EIGHT #4
But no one was around.
"That was a bit, um, anti-climactic," Amy voiced exactly what I was thinking, making an odd, nervous chuckle escape me.
"Yeah," I agreed, squeezing her hand harder. "It's not too far to the village," I reassured her.
And then we walked.
For about forty minutes before I started to see the smoke, hear the far-off noises of life.
Amy swallowed hard when we rounded a corner and finally found ourselves in the middle of the common square, rows of buildings on either side of a giant courtyard that featured stone benches around a giant fire pit where we would often sit and tell stories, talk, just spend time together.
The snow had been removed, leaving only a small layer on the ground to prevent too much mud from being dragged everywhere. A fire was going in the pit, dancing happily, warming the group of men and women around it, happy, carefree, not thinking anything was unusual at all about this day.
No one noticed us for a long few moments before a head turned mid-laugh, the sound disappearing, the face freezing for a moment before it went serious.
"Who is that?" he blurted out, making all eyes in the area turn since, I imagined, not recognizing someone was very unlikely.
Beside me, Amy moved closer until her entire side was plastered to mine.
Her small hand crushed into mine, reminding me to give hers a small squeeze, trying to reassure her even as I tried to scan for a familiar face, feeling oddly out of place among my own kind, a sensation I hadn't exactly anticipated.
"Drake?" a voice hissed, making a small crowd part to reveal a man clearly well into his middle age, his hair graying and thinning, his face starting to crinkle.
Not a family member.
Not even a friend.
An elder.
A leader in our tribe.
Taking a steadying breath, I moved forward, pulling Amy with me. Physically pulling since her legs had forgotten how to work.
"Yeah," I agreed, putting some strength in my voice. "It's me," I told him.
He was Drayven, one of the five elders. Or, at least, there had been five when I had last been around.
"How is this possible?" he asked, shaking his head as he moved closer, his strong body straightening to full height as he stepped in front of us. "It's been... so long," he added, eyes boring into me, little specks of green in the otherwise brown depths.
"I was captured," I told him, watching as a few mouths fell open behind Drayven, likely being able to guess exactly what that meant. "Enslaved," I added because it was true, because it would come out eventually, because I just wanted to get that part over with.
"How, after all this time, did you find your way back to us?"
Giving her hand a squeeze, knowing how it was going to feel when everyone's attention fell to her because I had just been the recipient of that unsettling treatment. "This is Amethyst. She freed me. And she needs sanctuary," I added, voice fierce.
"Of course. Anyone who brought you back to us is welcome," Drayven said, but carefully, in a way that put me on-edge.
"Someone go fetch Drake's family. They will want to know he is here," he added, voice somewhat exasperated that no one had chosen to take it upon themselves to do the errand already.
"While they do that, Drake, I am going to need you to come and speak to the rest of the elders with me.
" There was no room for negotiation in his tone.
And, when it came to orders from the council of elders, you simply didn't object.
It wasn't done. Banishment was an ugly punishment for the kind of fae who others would use to enslave.
Our safety was in our seclusion. No one wanted that taken away.
"Don't worry," he went on, nodding his chin at Amy.
"Your friend will be safe. She can warm by the fire while we talk. "
Amy's hand frantically held onto mine for a second before she forced her fingers to relax, to pull away one by one.
"I'll be okay," she assured me, voice a lot more certain than her eyes looked. But I had no choice. And neither did she.
"I'll be right back," I promised her, looking around for a familiar, trusted face, but seeing none. She would be alone, watched like any outsider would be, on display.
But it was just for a few short moments.
"Let's get this part over with," I mumbled to Drayven as he lifted a brow at my tone, but turned and started walking.
I knew where we were heading. To the largest building in our realm - the gathering hall.
It was situated at the far end of the square, an almost intimidating structure that legends told us took two generations to build - natural stone piled and mortared, piled and mortared, three stories high and wider around than even the Winters compound, meant to house all of us in our Changed form should we ever need to have the space to do so.
For protection. Even in the winter, ivy clung and climbed, covering half of the front and all of the sides, the greenery doing nothing to soften the cold, almost foreboding look of the place.
"No reason to be holding your breath, son," Drayven told me, voice a sight softer than it had been a moment before as he led me up the cleared path to the door of the gathering hall which also happened to serve as the elders' office of sorts.
They would often sit there during the days, willing to hear disputes, gathering together to try to solve problems. Like when the spring was too wet, making the grounds difficult to plant.
Or when the coffers went nearly bare much sooner than had been predicted.
The weight of our kind's survival rested on their shoulders, a fate I wouldn't have taken on even if my shoulder had been tapped for the position.
The door groaned under its weight as it slid open, revealing a space that was so large it was impossible to be anything other than almost wholly empty.
There were candelabras set up, candles flickering around to give light to the dark space, only a few small windows providing slants of daylight to trickle through.
Two giant hearths were the main attractions in the space, one to either wall, large enough to boil stew when the harvest was plentiful enough for the entire tribe.
Directly in the center of the room was a large round table, worn and lackluster with age, five chairs around it with a large bench to the side for tribe members to sit and wait while matters were debated, while fates were decided.
Heads turned, three I had expected, all being elders from when I had last dwelled in these lands.
The eldest of the elders, Foren and Borena, both white-haired, wrinkled, stooping forward a bit with age, thin and almost frail-looking, something you didn't often see in our kind, something that proved their advanced years.
Foren wore his typical brown robes, ones made threadbare with use, the brown matching his eyes save for the bright green specks around the pupils.
Borena wore similar robes, but hers were newer, well-cared for.
A golden trinket hung from her neck, the image worn away through time, but matching the flecks of gold in her eyes.
Then there was Aurelia who was closer in age to Drayven, her hair long, black, gleaming down her back as it had always done.
She forewent the robes of the older of the elders, wearing instead plain white skirts and a long tunic-like top.
The collar and cuffs were trimmed with a dyed blue that matched the dark color that was mixed in her eyes as well.
It wasn't any of them, or their surprised inhalation of breath that had me stopping short, jerking back.
No.
That would be the newest member of the elders, someone I wouldn't consider old enough for the job. Someone I wouldn't have thought would have even wanted it.
Kieran had been born the same week I had. Living in the home next door, we had been raised practically as brothers, spending our youths getting into trouble, roughing each other up in both Draca and regular form. As we aged up, we got jobs together, moved out together, chased women together.
He'd always been content with his lot in life, happy to go the normal route of living it up while he was young, then eventually settling down, continuing his lineage.
He'd never once made mention of wanting to be an elder, of having such lofty ideas.
But there was no denying that was who was facing me from his position at the end of the table.
Tall and wide like me was about where our similarities ended.
Where I was dark-haired, he was light. Where my hair was short, he wore his long.
Where my clothes were a mismatch of the rags I had been given while in captivity and the human clothes Amy had gotten for me, his were the finest our tribe had to offer, deep navy blue.
The kind that matched his eyes. Except for the silvery starbursts he also had within them.
It was rare.
Our kind typically had brown eyes with flecks of some other color.
Kieran was the only Draca I knew who had blue as his dominant color.
I used to claim it was the only reason women fell over themselves for his attention when I clearly had the better personality.
My old best friend, the man I had probably been closest to in the world, was somehow a tribe elder?
"No," he said, the word a hiss, disbelief, confusion, and awe taking turns dancing across his face as he looked over me.
"Kieran. I know a lot of time had passed since I have been here, but I didn't realize that so much had that I would be the same age as a tribe elder."
"It's really you," Aurelia broke in, drawing my attention, finding there was a misting in her eyes. "How your family wept," she added, shaking her head. "How they begged."
"Begged?" I asked, brows drawing together.
"To be allowed to search for you," Kieran clarified, voice steel, firm, unyielding, cold. But not, I didn't think, toward me. Toward them, possibly? Toward his colleagues? But why? "They were voted down year in and year out," he added, gaze holding mine. And suddenly, it all made sense.