38. Chapter 38
Chapter 38
I spent the night in the haven of The Raven’s room. He, however, did not share the luxurious bed with me, excusing himself shortly after tucking me into the massive bed and resisting the urge to crawl into it with me.
I slept peacefully. At least I did until I rolled over in the massive bed. My body yearned for another source of warmth, and finding none, it rebelled and shot me straight up out of sleep.
Night still clung heavy in the air, the window still open where we had dined. I stood at that window and watched the blackness roll over the land until the softest threads of dawn’s fingers teased the black into darkest purple, hardening my heart for the days to come.
I was Fae.
It was time I started embracing that to get what the human in me needed.
I dressed myself in the gown that he had left, snatching the beads I had found while he was out and crept out into the corridors. It took me less time than I had expected to find the entrance to the warrens. Had I truly never noticed the etching of the roots in the floorboards? Had I never noticed the way they branched and cast themselves in different directions, each having the slightest sheen of a gloss of some sort that correlated to the nine courts that I had found in the book?
It was so simple. Find the branch of the root system without color and follow it through the network of hallways, stairwells, mezzanines, and doorways to the stone stairwell leading into the depths of the palace where they housed their human daora. There were others, other roots that had no gloss or sheen, but I trusted the first one that I noticed. And as luck would have it, I arrived at the stone grotto that I had become so familiar with.
Most of the humans were still asleep. The great hearth that heated the warrens when it got coldest was still banked with coals, and a tiny body was hunched over it. The shock of her white hair, a beacon in the dark, curled my lips up into an indulgent smile.
Violet never slept. I watched her from the shadows as she stared into the rippling coals, wondering where her ancient mind went to in these quiet times. Was she thinking of her life as a human? Was she thinking of all the lives she had lived since she came here? Was she dreaming of freedom?
“Violet,” I whispered into the dark.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, preserve us.” She hissed and whipped around. Her darkened purple gaze cast me up and down before settling into the familiar scowl I had grown to love. “Green Man and I were sure that you’d died down in the dark. Been weighing on the pair of us that we didn’t guide you proper. But look at you, come to show us you’re no ghost in a brand-new dress.”
I clucked my tongue to dismiss her concern and took a seat on a stool next to her. “But I am a ghost, Violet.”
Her fist pulled back and cracked me square in the face, pain radiating from my nose as she shook her porcelain hand. “Always wanted to punch a ghost in the face. And now I have.”
“Violet!” I whisper-yelled at her, pressing my hand to my stinging nose. Violet was not as strong as a woman grown, but she could still pack a punch. “That hurt!”
“Wouldn’t hurt over much if you were, in fact, a ghost and not being dramatic.” She grinned at me. The devilish smirk comforted me more than the hot bath or comfortable bed did.
“Where’s Emerald and Green Man?”
Her small shoulders rolled in a simple shrug. “Green Man’s probably getting buggered or asleep. Emerald is asleep in her alcove. Like most virtuous souls would be at this hour. ”
“You’re not asleep.”
“It’s poor manners to point out someone’s lack of virtue, Cricket.” Violet clucked her disapproval.
“Go get them and meet me in the latrines.”
“Oh yes, mistress. I’ll get right on that. A simple please could go a long way, you know, ghostie.”
I cast her an exasperated sigh but nodded. She was right. I was being rude and imperious, and I didn’t like that I felt that was an itch of my newly accepted Fae nature.
“Violet, can you please go collect them? I have some things to tell the three of you, and I think I can finally talk about it.”
A delicate painted brow rose on her doll-like features, and she scrutinized me for a long moment before pushing up out of her stool and disappearing into the darkness of the warrens.
I didn’t have long to wait. Even if it felt like I would wear a rut into the earthen floor of the only place in the entirety of the warrens that I was sure the rest of the sleeping humans could not hear me. I had tested it, when I first returned to them, after my convalescence at the temple. It was amazing how healing screaming at the top of your lungs into the clay walls really was. It at least prevented me more than once or twice from marching up the spiral stairs into Daróg’s chambers and slitting both of our throats.
Green Man appeared first, pushing the tattered tunic that he usually wore into the baggy threadbare breeches. When he saw me, the deep scowl that had dug into the leaves and bark that made up his face cracked into a pleased smile, and he hugged me tight. “Thought we’d lost you there, Cricket. Been beating myself up about it since you didn’t show back up in the warrens. Almost went down there after you myself.”
“It was good that you didn’t come looking for me. I didn’t survive it. But I’ll tell you more about that when the others arrive.”
Emerald appeared next, pushing sleep from her eyes with a shimmering dark-green translucent hand.
I would never get tired of looking at the masterpiece that was Emerald. Whomever had thought of a woman made of the glittering gemstone she shared her name with was brilliant. They had taken their time with her, created her with the utmost eye for detail. Even the smoke that filled the cavities within her sparked with opalescence that was stunning to behold. When her eyes fell on me, that smoke sparkled with small mirages of fireworks, and she threw her icy arms around me and hugged me tight. Her hands found my face, and the images within the smoke flitted one after another in a dizzying whir of stills. She seemed to dart between concern and joy, chastisement, and elation.
I laughed and hugged her back. “It’s okay, Emerald. Calm down, I’m fine.”
The smoke in her chest coalesced and throbbed with the image of The Raven followed by a mist-covered graveyard and a splash of blood that slid down the cage of her ribs.
I snickered. “That would be harder than you imagine, Emerald. And I don’t encourage you to try it either.”
“Are you planning on telling us why you’ve gathered the three of us in this midden heap in the dead of night? Or shall the four of us make tea and toast your good fortune?” Violet asked, bringing up the back and scooting the heavy wood door closed behind her.
I tugged the three of them as deep into the toilet room as I could, away from the doors and into the deepest part that would swallow up the sound. They listened in total silence as I regaled them with the tale first of The Oaken Rose and the deal I had made in the gardens. I had suspected that the tongue lock that she had worked into that deal had been removed when my mother had pulled them from me. But I wasn’t certain that it would be totally removed enough for me to speak freely in the presence of others. But it had been. Leave it to a goddess to accomplish thorough destruction of something so barbaric.
When I got to the part about the King, Emerald flashed bright red and glowing black with her anger at how I had been treated. Flashes of knives and hammers and meat being smashed under them all played along her arms and chest. The other two sat quietly, though I could see flames dancing behind the fissures in Violet’s face .
I told them everything, all that I had heard. All that I had seen and everything I had experienced while I was away from them.
None of them moved a single inch or showed a single emotion, aside from the occasional image that was quickly suppressed under Emerald’s skin.
As I finished with the story of my mother and the revelation of who I was, I fell silent, joining them in the heaviness in the room.
I watched the three, trying to gauge how this wealth of information hit each of them. None of them showed any emotion. Green Man could have been a bush, and I would have believed it for how still he had gone.
Emerald was the first to react, and pandemonium followed her as she leapt on me, dragging me to the floor. Fists pounded into my flesh and then, finally, her icy fingers wrapped around my throat. Rage twisted and contorted her shimmering face as she leaned her weight against the squeezing.
I fought back, my legs and hips kicking and bucking to try and dislodge her. It was no use, though. She was blind with rage, and its unnatural strength fueled her grip. I clawed at her wrists, trying to free myself, but my nails slid right off her without finding purchase as it should have in flesh.
There were no images playing under her skin. No indicator of what she was trying to communicate. The smoke within her swirled like it was caught in a maelstrom, and there was nothing else.
My eyes bulged. My lungs burned from the lack of oxygen. Tears stung at the edges of my slowly darkening vision. I barely even felt the slight tugs on Emerald’s vise grip until her hands finally came loose, her nails catching on my skin and leaving burning claw marks in their wake.
Green Man held the wild cat that Emerald had become back, wrapped in a cage of his arms and vines.
“Explain yourself. Immediately,” hissed Violet, venom the likes of which I had never heard from her dripping from her words .
“I swear.” I coughed and doubled over, trying to catch my breath into beaten lungs starving for air. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about any of this. I swear it on my grave.”
Violet watched me through barely slitted eyes. Green Man struggled with Emerald.
“And I guess, now that you’re Fae, you’ll be killing Emerald for touching your dainty neck,” Green Man barked, and I looked at the struggling Emerald.
I took a deep breath, stepped closer to the pair, and took Emerald’s face in both of my hands, one on each cheek, which she promptly tried to bite. I captured her gaze so she would hear me above her anger. “For everything that has been done to you, I would have thought less of you had you not tried to kill me.”
Violet stilled behind me. Green Man stared daggers into me. Emerald calmed slightly and looked to Violet for guidance.
“What Fae trickery is this?” Green Man demanded.
“None. I am human. I am Fae. I am both, and I am neither. Don’t believe me? Let her go. If she wants to kill me for what runs through my veins, let her. She’s owed that rage. She’s owed that vengeance.”
Green Man did just that, unwrapping Emerald as I spread my arms wide so she could see I meant it. Was it crazy? Yup.
Of all of us, Emerald had lost the most. She had lost her voice. She had lost her freedom. She had lost her identity. She had lost a child, though Violet had sworn me to secrecy on that knowledge. The Fae had kept her unchanged until she had given birth. And the moment she pushed her babe from her body, they had set about their gruesome work. Emerald had not even had the chance to hold her child before it was secreted away into the vast lands of Fae, never to be seen again.
She, of all of us, was owed ten pounds of flesh.
Emerald rushed me, and I held my ground, letting her come. She stopped right in front of me, her heaving breath dusting my face as her nose pressed into mine.
I met her eye for eye. “Do it, Emerald. Kill me if you wish. But if you don’t kill me, know that I will reap vengeance upon all of them for what was done to you. And what was done to all of us. ”
Emerald took two steps back, a grand waving gesture that meant something akin to either “go on” or “the floor is yours.”
“The Oaken Rose is oath-bound to guide us out of here. I don’t doubt that she will well and truly do that. She’s required to by magic. The fact that I died down in those tunnels plays in our favor. The Oaken Rose would have felt magic crumple in on her, felt the weight and burden of her unkept oath pressing in on her. From what I could gather from my conversation with the La—my mother, that feeling is a sensation that every Fae dreads. She said it feels like someone is hollowing you out and tearing out your insides but not on a physical level, on a level much deeper and more disturbing. A Fae who breaks their oath, especially one sworn on magic itself, would be cut from magic altogether if they break their oath. And as Fae are magic in meat suits, it is a death sentence and a very slow withering death sentence to an otherwise immortal being.”
“So, you died. How’s that going to help us?” Green Man said, drawing Emerald into a comforting hug as she began crashing from the adrenaline of her anger.
“I intend on insisting politely at first. And then I plan on forcing The Oaken Rose’s hand. She doesn’t know that I’m Fae. She doesn’t know that, short of iron to my heart, I can only be temporarily inconvenienced by death while in this palace. I don’t know why, but I know how these oaths work. And I’m going to leverage it to my benefit. The bitch thought to cage a tiger with a wicker basket.” I watched them all as emotions played over their faces but never stayed stable enough to peg. “When it happens, it will happen fast. I will send Goose to collect you. When you see him, do not fight him. Let him collect you. He will bring you to me, and we will escape together.”
“Did you forget there’s dozens of humans here?” Violet spat.
“Hundreds. There’s at least one more warren, a human I had never seen and did not belong to our warren came to serve The Raven and I dinner. But I cannot help them until they are ready, and I certainly can’t escape with all of them at the same time. Not while I am unable to wield magic. Once I can, I will come back for them. ”
“And what, you’re just going to nip down to the Market and collect up some magic?” Green Man quipped.
“No, but I have a plan. And I’ll need all three of you to help me if we are going to pave the path for us to free all the humans and burn this shit stack to the ground as we do so. You’ll have to trust me. I know none of us trust Fae and none of us have reason to. But I am telling you everything I know so that you see that I am hiding nothing from you. You can either chose to walk out of this bathroom and go straight upstairs to any of the Fae and collect the bounty for a human fomenting a mutiny—or even tell them who I am and set yourselves up as cushy little pets—or you can crawl around in the muck with me and see what sort of shit we can stir up for these fuckers. Make your choice, because the moment I turn my back, if I find you with a knife in your hand, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
I watched the myriad of emotions pass through their faces.
It was Green Man who broke first.
“Fuck it. The choice is to die with their boot on my neck or die with my teeth in their ankles. I’m in.”
I nodded to him and looked between Violet and Emerald.
To my surprise, Emerald stepped forward, slapped me as hard as she could, then immediately followed it through with a bone-breaking hug and a kiss on my cheek. All traces of wrath erased from her beautiful face.
Violet continued to scrutinize me. “You’re not going to tongue lock us or oath bind us to your cause?”
“Nope. It’s a simple human thing. The knife is in your hand. You decide if you want it at your throat or in your fist.”
She grunted and crossed her arms over her flat chest. “Some Fae you are. Can’t even scheme proper.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll have to give me asshole lessons, Violet.”
The four of us fell into awkward silence before Violet looked up at me. “Okay, so now what? Rousing rallying speech and now what?”
I shrugged. “I’ll send word on next steps. Emerald, can you act as our messenger? Outside of the four of us, most everyone thinks your images are gibberish. We can understand you, but no one else can. ”
Emerald communicated with the rest of the warren and the Fae in the palace with an image of graceful calligraphy being written on vellum with a quill. It was simplistic and far less artful than the wealth of communication she had forged with us, her closest cohort.
Emerald nodded her ascent.
“Good. Thank you, Emerald.” I looked between my chosen three and felt my throat closing with emotion.
These were the relationships I had earned. The relationships that would mean more to me in the coming weeks than any other relationship. I would lean on them when the tough armor I had collected around my heart.
They would be the rope I would use to reel myself back in from the edge when I was ready to fall into The Raven’s arms. I didn’t know how hard the road ahead of us would be, but I did know that no matter what path we four took, it would be far easier than the one I would have to take with The Raven to get us there.
Already, my skin was tingling with the need to touch him. Already, my breath was yearning to mingle with his again. It was torture. And I knew it would only get worse.