Chapter four
The clearing was still when I made it back, save for stray embers of the dying fire rising and snuffing out in the gathering darkness of the evening sky, smoke billowing upwards.
In my fury at Bray’s half-shouted proposal, I’d stumbled a few times on upturned branches and loose rocks.
I swiped at my eyes as the hot, angry and salty tears came.
Damn Bray.
He wasn’t even supposed to be here. Damn him and his ideologies.
I shoved things into my pack, not caring what landed where. What crushed what. With a jagged exhale, I tried to hold back more tears.
“Those eyes are far too pretty to be weeping.”
My spine straightened at the slithering voice.
A man with greasy hair and a dishevelled beard stood before me, viciousness plain across his face. His hound was practically rabid the way its teeth were bared, the foam and saliva flowing freely from its maw.
Five other men—all human with rounded ears. I couldn’t help but notice—stood behind him. I hardly had the wherewithal to take them all in, but I forced my mind to wrap around the situation.
One had wild ginger hair like a bonfire that had burned through the night.
A scrawny man clad in dirty black clothing.
His body was gaunt, but his eyes looked mad.
Like he survived by devouring fear alone instead of bread and meat.
A set of twins had matching tattoos on opposite sides of their necks.
And towering above them all was a brute—a giant of a man—that might roar and thump his chest. He must have been eight feet tall and fully muscled.
Terror gripped me but I ran, even as my legs trembled.
But the giant grabbed me before I got anywhere.
For such a large behemoth, he moved quickly. I screamed as he took a fistful of my hair and pressed my back to his chest. An iron vice wrapped around me and pushed the air from my lungs.
“Locke here won’t hurt you if you stay still, girly.” The same man spoke again, his tone rank with condescension. His teeth were misplaced in his small mouth, and the entire top row was gold.
Gold teeth. The man in the tavern playing cards. The same hound that had been asleep at his feet last night now snarled at his heels. I would have noticed the mountain of a man sitting with them, but he hadn’t been there.
Those teeth must have cost a fortune.
An acrid feeling picked its way up my throat. Were they grave robbers?
My mind was swirling, circling thoughts and ideas that weren’t going to save me. What did it matter where I’d seen these men before?
Despite his eel-like appearance and diminutive stature, Gold Teeth clearly thought of himself as attractive.
He had combed his hair but hadn’t washed it, and his clothes were once fine but now had dark brown and red stains on them, which I didn’t want to know the origin of.
His breath was foul as it landed on me, the gold in his mouth doing nothing to quell the stench from his gums. I resisted the urge to gag only because I had no air left in me to lose.
“Locke here will hold you, or crush you. It all depends on what you can do for us.” The men around the camp grunted and laughed their approval. The insinuation was not lost on me. “Isn’t that right, Locky?”
Locke, the beast that restrained me, gave another squeeze, and my mouth opened in a round, pained scream. But no sound came out—just an echo of a cry I wanted to birth.
Gold Teeth grabbed my cheeks—his gloved hand stank of shit and stale ale. “That’s a pretty mouth. What do you say, boys? Is it worth keeping or selling?”
My lip trembled the second he let go of my face.
I had to get out of here.
But there were six of them.
Panic flooded my body, my blood ran cold and weighed me down like lead.
I was going to die here. Or worse, wish I were dead.
“Shhhh, girly. Don’t cry. Crasos here loves a good cryer.” The dishevelled one in black let out a whooping sound at that, and my stomach lurched.
“Please. I don’t have anything. Please just let me go.” I knew it was hopeless to even think they’d let me go. But panic forced me to try.
“Well, that’s not true, girly, is it?” Gold Teeth let his weathered glove swipe up my face to brush back my hair.
“We know—” He let out a high whistle of approval at the sight of my tipped ears.
Whatever he’d been about to say, forgotten.
“Today must be my lucky day. I’ve always wanted to fuck a fae bitch.
” He pulled my hair as he took a deep and penetrating sniff of the pale strands.
“And the prettiest yellow hair I’ve ever seen.
Call me the king of the Corners because I don’t think anyone will have quite so lovely a night as I will tonight. ”
He laughed, and the others joined him, wild, twisted animal noises.
The world started to tilt, and my legs went sideways. I dry heaved until I was retching over the side of the arm that held me upright.
A noise of disgust issued from Gold Teeth. He made some sort of gesture to Locke, and I found myself shoved to the ground, knees digging into the boggy soil.
At least the world was spinning less down here.
Where was Bray? The thought that I’d ended up back here alone with no one looking for me settled into my skin like salt drying and cracking on it after floating in the Salin Lakes.
Where was Bray …
“Don’t them fae have magic?”
I wasn’t sure who spoke.
“Yeah. Maybe we shouldn’t …They’re like witches. They’ll curse you.”
Now would be a great time to have magic, I thought.
Gold Teeth tsked. “She’s not a witch, you idiot, or anything else from your children’s stories. She’s also not got magic.”
Winter froze over me. Like the warmth in the Four Corners had drained with my blood from my face. They knew I was different.
“How can you tell?” a flat voice wondered.
I didn’t care who asked. Dark spots formed in my vision as Locke pressed a gargantuan hand to my back and pushed down harder, unchecked in the excitement.
I had to get out of here. I had to. Somehow.
Even if I died trying.
“She’d have used it by now if she could. There’s something wrong with this one. Isn’t that right, girly?” Gold Teeth knelt to be eye level with me.
I was momentarily distracted by his keen ability to perceive me without caring who I was.
He yanked my head up with a grip on my hair, gouging my scalp.
Now or die trying.
I spat a full gob of spit, and hopefully some bile, straight at his eye. A sour flame burned in me as I glowered at him.
A stifled laugh from one of them was choked and swallowed. The others had the good sense to stay quiet and busied themselves as soon as I spat at their commander. They began rifling through everything. The packs, the food.
His glove came away covered in spit as he wiped his eye. I braced for the strike I knew would come. A cold smile spread across his gaunt face. Enacting. Patient.
Just as I thought he’d strike, there was a call that pulled his attention.
“What’s that then?” One of the tattooed twins picked up the leather-bound crystals, and my heart sank into the frozen pit of my hope.
The unmistakable plink, plink, plink sound of crystals tumbling to the ground, one on top of another, clattered across the clearing.
But that was all the distraction I needed.
Now or die trying.
I leaned forward as far and as fast as I could. I cracked my skull on Gold Teeth’s nose. I was dazed for a second, but I gathered myself for another attack.
“Bitch!” Gold Teeth cried, spittle and blood flying past his beard as he clutched his face.
Locke instantly had me back to my feet and pressed to him.
I crashed my head backwards into Locke to try to dislodge him from around me, but my skull hit a stone wall of muscle and flesh. There was not even the smallest sign that I had hit him at all, save for the ringing in my ears.
Gold Teeth was still clutching where I’d struck.
At least that one had done some damage. My mind went inky and colourful all at once, a swirling mess of paint all knocked together. The navy of the sky mixing with the green grass. And gold. Gold teeth.
Someone handed him the crystals.
“Knew you’d have them somewhere. Been holding out on us, girly?” Gold Teeth held up the adamyte to examine it.
Even in such a murky setting, the colours were beautiful. Breathtaking.
Locke’s hold around me tightened as he squeezed. I let out an agonised, breathless sound.
My heart sank.
A useless part of my mind reminded me that I had been planning to use those to get across the Corners.
Dead people didn’t need riches.
My head buzzed like an apiary, and my vision clouded over.
I had hit my head too hard. Twice. The ground came up to meet me as my legs crumbled beneath my body.