FOUR
Drake
I hated to leave her.
But to be perfectly honest, she wasn't going to make it.
Not without a shelter to block the relentless wind, not without something to lock in our body temperatures to thaw her out.
Her lips were losing their color.
Her cheeks were painfully red.
The skin would dry and peel in a few days.
I knew that sensation all-too-well from the early days of my captivity.
Back when I didn't have enough muscle, enough fat to keep me warm.
Back before I had time to slowly fill in some of the holes in the barn that was my home, caking them with mud where I could, filling others with masses of dried leaves, spare bits of fabric if they could be found.
Those early winters were a bitter memory of being curled in a corner of a room, shivering from head to toe, teeth chattering, sure I wouldn't make it through.
Maybe I had even been somewhat disappointed to find out I had at times.
I didn't want that sad fate for her, the feeling of unending coldness, the certainty of your impending death.
She had barely even gotten a taste of a life on her own terms.
I'd be damned if I let her die before she even got an opportunity to live.
Even if leaving her alone made a pit settle in my stomach.
Sure, this was the Light.
And, sure, it was the most brutal time of winter where most fae were holed up indoors to stay away from the severe weather.
But that only meant that the fae with ill intentions would be all the more on the prowl, on the lookout for those who would not know to defend themselves until it was too late. If they could defend themselves at all.
I had no idea if Amethyst had any skills, any way to protect herself.
If she was named after her potential skill set much like her half-brother and half-sister were, then it would imply any skill she might have would be a passive one.
One that brought peace and calm, one that maybe gave her some slight intuition.
That, mixed with her ignorance of The Green as a whole meant she was about as defenseless as a babe.
From the sound of things, she would be able to navigate much better on her own once we crossed the veil. She knew the human ways. She would find her way there.
So it was my job to keep her safe until I could get her there.
I owed her that and more.
She gave me something I never could have gotten for myself.
She had given me my freedom.
It was something I had all but lost hope in.
I didn't know what freedom would mean for me.
But I was thankful for the winter, for the heavy jacket wrapping up my body.
The last beating I had endured had broken some of the plates in my back, making it impossible to slip back inside my skin like it normally would after I forced the Change to stay mostly at bay.
They would heal.
They always did, given enough time, given the chance to repair without being broken again.
As soon as they healed, they would slide harmlessly back into my skin once again, making it impossible for someone to know who - to know what - I am.
And so long as no one knew I was Draca - that I was descendent from a line of fae so rare they thought us the stuff of fables, of myths to tell their children about at night to spark their delight, to deepen their wonder - then I was relatively safe. As safe as any fae in the woods in winter.
They might wonder why I was bigger, stronger, why I was corded with muscle while most fae were slight and almost delicate.
But there were excuses for that.
The work camps, for example.
You could claim to have done a spell in one of the Dark camps for a few years, the unyielding hard work and long days causing your body to bend into a new shape.
It was a passable excuse.
They'd believe me.
Or, well, I'd kill them for their silence.
Maybe that was harsh, but so had been my life.
I would do anything to prevent myself from living that way again.
If the price of my freedom was bloodstained hands, so be it.
That may have sounded cruel, heartless.
But the Green was not a place for softness, for sweetness, for goodness.
Which was why Amethyst needed to get out as quickly as possible.
It would eat her alive.
Possibly even literally.
You never really knew.
I had been out of the world for so long. It was hard to tell who the players even were anymore, which fae had risen in power, which had fallen.
I wasn't even entirely sure which Court was holding more power.
They were supposed to be equal, of course, but only fools believed that. Power always tilted ever so slightly in one direction more than the other. For generations, it was Light, back when the lineage was secure, the powers unparalleled.
But then rumors swelled about the Princess taking ill.
And just like that, everything tilted Dark.
It was why the forests were so unsafe, even in the Light.
But new rumors were surfacing.
I'd heard the guards talking about it in whispers for ages, knowing Opal would flay them if she overheard.
The Princess had made a full recovery.
And the Light was guarding Cece. Celestine. The daughter of both Courts - something never before heard of in all of our history. A fae bound to be more powerful than any before her.
If she chose the Light Court instead of the Dark, who knew what was to become of them.
But those were problems for those whose lives were bound to be affected by those decisions.
Amethyst was going to be out of reach in the human realm.
And me, well, I was going to see what - if anything - was left of my tribe.
It had been so long.
I wasn't even entirely sure I could find my way back. But I would die trying. Die in my efforts to regain what was ripped from me so long ago.
We live on the fringes. Lived. Maybe I was getting my hopes up too much by thinking in the present tense.
But we had survived on the fringes for generations behind our own veil created by a grateful mage so long before that no one even remembered the details, they had been long lost in the haze of endless seasons.
There had been a hunt the summer before, dozens of our kind slaughtered for their blood, their teeth, their plates, parts ripped off of still-living bodies, leaving who was left to scramble away lest they be forced to burn down entire villages, killing innocents in the name of taking out one of the guilty.
They were odds our elders had chosen not to take, burdens they did not want on their souls.
So the veil had been created, appearing to others like a festering swamp, boiling hot, impossible to cross.
And our kind had lived behind it for generation after generation, isolated from the world. Our wings were forced to become accustomed to small spaces, to cramped flying when we were meant to have the whole sky.
But it was safe.
And our consciences were clear.
That was what mattered most.
I wanted to know if the veil held. Or if it had broken, and my kind had been annihilated.
The very idea made my stomach twist into a knot, making nausea rise up my throat.
I couldn't let my mind go there.
What was left for me if not hope?
Hope could help me trudge through this infernal snow, could burn a fire within me to keep myself - and Amy - warm through our journey.
So I was going to let myself hold onto it.
Even if that was perhaps naive of me.
As predicted, the winds had knocked endless pine branches free, their needles the only thing to keep us protected.
I heard a shuffling, a scraping, like something breaking through the icy top layer of snow. Turning, I looked down, finding something red poking out, just an inch or so at first, then more, and more.
A hat.
A pointed red hat.
I felt my lips curling up, unable to stop it, finding myself perhaps a bit childishly excited at the idea of seeing a gnome.
Having been as isolated as I had been for so long, I hadn't seen much of anything except the guards, the family, and that beast of Cece's - a barguest.
I watched, frozen in place with curiosity even though I knew I was supposed to be rushing back, seeing a laughably wrinkled forehead follow the hat, then almost beady brown eyes, ruddy, fat cheeks, a rounded jaw.
His hands rose out of the white snow, planting knobby fingers in the snow, hauling a pudgy midsection out of the ground, a tight red belt making his belly roll.
He stood, brushing the snow off, twittering about how hard traveling was in the cold season, reaching to pat the brown satchel settled at his side.
"Oh, good, good. There it is. Safe and sound.
" Flipping open the bag, his hand went in, dragging out a small, twitchy-nosed mouse, the ears laughably oversized, a small compress wrapped around his obviously shortened tail.
"Getting you some nuts," he promised, rubbing his fingertip over its whiskers before tucking it back into the satchel, securing the top.
"Oh, Draca," he declared, very matter-of-factly, as he finally noticed me.
"Red, hm?" he asked, nodding like he already knew the answer, making me feel suddenly naked before him, as absurd as that was.
"Very nice to see one of you again." His head lifted, ear raised as though he was listening to the air.
"Hungry fae 'round these parts," he told me, making my spine stiffen.
"Amy," I hissed, turning, running without even realizing I was dragging the pine limbs along with me.
The snow felt suddenly thicker as I tried to close the distance I had put between us.
Too much.
I said I would stay close.
I had gone far, way too far.
But close enough, I had been sure, to hear her if she screamed.
Though that was asinine, of course.
There were many fae who could prevent her from screaming, who could catch her, entrance her before she could even think to scream.
I flew over the cliff she had been situated against, a low, lethal growl moving through me at seeing a figure bent over Amy's curled form.
She seemed asleep, eyelids pressed closed, body comfortably situated half-propped up by the rock. Whether she had been asleep before he'd gotten there or not, I wasn't sure.
But she was clearly not conscious as he bent low, lips close to her ear, whispering.