Chapter 5
Five
The Nature of Fae
I was in the cabin. Where had Bryn gone?
He usually took me with him on errands. I shrugged and placed a pot for dinner by the hearth.
I was dicing up carrots when the chill hit.
The light in the cabin went dark, even the fire dimmed.
A horrible shriek filled the air. The door slammed open, and Bryn ran in with panic in his eyes.
“Wren, get out of here!” he boomed. A motion from behind him froze him in place. Then the wraith woman stuck her terrible clawed arm right through his chest. Blood poured down the front of him as I screamed and screamed . . .
“Wren!” Someone was shaking my shoulder as I jolted awake. “Wren, wake up. It was a dream.”
I had tossed my warm blanket off. My vision was blurry and dark. Sweat soaked my neck and forehead. The caw of a bird snapped in my ears, and I looked around the forest.
Thain hovered over me, his brows knit together and a frown on his face. My heart was pounding from the nightmare; it had been so real.
The smell of rabbit cooking in our fire hit me.
I looked around to see the gray of pre-dawn peeking out from the trees on the horizon.
I turned back to the dark fae still kneeling over me.
At some point in the night, he had finished cleaning up.
His hair was still damp as it hung lose around his face.
His silver eyes pierced through me, and I realized he was waiting for some kind of response from me.
“I’m fine,” I croaked. He let me sit up and handed me a waterskin. He tried to steady me with a hand at my back, but I flinched at the touch. Could he sense the seal?
“Who is Bryn?” he asked softly.
When I didn’t answer right away, he clarified. “You were calling his name.”
Swallowing the tightness in my throat, I found enough words to answer. “My father. He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Thain whispered. He left my side long enough to deal with the rabbit over the fire. He returned with a leg on a spit. “Try to eat something if you can.”
I took the meat silently. Despite the nightmare, despite the swelling sorrow, I ate. Thain offered more, but I didn’t take it. I couldn’t have a full belly when Bryn would never have one again.
The dark fae watched me closely as we packed up the camp.
There was no mistaking his eyes on me as we scattered debris on the ground to hide any marks we might have left, and his concern was an unfamiliar film on my skin.
Other than Bryn, Mila, and a select few visiting witches, I was not used to attention.
The kind words, the food, the promise of a safe place to learn more about the Wyldes.
It overwhelmed me, made me want to run. Suffocated me.
“Tonight you can sleep in a real bed.” Thain drew me from my grim thoughts. “Nothing lavish, but not a blanket on the ground.”
A blanket on the ground didn’t bother me in the least right now, but I didn’t say as much. “How far are we?” I asked.
“We will be there well before dinner.” He gathered my things and stood. “If you change your mind at any time, tell me.”
Just the offer, the choice in the whole thing, made me cling to my decision.
The need to know more about them burned in me, and if these partners of his were better suited to teaching me, then I would go learn from them.
The contrast between me and the humans around me was so noticeable, and now I craved to know what the other side of my blood looked like.
Just how short I fell in that direction, or if I could truly find some peace with them.
I stood with him and followed as he led us further up the mountain. After a few minutes, we fell into a comfortable pace.
The mountains were smooth with age, and the slope was never terrible, but the further north we went, the steeper the peaks became.
My legs ached from the days of hiking. My arms were a little better off, since the weight of the axe was familiar in my hand, though I still had a large, fading bruise on my left bicep.
The air grew crisp, and my breath left trails of steam to brush my face and fall behind us.
Even with the cold, I broke a sweat after a while.
Bryn’s coat was too efficient, and I’d now spent several days walking long distances.
Thain seemed wholly unaffected. He carried the bulk of my things, and still I was the one struggling.
He had given me my silence, despite obviously having some question that clung just inside his mouth then disappeared when he tried to open it.
There was a reason he was almost excited to have met me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I knew he wasn’t giving me the whole story.
Maybe that should bother me more than it did.
Maybe he thought I’d run off if he explained.
Maybe it was my turn to make an effort.
“Why don’t you travel with supplies?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Apart from a few essentials in my belt? I sleep in the trees, I hunt and forage for my meals, and the less I carry, the less I have to keep track of on the move.”
“Oh.” I looked at my heavy sack on his back. He must have sensed it somehow, because he stopped and turned to me.
“Don’t for one moment regret bringing these things, Wren. I travel with nothing, but I have a home to return to. Don’t regret any of this.” He paused. “You survived something terrible. Don’t regret that either.”
He moved on without another word, and the silence echoed around us. The understanding wasn’t something you could imitate, and it begged the question of what he had seen in his time.
The trees grew thinner, and I could almost reach up and run my fingers through the silken clouds. Were Mila and Gilly still under this vast blue sky, or had they already arrived at their coven somewhere out of reach?
We stopped for a midday meal when the sun was at its highest. The air was still crisp, but we sat in a patch of warm light, and I was as comfortable as I could have hoped for.
“What does one do for work in your city?” I prodded once we were back on the path north. Thain’s enthusiasm was all well and good, but an outcast is the same no matter where she goes. Not everyone might feel the same way he did.
“Take up a trade, or don’t. Work. Meet others. Travel the Wyldes. Laze around in bed, if that’s what you think would fulfill you,” he said, not looking back at me.
“Surely you jest,” I scoffed.
“No one is going to dump you on the streets the moment we arrive. Not after finding you. It’s been so long since we’ve seen a new face—” His head snapped slightly to the left, his eyes taking on the wicked glint of something that caught the scent of prey. “We aren’t alone.”
My shoulders tensed as I looked around. I couldn’t hear a thing. I couldn’t smell anything either. Thain pressed a finger to his lips and slid behind a thick pine tree. After a moment, he had completely disappeared from sight, and I was alone. I stood and continued to watch for movement around me.
“Are you truly leaving right now?” I hissed. “What are you leaving me to face?”
A branch snapped, and I whirled to face not a monster but something I was equally unprepared for: another fae.
If Thain was the dark blue of midnight, this one was the high noon sun in all its glory.
He was elegant, far less feral than Thain.
His skin was honey-gold and his hair a vibrant red, falling to his collarbone and framing his face.
His matching red eyes danced over me, taking in my worn coat and disheveled hair, which I hadn’t bothered to remove from my braids in days.
He must have thought me a rabid thing with all the cuts and scrapes on my face and the caked-on dirt I had to be wearing.
His own clothing was extravagant, with an embroidered shirt that tied at the sides and polished leather boots dripping with tooled designs.
If there was an opposite to Thain’s plain black tunic and pants, this was it.
This golden fae wore the same curious obsidian ring on his thumb as Thain, and a gold bracelet.
“What in the Stars . . .” His voice was soft as a harp; a small crease between his eyebrows formed the only flaw on his smooth skin.
With a small, sharp breath, I stilled, but not before my fingers brushed the axe at my hip. Who was this? Why would Thain hide from him? How was he so incredibly different from Thain? Everyone I knew from Silver Lake dressed, looked, and spoke much the same. Was this a trick? An enemy?
“You aren’t a human, are you?” His words were careful, caressing, and not a true question so much as a statement spoken softly enough to not frighten away a cornered animal.
His approach was deliberately slow, his hands held in front of him with empty palms that showed no weapons, though the sheath that glinted at his gold-clad hip promised a blade.
My lips sat in a firm line, and I held my ground.
When he was only heartbeats away, a ferocious blue blur pounced on him.
“What in the hells?” snarled the new fae. “Thain, you bastard!”
Thain’s deep laugh boomed through the thin air as they tumbled over each other, rolling several yards down the slope.
Soon enough, teeth and claws flashed as they fought, and I backed up until I hit a tree.
Eyes wide, I watched the ferocity of the scuffle, which ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
This new red-and-gold fae pinned Thain to the ground, one hand on his throat.
“Yield!” the new fae demanded.
“Nice of you to come meet us, Eberon.” Thain’s expression eased back down into something closer to the stony face I’d gotten to know, ignoring the other fae’s words.
“I was looking for you.” The newcomer—Eberon—smacked Thain’s shoulder with the back of a hand. “You spouted some nonsense about humans with iron on the move and then disappeared for days.”
Thain moved his attention to me. “I found her in a lake.”