Chapter 5 #3
‘What if I do say I was taken from the Light?’ I ask. ‘What if I was caught in a lie?’
Locke snorts. ‘The enforcer will be there. As I said, he’ll sense if you speak untruths knowingly. You need to choose your answers wisely or they’ll send you to the Dark Realms as soon as they can. Right back to Merediea.’
My stomach churns and I wonder if I’m going to lose the bread I just swallowed.
‘I understand,’ I choke out.
My hands shake a little and I chuckle mirthlessly. ‘I thought the Light was a place of kindness and mercy.’
He’s silent now, and I take this time to quickly to force down another three rounds of bread and beef dripping. I learned nothing as a slave if not to eat when food was provided. At least I don’t have to fight anyone for it this morning, I think sardonically.
Locke begins to clear the table, putting everything away nearly in cabinets and drawers.
When my plate is empty, I look up and catch him observing me.
‘What happened to you in the pits?’ he asks.
The sudden question has me feeling as if I’m falling down a hole, scrambling to gain purchase and failing.
‘I already told you,’ I say as calmly as I can, without any of the chaotic emotion that I feel inside. ‘I survived. Just as you wanted me to. What else matters?’
He lets out a slow breath, eyes boring into me.
‘And what did that survival cost you?’ he whispers.
He voices the question that I haven’t yet been able to answer, the one that makes me feel ill when I think about it.
‘Nothing,’ I lie. ‘I had nothing left to pay with.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ he says very quietly, ‘and I’m sorry for that as well.’
I stand up abruptly, saying nothing more about it and wanting this conversation to be finished.
‘I won’t let them do it, you know,’ he says. ‘I won’t let them cast you out. You’re under my protection.’
I snort. ‘What power do you really have here, Locke?’
‘Little,’ he says and he sounds truthful. ‘But I have friends here, and, by extension, so do you. And there is a former slave who lives…close by with her two orc mates.’
‘Orcs with a human slave?’ My eyes widen. ‘As equals?’
I can’t even imagine such a thing.
He nods. ‘A rarity I know, but yes. They were the first to come here and make their lives in this place. The Breach shouldn’t open here, but, once in a while, it does when the tides are very strong.
When a portal appears, this mountain, high in The Ranges, is where those from the Dark Realms who find their way to the Light end up.
Some thinning of the ether during the Breach’s most extreme currents, they say.
Gwen, Drak, and Grim have been here since this place was little more than one small cabin in a clearing.
There is a precedent for you to remain.’
‘What if you can’t stop them from making me leave?’ I ask, afraid again that all this talk is just posturing, that he won’t actually help me when push comes to shove.
Why would he? Why would the others? What am I to them besides a Dark Realmer they got lumbered with? Jak and Morgan said they came to Merediea for me, but is that the truth, or just more fae trickery?
My eyes search Locke’s countenance. Perhaps he just wants me to cast him in a favorable light when I answer the questions in front of their council. Though he, Jak, and Morgan may be in the Hall with me, I need to assume that I’m truly on my own because I might well be.
I can’t leave my life in their hands. I just don’t trust them.
‘If you promise to help me stay here, I’ll make sure that everything I say about you is…good,’ I say carefully, gauging his reaction.
He gives me a quizzical look. ‘This isn’t a deal we’re going to make, Bryn. I’ll help you no matter what. I vow it.’
I frown at him, remembering his words deep in the Dark Realms when we made our first deal.
His eyes avoid mine now.
‘When you’re bargaining with fae, always demand a vow aloud so that they can’t go back on their word,’ he says quietly.
‘That’s why you weren’t held to our bargain at first,’ I say, hating the tears that threaten.
‘Yes.’
The sting of his betrayal, the way he must have planned it from the beginning, cuts fresh in a way that steals my breath. I thought the three of them were starting to care for me as I did them while we traveled through the Dark Realms all those weeks ago, but it was a lie. He manipulated me.
He begins to sweep under the table in silence, and then tells me where to find a comb for my hair.
We’ll need to leave soon, I suppose.
I find the comb in his room but as I stare at myself in the looking glass, my stomach rolling in anxiety, my complexion wan, my cheeks hollow from having little more than bones to gnaw on for weeks, my hair dull, and the pretty dress hanging from my frame like sackcloth on a stick, I don’t think I’d let me stay on appearance alone.
I do make sure the scars are covered by my sleeves and a shawl though. Don’t want them thinking I was a difficult slave in constant need of discipline or that I’ll be a problem if they do let me make a life here.
I hear a knock on the open door at my back and Morgan’s voice behind me.
I hate the flutter my traitorous heart gives even knowing he’s close. It’s the same with Jak and Locke as well, even after everything.
Pathetic little slave with naught else but three fae who don’t care about you at all.
‘Bryn?’
I whip around, blinking tears from my eyes and find him just a step away.
‘Locke said you were going to meet us there,’ I half accuse.
He surveys me and clearly finds me wanting. I just stop the flinch from finding its way out and giving me away.
‘I came because I wondered if you’d like me to plait your hair,’ he says, looking shy and perhaps a little rueful. ‘It’s just that… Well, I remembered this morning that you seemed to enjoy it when I did your hair when we were traveling and…’
‘All right,’ I hear myself saying, my stupid heart opening just a crack.
He comes to stand behind me, tall and looming, but I’m not afraid. His size doesn’t scare me, it’s his honeyed words and actions that threaten my resolve not to care about him that do.
He combs my tresses through, being careful not to snag them, and then he arranges my long hair into a neat plait down my back, securing it with a leather tie.
‘There,’ he says softly.
‘Will I— Do I look…’
‘You look very bonny, Bryn.’
I huff at his lies and the unfurling warmth I feel in my gut even though I know the truth.
‘They’ll take one look at me and cast me out,’ I whisper. ‘Everything it took to get here and I’ll be undone because my bones are sticking out.’
‘That isn’t true, Bryn.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘It’s time,’ Locke booms from the other room and I feel as if I’m going to lose my recent meal.
‘I won’t let them make you leave,’ Morgan whispers in my ear as I walk out to the main living area.
Hollow words.
How would he stop it if Locke cannot?
The three of us leave the cottage and walk back the way we came last evening. There are more humans out now, even children playing. They look well fed. Happy.
I have to force myself to keep pace next to Morgan and Locke, and not behind them.
I’m their equal here, I tell myself, but an insidious voice from deep within that sounds suspiciously like Warrior’s hisses, You aren’t one of them, and you won’t be.
As soon as the Light Realmers set eyes on you, they’ll find you lacking.
Your time here is borrowed and it will end sooner than you think!
I suppress a shiver and lament the fact that I don’t have a weapon, or anything to fight with if they fling me back to the Dark like a fish too small to be worth gutting.
I have to find a way to make myself valuable to them somehow.
Despite what Locke and the others say, I can count on no one but myself.
We walk down the thoroughfare quickly. People get out of our way, some glance toward us and pull their children closer. At first I think it’s me they’re afraid of. That’s how other slaves were with me once they knew I wasn’t right, but then I realize it isn’t me at all. It’s Morgan.
‘Why do they flee from you?’ I ask him, craning my neck to glance into his face.
He watches a woman pull her two children out of the road, staring at him fearfully and whispering something to them.
‘Because I’m half orc,’ he rumbles low, his expression impassable.
‘But you’re one of them. You live here, help build their homes,’ I mutter.
He says nothing.
‘It’s as I said, Bryn,’ Locke replies instead. ‘Things are different here than they were. Morgan is markedly Dark Realm. Many of the humans here don’t like it. They’ll tolerate the fae because the Underhill’s laws keep them safe, but Morgan isn’t the same.’
‘That and my reputation as Mountain in the black fights precedes me,’ Morgan says quietly. ‘There are stories about me, of my fights, of my mercilessness even still.’
‘But, that isn’t fair,’ I mutter, scowling at the people who are practically fleeing from him. ‘You’re not like that now. You help them.’
He side-eyes me. ‘I’m glad you think so, Bryn.’
Mine narrow back. I shouldn’t be saying kind things to him, nor thinking them!
He snorts a little at my expression and gives me a smile.
Then he sobers. ‘I’ve found that it doesn’t matter if you’re in the Light or the Dark. Nowhere is fair, Bryn. Not really.’
‘They treat you this way because of a fire?’ I ask.
Morgan glances at me. ‘It was no small thing. The entire village was burned to ash and it was almost winter. Those who survived were forced into tents until spring, and had to rely heavily on the Underhill for food.’
He looks at Locke. ‘The price of their help was steep. Gwen, a Dark Realmer, and her mates were allowed to stay here?—’
‘Very generous, especially as they practically built this place the first time,’ Locke interjects sarcastically.