal like war paint. But what captures my attention are my eyes.
Gold, burning, and utterly calm.
The scene fractures. The lodge dissolves into darkness, and suddenly there’s nothing but blackness surrounding me.
“Did you enjoy the show, Moirthalen?”
The voice echoes through me. He’s here … wherever here is. I try to pull away. Try to claw my way out of the dream.
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t care.” The words are soft. “None of you ever do.”
The strangest sensation goes through me. It feels like fingers rifling through memories. Flashes of the carriage ride to the Dell, the excitement I felt, and my first glimpse of him pass in front of my eyes.
“You were going to kill me.” He finds the memory of me standing in front of him, my bow drawn.
Shame floods through me. Hot and sick and impossible to hide. Laughter, rich, deep and dark, echoes through the blackness.
“You carry my blood. And now it seems you are tied to me. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will know. I will see.”
“Please—”
“Sleep well, Moirthalen.”
I wake up screaming.
The door bursts open, and Nella runs in, face white, with two guards behind her, swords drawn.
“Alleria!” Nella rushes to the bed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I can’t answer. I can’t breathe. My heart is slamming against my ribs, and I can still feel him, the echo of his presence, the ghost of his satisfaction.
“Just a nightmare.” I force the words out. “It was just a nightmare.”
The guards exchange looks. Nella waves them off, and after checking the windows and the room, they retreat, closing the door behind them.
“Alleria.” She sits on the edge of the bed, and takes my hands. Her fingers are warm against my frozen skin. “You’re shaking. You’re ice-cold. What did you dream about?”
I close my eyes. I can still see Cowen’s face. I can still smell the burning.
I shake my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. She doesn’t push, just lies down beside me and holds me close.
It was just a nightmare. That’s all. A nightmare born from everything I saw at the Dell and everything I experienced. My mind is twisting it into something worse.
It was just a nightmare.