Chapter 41 Homecoming #2
“I’m not saying trust me blindly,” Vaeris continued, his eyes on mine. “I’m asking you to question what you’ve been told. The dragons I’ve spoken to are not mindless beasts. They’re intelligent and yes, they’re angry. Wouldn’t you be?”
“They’ll kill us all,” I whispered.
“They’ll kill the fae, but we are not fae,” Vaeris thundered. “We are their possessions. Their slaves. You grew up in slums, surviving off their garbage, and I spent my life paraded as an heir while being treated like filth. A halfbreed.”
“And yet,” Kairos said coldly, “you’ve bound her with a deal she can’t break.”
The heat of Vaeris’s glower could’ve stripped the walls. “She begged me for a bargain.”
Kairos sneered. “And did you explain the risks? How a single careless word could bind her for eternity? Or did you let a desperate girl sign away her will because it served you?”
Vaeris’s lips thinned. “I gave her what she asked for.”
Kairos scoffed. “You talk about fae cruelty like you’re above it, but you took everything you could from her.”
“I saved her sister.”
“You bought her sister.” Kairos’s lip curled. “You’re just a slaver who’s convinced himself the leash looks better in his hands.”
Vaeris’s shadows lashed like angry serpents, and then the corner of his mouth twisted. “What did you do to earn her trust, I wonder? Lock her in your keep? Remind her at every turn that she’s prey in your realm?”
Kairos clenched his fists tighter.
“A cage is a cage,” Vaeris whispered harshly. “The only reason she’s alive is because you’ve decided she’s useful. The moment that changes—”
“Enough,” Kairos snarled.
“—she’s food for your Dreadfae.”
Uther stormed to the pool, snarling, “Oh, fuck right off. The only predator in this room is you. Even the dragons would spit you out.”
Kairos’s eyes stayed locked on Vaeris, murder simmering behind them.
Vaeris only smiled faintly, turning to me. “Aelie, these savages would slit my throat to restore honor to my house, and they’d rut you like an animal before tossing you back in the streets.”
Kairos’s breath shuddered with fury.
“The fae didn’t just rule us. They broke us. You think the dragons want revenge?” Vaeris laughed bitterly. “They want justice, and so should you!”
“What did they promise you?” Kairos barked. “Whatever it is, you’ll die before you ever see it. When that seal breaks, they’ll burn you with the rest of us.”
Vaeris’s piercing stare never left me. “You know what living under them is like. It’ll never change unless we do something about it.”
Ugly memories slipped inside my head. Henrik’s hand “accidentally” patting my ass at dinner while I forced a laugh.
The plague cart rumbling down frostbitten roads while my mother’s body jostled.
Rheya and I scraping coins to buy bread, only for the baker to say, Not for your kind.
The guards who pretended not to see when a noble dragged a girl into an alley.
The way her sobs turned to silence. How everyone walked faster.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kairos snarled.
Gods, how could I not? I had lived under the fae my whole life. They built their glittering homes on human backs and acted like it was mercy. A wounded part of me wanted to scream yes, make them pay.
But those who’d suffer first would be people like Rheya. His version of justice would swallow us all.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Just stop! You’re holding my sister in a cage.”
Vaeris spread his hands. “I’m sworn to protect her.”
“Then prove it. Show her to me.”
Annoyance flickered across his face. Then he smiled and gestured to someone off to the side. A moment later, Rheya stepped into the frame.
The world fell out from under me.
My vision blurred. For weeks she’d only existed as a memory, and now she was there. She looked…good. Her cheeks had color; her hair was braided and clean. She wore trousers and a linen tunic—not fancy, but comfortable. She wasn’t shackled.
“Aelie,” she breathed.
“Rheya!” I lunged, splashing into the pool as I reached for her reflection. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Really. He’s been…decent.”
“Where are you?” I demanded.
Vaeris touched Rheya’s shoulder, and she stiffened. “That’s enough.”
“Rheya, tell me where you are!”
“She doesn’t know,” Vaeris said firmly. “Even if she did, I wouldn’t let her answer.”
A guard appeared, grabbing her arm. Rheya twisted, trying to keep me in sight.
“White walls,” she shouted. “Pear trees—”
“Wait!”
I scraped at the water like I could claw through it, but she was gone.
“She’s well cared for.” Vaeris’s gaze slid to me. “I can reunite you with your sister tonight.”
My chest ached. “No. The second I walk through your doors, you’ll use me to break the seal. Then Rheya and I die with everyone else.”
“I told you. The dragons won’t harm us.”
“What do you really want?” I asked him.
“To free us from a world that will never see us as anything but half-breeds and animals,” he said earnestly.
“I didn’t know what freedom felt like until I left you.”
Silence stretched between us. Vaeris’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes went cold.
He gave me a black look. “Then you leave me no choice.”
Kairos grabbed me, his palms sealing over my ears, but Vaeris’s muffled command tunneled through my skull.
“Aelie, come to me.”
My rune ignited. Agony ripped through my abdomen, and I collapsed, screaming. Kairos caught me before I hit the floor.
Mist rolled out in a creeping wave and torches guttered, drowning us in darkness.
“You,” Kairos snarled in a low hiss, “are the most pathetic male I’ve ever met. The moment she says no, you drag her to her knees.”
The mist thickened, curling around his shoulders.
Vaeris’s smile faltered. “If you care about her so much, don’t make this uglier than it needs to be. Walk her to the border.”
Kairos smiled. “I’ll send you a dozen heads first.”
“You’re welcome to try. But every day you keep her from me, I’ll raze another village. When the bodies start piling up, remember—this was your choice.”
Lead dropped in my gut.
“Come to me,” Vaeris barked. “Or stay with him and watch innocent people die while the deal kills you.”
The water rippled, and the pool returned to black glass.
Something nagged at me as the pain in my side dulled, but I couldn’t figure it out. There was no version of this where I didn’t lose.
“War council,” Kairos growled. “One hour.”