Chapter 31
The leyline snaps me out like a rug.
I roll out upon new ground, stumbling into another fiend before I can right myself. “Sorry,” I mumble, only to realize it’s Nell.
She shoots me a glare. “Don’t touch me, whore,” she spits before turning and stomping away.
Anger and embarrassment mottle my insides.
A guard barks at me to move aside, stealing my attention, and as soon as I do, Kaetir appears. He wobbles on his feet, but I grip his arm to help steady him and pull him toward me.
“You okay?” I ask.
A sheen of sweat is gathered at his forehead, but he swipes it away, looking a bit shaky. “Yeah, you?”
Despite my roiling stomach, I nod, and then he helps Rimona, who appears beside us.
The packed dirt under our feet has patches of crunchy browned moss. Our spot is circled by stacked stones—the same sort of cairns that were in the forest. I’m guessing they must be a marker. There’s no house or city or anything around us, except for withering plants and a dried-out landscape.
But there are carriages.
A whole caravan of them are horsed and ready, and as soon as the last person comes through the leyline, the guards start splitting us up.
It’s a hectic shuffling of movement, but Kaetir grips both me and Rimona by the hand so that we aren’t separated.
The three of us manage to be shoved into one of the carriages, and when we get inside and sit down together, I look up and see Frid sitting across from us with the two fiends he nearly dismembered.
We’re already crammed full, but then I hear guards barking out orders and someone else clambers up next to me.
Odelina.
My shoulders go tight as I squish up beside Kaetir, while Rimona is forced to practically melt into the side of the carriage so we can make enough room for Odelina to sit beside me.
A guard slams our door shut, and within a few seconds, we jolt forward. The ride is bumpy, the inside of the carriage hot. I suspect this is really meant to comfortably fit six people, so four of us on one bench means we’re practically in each other’s laps.
“Sorry,” Odelina says. “They had me come in here.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her.
The two fiend men sitting on either side of Frid have mutinous expressions on their faces, while Frid has his arms crossed, his countenance placid. He’s much thinner than the other two, his scrawny limbs a complete disguise to his unnerving strength.
My knees are smashed together, my thighs and the back of my neck soon slicking with sweat. Odelina fumbles with the window, but even when she manages to pry it open a few inches, the arid air does little to offer any relief in the cramped space.
Our bodies sway together, and Rimona squirms, trying to get comfortable. The constant bumps are enough to douse my back in acute discomfort, which does nothing to help my building anxiety.
I look across to Frid, the back of his head resting against the carriage wall. “Where are we going?”
“Ciona will explain when we get there.”
“And when will we get there?”
His dark eyes flash, like my agitation amuses him. “Soon.”
I sigh in frustration.
“I’m sorry about putting you on the spot earlier,” Odelina murmurs next to me, and I glance over at her, our arms pressed against one another awkwardly.
The sound of the wheels and the horses’ hooves and the creaking carriage helps drown out our conversation, but I still pitch my voice low. “It’s alright.”
“It’s just . . . the Piper saved us. Our Govern didn’t want to let him take us—I think he was going to punish us for the Plague. A lot of fae were calling for it.”
“That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”
She nods, her buttery horns shining in the dim light. “When he tried to argue, I was terrified, but the Piper wouldn’t back down. He got us away.”
“But I doubt the Piper took us out of the kindness of his heart,” I tell her. “And what about fae? Did he take some fae too?”
“Well, yes . . .” Her face creases as she shakes her head, blond curls shifting over her shoulders. “There must be an explanation.”
“Yes,” I say carefully. “But I’m not so sure that explanation will be good.”
I start to turn away, but she grips my hand suddenly, catching me off guard. “I know it sounds absurd, but I think he’s better than you believe.”
And I believe he’s worse than you think.
But I don’t say that out loud.
I gently extract my hand from hers. “I hope you’re right,” I tell her with a smile that feels stiff.
She looks so full of optimism that her eyes practically shine with it, and I can’t help but study her features. The soft roundness of her face, the blond curls, the smooth horns, the pink cheeks. Her front two teeth are slightly crooked, but every time she smiles, it only adds to her charm.
Did the Piper think that about her too?
My chest goes tight. “So, umm, what exactly happened?” I ask clumsily, voice going for casual but coming out pinched. “After he took you away from your burg, I mean. Did anyone show any . . . umm . . . appreciation to him?”
I’m such a ridiculous fool.
She blinks in surprise before a smile lifts her bow-tied lips.
“Oh, I was grateful of course—we all were. The children hugged him, and Bernhard even wept on his shoulder,” she adds with a laugh.
“I placed a kiss on his cheek.” She taps the spot on her own face, right over her blush.
Her voice lowers, expression turning earnest. “He’s very handsome, don’t you think? ”
Across from us, Frid snorts, and I flick my eyes over, finding him smirking at me. I yank my gaze away.
My throat feels tight. My voice too high. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Really?” she replies with a frown. “All the women from my burg were talking about it. The illustrations in the papers didn’t do him justice.”
The red-horned fiend lets out a scoff of disgust that makes Odelina go quiet, and her eyes fall to her lap. But all I can think about is her lips on his cheek. A kiss pressed to skin and stubble.
Hating myself, I stuff my hands beneath my legs as something green and inky squirms in my stomach and tingles my fingertips.
Nobody talks again after that, except for the red-horned fiend, who I learn is named Dirk, as he bickers with his ferry-jumping accomplice, whose name is Albert. Both of them complain about needing to relieve themselves, and both are staunchly told by Frid to either piss their pants or wait.
I’m intensely glad they choose the latter option.
By the time we finally come to a stop, my back aches terribly, my underarms are damp, and my fringe is plastered to my forehead. I straighten up, more than ready to leave the cramped space, just like everyone else. As soon as the door opens, we hurry out one after another, and I look around.
It’s still a parched landscape with nothing growing.
We’re certainly not in Penbroge anymore.
There’s no castle, no mountains or greenery, and no sprawling city.
We’ve come to a small outlier burg surrounded by a wooden fence with a gate sealed shut.
Burgs never have more than a thousand people who live inside, and they’re usually part of the territory of a mother city.
But this one doesn’t look like it has any patronage at all.
It looks run-down.
Except for one thing—a crude building right in front of the gate that looks like it was built recently, and quite rushed too, with mismatched planks of wood and stonework slapped together. Around it are more guards, wearing the same gray uniforms and cloaks as the ones who escorted us here.
All the fiends descend from the other carriages, and I walk with Kaetir and Rimona toward the burg’s entrance.
The ground is split like shattered plates, cracking beneath my every step.
When we get closer, my blood runs cold at the sight of the wooden placard hanging from a rope that’s been staked to the gate door.
The red paint on the sign is faded, the wood frayed with splinters as it hangs on the rope that looks like it’s one tug away from snapping.
“Why are we here?” Rimona asks as we cluster together on the dirt.
“Where is here?” Dirk adds.
Ciona walks in front of the entire group, her back to the gate as she faces everyone.
“This is Midoraye Burg,” she announces. “It’s part of the Piper’s territory.
It was a farming burg not so long ago, everything around here once sprawling green fields, until Drought Plague struck.
” She gestures to the dehydrated land that now surrounds us.
An ominous feeling clutches my chest.
“But over the last few months, more Plagues have hit the burg, and so we have been tending to it.”
Nell’s voice cuts through. “Tending to it . . . as in you Core have been trying to beat back the Plagues? Because it sure doesn’t look like it.”
But Ciona shakes her head, and people in the group tense. “No. We’ve been nurturing it—allowing the Plagues to stay and hoping for more to come.”
Confusion bubbles through me.
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why?”
Questions pepper from the group, and Frid and the guards circle around us like they’re waiting for an uproar.
“Quiet!” Frid booms. “Listen to what she has to say.”
Fiends grumble and shift, but voices die down.
“This burg was evacuated, so no one was harmed. But we realized that, these days, if one Plague goes unchecked, another usually follows. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the Plagues seem to have become more frequent and more severe throughout Brekon.”
I blink. So that’s why Hamelyn was hit with not just one but three Plagues back-to-back.
“This burg became the perfect place, isolated as it was, to study it.”
“Study what?” a woman asks.
“I know you’ve all had a lot of questions, and I apologize for the wait, but I can now explain why you’re really here,” Ciona replies, and everyone seems to pause with bated breath.
“A few months ago, Lord Varrik, who you know as the Piper, was called to a different burg after a Hail Plague struck.”
Several people around me make noises in reaction—a click of the tongue, a hum in their throats. Everyone from Hamelyn knows exactly how violent the Hail Plague can be.
“Since it was in his territory, he went and awaited help from an allied Core fae to get rid of it. Hail was running rampant, shattering buildings, killing people, decimating the fields. But while he was there, a group of fae attacked a fiend—blaming him for the Plague.” She flicks her gaze around at the children in our midst. “Without going into too much detail, I will say that the attack was vicious. Lord Varrik had just arrived at the scene when the fiend had his throat cut and was dragged on the street to be pelted.”
My stomach sloshes with nausea as I imagine who the fiend was and the horrible death he endured.
“But then . . . something happened,” Ciona says, and there’s a new edge to her voice. A sharper glint in her eye. “The Hail stopped falling.”
My brow furrows.
“What do you mean, it stopped?” Albert calls out with suspicion.
“I mean that, without any Core fae magic, and far quicker than Hail Plague usually takes to run its course, it dried up—precisely over the spot where the fiend lay. And within minutes, the Hail throughout the rest of the burg stopped altogether.”
A silence passes over everyone for a beat.
“What?” Nell asks with some outrage. “Are you saying that . . . that fiends really are causing the Plagues?”
Shocked dismay rolls over me, but Ciona shakes her head. “No,” she answers firmly.
“Then what are you saying?”
“My power is blood scenting,” Ciona answers.
“I was using it to trace family lineage and help Core fae with their magic, but Lord Varrik asked me to come help him with this. So, I started with gathering samples of every fiend in his territory. And, since you all arrived, I have been scenting you as well.”
I go tense all over.
“Why?” Dirk demands.
“Because fiends aren’t causing Plagues . . . but I don’t believe the Hail stopped by coincidence either.”
I blink, my mind reeling. “Wait . . . You think that the fiend’s blood stopped that Plague?” I ask, my voice hoarse as everyone looks from me to her, their eyes widening.
Ciona’s gaze locks on me, and her voice turns eager. “Precisely.”
A roar bludgeons through my ears. Or maybe that’s just the chaotic voices that suddenly surround me. Ciona’s declaration has set off a landslide, catching us in the sweep and leaving everyone unsteady in the spill.
“That doesn’t make sense,” a woman calls out. “Fiends get bloodied up and killed all the time, and it hasn’t stopped any Plagues.”
True. I have the split-open back to prove it. My blood certainly didn’t stop the Rats.
“That’s because I don’t think any fiend blood can stop just any Plague.
Each of the nine Plagues came from one of the nine Banes, right?
Well, I think the fiend who died in that burg just happened to be the offspring of the Bane who unleashed the Hail Plague.
I think that is why his blood stopped it. ”
The group ruffles with murmurs among themselves, and I hear snatches of conversations and questions, though my thoughts are spinning too fast to catch them.
“Don’t you see?” Ciona asks, her face alight. “You could be the key to saving Brekon.”
“Wait a fuckin’ minute,” someone calls, a man with rust-colored horns and thick black hair. “You expect us to be excited about this? That we’ll just . . . walk into this Plagued burg for you to cut our own damn throats and test your theory?”
Ciona looks startled. “No, of course not! As I’ve said, I’ve worked with fiends from Lord Varrik’s territory and have completed some tests. We’re still perfecting things, but we’ve had success with beating back Plagues with a small, sustainable amount of blood. Nothing dangerous, I assure you.”
I shake my head, bewildered. I can’t even fully wrap my head around this. Around all the implications.
“But in order to be sure, we needed an environment we could control.” She pauses. “And more fiends.”
“Us,” Nell says, her voice flat.
“Yes, you,” Ciona replies with a nod, and my heart skips a beat. “You see, I don’t just think you can stop them.” Her eyes gleam, shining with a weight that comes tumbling down. “I think your blood may be able to prevent the Plagues from happening altogether.”