Chapter 6
A scream ripped from Audra’s throat as her father crumpled into her outstretched arms. She dropped with him, twisting her body so she took the brunt of the fall.
Her father’s warm—so warm—blood spurted out from the gaping wound in his skull, spraying her face, her hair, her eyes.
“Father, Father!” she screamed, pressing shaking hands to the wound. Emyre knelt beside her, streaming tears.
Her father moaned in pain, his eyelids fluttering.
“We need a healer,” Emyre shouted at the room, his voice cracking with pain.
Nobody moved, too terrified, their feet planted on the floor.
Moments ago, they had been gearing up to fight, but …
forgotten gods. They were all thinking it.
The fae had moved so fast. So damned fast, nobody in the world should be able to move that fast. The fight disappeared from everyone at once.
Audra was still screaming as the fae female slipped across the room like a golden specter of death and, her strength immense despite her frail frame, pried her father from Audra’s bloodied hands.
Audra struggled to grab hold of him again, whimpering no, no, no; her boots stepped in a puddle of her father’s blood and slipped on the herringbone flooring as she scrabbled to keep hold of him. She needed to stanch the wound. She needed to stop the flow.
Goddess of Death, please, do not come for my father, not while we still grieve my mother.
No matter how hard she resisted, she could not dislodge her father from the female’s grip.
“Priestess Nyrah, heal the innkeeper,” Lord Khari ordered, before glancing at Vrenn in mild irritation, as if all this were just a slight inconvenience.
“I told you not to use violence. Are you so incapable of following orders?” He sighed.
“No matter. Take the others to the courtyard and begin the vetting process for all who look to be of age; bleed them if you aren’t sure, we mustn’t miss any.
” He pointed at the accompanying fae. “You three, bank the fire. Hydell, restrain the daughter.”
Audra, coughing on the smoke, changed tactics; instead of trying to wrestle Father free of the priestess, she now clung to him.
But one of the fae, presumably Hydell, wrenched her away with ease, pulling her across the floor.
Audra watched helplessly, even as she continued to claw and fight.
She had to be with her father; she couldn’t let him die—if they took her, who would take care of the inn?
Who would keep watch over Emyre? He was too young, too broken, still, to—
“Move, child,” the female fae, Priestess Nyrah, ordered Emyre, who’d taken Audra’s place, trying to extricate Kamari, attempting to wrestle him from the female’s clutches. Her voice sounded ancient and ground out of her emaciated frame like swaths of sand.
“Don’t touch him!” Emyre shouted, trying to plant himself between his father and the priestess.
Lord Khari stepped up beside Emyre and placed a surprisingly gentle hand on his shoulder. It dwarfed the boy’s slight frame.
“Let her heal him, boy; he doesn’t have long, otherwise.”
Audra stilled. She could tell this was true; her father’s moans had quieted, and he lay still as death.
“Come, Emyre!” she called to her brother. His eyes were wide with terror and confusion when they met hers, but he stumbled over to her obediently. The fae male gripping her arm did not slacken his hold, but he allowed her to pull her brother into her arms.
“The fae possess magic; the priestess will heal him,” she assured Emyre.
“I’m scared, Audra.”
She clutched her brother to her chest, holding him tightly. His slight frame shook with bone-rattling sobs. She placed a kiss on the top of his head, not knowing if it was more for her or his comfort. “Be brave, Em. You are the strongest person I know; you will survive this.”
Priestess Nyrah worked quickly, pulling salves, a needle and thread, and dressings from pockets within her golden cloak.
She chanted as she stitched Kamari’s wound, and Audra was surprised that her voice no longer sounded brittle and coarse but smooth, silken.
Though her hands were wrinkled and covered in age spots, her movements were deft, the needle steady and sure.
Audra was grateful that Kamari remained unconscious, so he did not have to feel the needle as it stitched his flesh together.
“Don’t let them take you, Audy,” Emyre sobbed into her shoulder.
The sound of his cries broke her apart. Her brother never cried.
Not once since he’d shown up on their doorstep, shivering, cold, more alone than any child should ever be in the world.
And now his family was breaking apart once more.
She held him all the closer, not trusting herself to speak.
The fae had stanched the fire, and Audra’s eyes burned from lingering smoke as she cast them around the residence hall. It was empty of humans now, save Emyre, their father, and her—she hadn’t even noticed the rest being corralled outside.
Shouts and crying came from the courtyard, the sounds of struggle.
Lord Khari lingered, watching the priestess work. “Will the innkeeper live?” he asked her.
Priestess Nyrah kept her eyes on her work, smearing a salve across the ugly wound before wrapping her father’s head with gauze. The priestess nodded as she tied the dressing off and gently laid Kamari’s head on the floor.
Audra heaved a shuddering breath. She’d nodded. He would live.
Father would live.
Lord Khari pressed his thumb and finger to the bridge of his nose, sighing, before he smoothed his features and turned on his heels. He stepped into the courtyard, his voice low and commanding once more; it was clear he was determined to instill order amid the chaos.
Audra’s skin prickled. She turned around to see that the priestess was suddenly right in front of her. Audra shrank back, even though that put her even closer to the fae holding her in place. She pulled Emyre tighter against her.
“I’m not coming with you. I won’t.”
The priestess was silent, her visage frightening. Audra couldn’t see her eyes behind the veil, so she had no way to judge what she might be thinking or feeling.
Finally, the priestess snapped, “Hydell, go outside with the others.”
The grip on Audra’s shoulders tightened. “Priestess, I—”
“Go. I will bring this one. Do as I say.”
“Yes, Priestess.” Hydell dropped Audra’s arms.
For one wild, reckless moment, Audra considered making a break for the side door to escape. But she couldn’t leave Father behind.
The priestess’s ancient voice was quiet and slow.
“If you try to run, the cruel one will be called for, and he will undo my healing work. Then, he will hurt the boy, just as he did your father. Neither of those you care for is of the right age, so there are no orders to take them—the cruel one will face no consequences, not even if he takes their lives.”
Audra swallowed a sob. Her anger simmered beneath her skin. She nodded at the priestess over Emyre’s curls in acquiescence.
“Emyre.”
“Yes?” The boy pulled back slightly to look up at her.
Audra gripped his shoulders, steadying him, so she could get a good look at him. His eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and crying. Audra wanted to kill these fuckers for making him cry.
“I’m going to go with them. For now. But I’ll come back for you, Em, I promise.”
Her words rang hollow. She didn’t know where the fae would take her, and she doubted she would be allowed to return.
Yet Emyre had never had a reason to doubt her words before. So, despite the circumstances, he sniffed, nodding. He was trying so damn hard to be brave, and that broke her more than all else.
His voice wobbled. “I don’t know what to do.”
Audra withdrew the key ring from the pocket of her smock.
Her hands shook so much, the keys jingled as she placed them in Em’s hands.
“Lock the doors. Bank the cookfire. Put a blanket on Father and a pillow beneath his head. Don’t move him just yet.
It will be dark soon, too dark to make the journey to the harbor, but at first light, I want you to go to town and find Shea.
” Shea may have made the questionable decision to join the Coastal Watch, but he’d so far managed to sustain his kind heart.
He would do right by Father and Emyre, keeping both safe while Father recovered.
“Alright.” Emyre pressed the keys to his chest. He’d always loved the inn more than she did.
For her, the inn had been a place to one day escape.
She’d detested this life, stuck here in this town, dealing with shitty customers day in and day out …
But Emyre. This was his escape. He’d filled the inn with his art.
He’d seen the same beauty in it that their parents had.
Emyre wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve.
“I’ll protect the inn until you return, Audy, I promise. ”
“I know you will.”
Nyrah led Audra into the courtyard, where a line had formed.
At its front, a fae woman with a clipboard catalogued everyone from the inn.
When Audra reached the front of the line, she was asked for her name, birth year, and nameday.
Audra spoke the answers numbly, a strange feeling blanketing her, it was as though the answers to these intimate questions no longer belonged to her but to the fae.
Then she was ordered to step aside, separated from the others.
She frowned. Alone? Would she alone be taken? What about her had set her apart?
Suddenly, Vrenn’s smiling face was right in front of her.
His voice pitched high with sick delight. “You have been deemed high risk for escape.”
She barely had time to flinch away from the wolf’s head on his sword before the world went dark.