19 LONNIE
ABOARD THE FORESIGHT
In my dream, I stared up in abject terror at the two Fae males.
Though I’d never encountered the Fae this close, there was no mistaking either of the men for human. One had long, chestnut colored hair, tied back in a braid at the base of his neck, and wore a black cloak that shifted with every movement, revealing a glint of a sword at his belt. The planes of his face were sharp, almost feline, and his sharp golden-yellow eyes held only cruelty as he watched me. The other male, looked somehow younger than the first. He was certainly cleaner, and his clothing was made of fine, evenly dyed fabric. His hair was silver—not the gray or white of age that I’d seen occasionally on those humans that were lucky enough to grow to old age, but silver, like mother’s knives.
A cold terror washed over me and I stumbled backwards, the gravel beneath my feet scraping and clattering.
The Fae were evil, twisted creatures who’d stolen my mother away from her real home in the night, never to see her own family again. I’d heard countless stories of the terrible court of Nightshade, that once stood on this land before the Gods had seen fit to punish the Fae for their wickedness. Mother made sure that from the moment we could speak, Rosey and I learned that our only weapon was to lie, and to hope never to be noticed. She said that the best thing a fairy could be was dead, and if we were ever taken by them that we should either kill them or hope to die trying. Still, I’d never had cause to take her warnings seriously. Not until today.
My heart raced as a large hand lunged toward me, aiming for the neckline of my dress. I could feel the fabric tighten as the chestnut-haired male dragged me to my feet. “What are you doing in the grass, girl?”
I opened my mouth wide and let out a high-pitched scream, using every ounce of air in my lungs. In a moment of panic, I swung my leg up and aimed a hard kick at the male’s legs.
Chuckling, the male turned to his companion. “Vicious little thing, isn’t it? Do you think it speaks the common language?”
“Leave her, Commander,”
the silver-haired male said flatly. “We hardly have time for this.”
The commander yanked harder on my collar, shaking me so my feet dangled a few inches above the ground. “It’s been many years since I encountered a human, but I daresay this one looks familiar.”
“Familiar, sir?”
“Do you not see the resemblance? I think we’ve come across that Slúagh bitch’s child.”
The silver haired male stepped forward slightly, and I met his black eyes. He seemed to be trying to look through me, as if he could see something that was not there. Then, his brow furrowed and he shook his head. “Perhaps. But, if so, then that’s even more reason to leave the child alone.”
The commander ignored him. He leaned close to my face and spoke slowly and loudly, as if unsure if I understood him. “Slúagh, where is your mother?”
I tried to kick him again, and this time he dropped me. I landed hard on the ground, and gasped for air, my chest heaving as I let out another blood-curdling scream. The shadow of the male’s hand loomed over me for a split second, poised to strike me across the face.
“Don’t,”
the silver-haired male said sharply, grabbing his commander’s arm and holding him back.
The commander swiveled his neck around, to look at his companion. His tone was sneering. “Am I offending you, Prince Ambrose? Do your delicate Seelie sensibilities extend to letting your heart bleed for humans?”
The other male’s expression didn’t change, and he looked bored as he made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “Hardly, but if you murder Rhiannon’s child before we’ve even seen her, it certainly won’t win her over to your side. Is the greater good worth sacrificing over one human?”
“Fine,”
the commander growled after a pregnant pause. He bent down to my eye level. “Human, take me to your mother. Or I won’t see any further reason to keep you alive.”
I awoke to a dull throbbing in my skull, and the feeling of the ground swaying beneath me.
My mind still chased the memory of my dream, which slipped further away with every passing second. Eyes closed, I tried to force myself to fall back into the story…to remember what happened next…but the face of the silver-haired fairy was lost.
The bed made a distinctive lurch, as if the floor really was moving, and my eyes snapped open. What in the name of Aisling?
Alarmed, I sat up with a start and looked around.
Wherever I was, the room was dark except for the faint glow of a wisp lamp. Bookshelves lined the room, and maps were tacked to every available open space on the wood paneled walls. I reached up and felt a lump on the back of my head, causing me to wince even as I sighed with frustration.
It had never once happened in the first twenty years of my life that I awoke with truly no notion of where I was or how I’d arrived there. In the past year, however, it happened so often that I was starting to become accustomed to confusion. What a disheartening thought.
The clink of metal on metal caught my attention, and I turned abruptly, making my head pound even more.
Ambrose Dullahan sat beside a foggy port window, his feet up on the wooden surface of a small table. I gaped at him, remembering the last thing I’d seen before something obviously struck me into unconsciousness. His smirking face blinked in the back of my memory, and anger rose in my chest.
“Where am I?”
I demanded, my voice coming out raspy with disuse.
Dullahan looked up, eyes widening as if surprised to find me awake. He had changed his clothing since accosting me in the barn, and now wore a thin, off-white shirt with a tie undone at his throat. His sleeves were rolled up, and I could see more of the swirling black tattoos that adorned the right side of his throat covering the flesh of both arms. He held a sword nearly as long as I was tall across his lap, and those muscular, tattooed arms were busy polishing the blade with a cloth. On the table in front of him sat two bottles, one a dusty, amber-colored whisky, and the other a clear glass bottle with no label, filled with a moon-bright liquid.
“How’s your head?”
he asked casually.
I bit back an angry growl. “Painful, as you no doubt already know.”
“My apologies for that, love. Would you like something to drink?”
In truth, I would’ve liked to take him up on the whisky, if only for my nerves, but out of pride I ignored the offer. “No, I’d like to know where I am, since obviously you’ve taken it upon yourself to kidnap me.”
“Would you say this is kidnapping?”
he asked thoughtfully. “I would view it more as speeding up the inevitable.”
“Pardon?”
I hissed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Only that you would have eventually decided to join me on your own, I’ve simply made that decision easier for you.”
I scoffed. “All you fucking royals are so damned entitled. You think you can make decisions for everyone just because you were born lucky.”
“Whatever you say, love.”
He looked back down at his sword and continued polishing, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “But I thought you’d softened to royals as of late.”
I felt heat creep up my cheeks. What did he mean by that? Was he such a talented seer that he’d had a front row seat to everything I’d done in the last weeks, or was he simply making an observation based on the distress I’d shown when the castle crumbled with Bael and Scion still inside? I looked down, hiding my burning face. “Even if I have, it doesn’t make it any less true that you all think you can drag me around without any concern for my opinion.”
“Fair enough,”
he said flatly. “It did seem easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for your permission. My apologies once again.”
I blinked at him, more confused now than ever.
Only last night I’d sat with Bael and Scion discussing the likelihood that the male in front of me would kill me, but clearly I wasn’t dead…yet. Stranger still, neither Bael nor Scion had apologized to me upon our first meeting, or indeed, admitted they might have any faults until we’d grown to know each other well. When judged against his peers, Ambrose Dullahan was almost…nice. Or, as nice as anyone who’d struck me in the back of the head could be.
Deciding to press my luck for more information, I sat up straighter and leaned toward him, “I want to know where we are.”
“On my ship.”
His response was delivered with an almost chilling calmness, as he reached up to a map pinned on the wall behind him. Pressing his pointer finger into the space between the island of Nevermore, and the coast of Inbetwixt, he shrugged. “Somewhere in this vicinity.”
Cold dread washed over me. “That’s impossible—”
I blurted out, only to break off, a hacking cough bursting from my mouth as pain shot up my throat.
Any other time, the fact that lying had once again caused me pain would be of far larger concern. Now, however, it barely registered in the face of far worse things. The third hunt would have taken place in Nevermore, had the kingdom not fallen beforehand. Perhaps the original theory Bael and I had devised while in Inbetwixt was correct after all, and I was being ferried to the winter island only to be murdered in the hunts.
Looking entirely unbothered by my coughing fit, Ambrose plucked the unlabeled, white bottle from the table, he held it out to me. “Drink this, it will help.”
I swallowed again, but didn’t take the bottle. As the burning subsided, I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not water.”
He glanced down at the translucent white liquid shimmering in the bottle. “I never said it was, but it’s not poison either if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
I scowled. The fact that it might be poison had not even yet occurred to me.
If he wanted to kill me here and now, rather than waiting for some opportune moment in the future, he undoubtedly would have already. Still, I should have been more vigilant, just as I should have paid better attention in the stables. I’d heard a second sound on the other side of the barn before his presence in front of me had erased it from my mind. Now, I realized there must have been an accomplice waiting to strike.
The too-late realization didn’t make the blow to my head or my pride hurt any less, nor did it change the fact that we were in the middle of the ocean.
“What are you planning to do to me?” I asked.
“I wasn’t planning to do anything to you, per se. With you, might be better phrasing.”
“What are you planning to do with me then,”
I asked, trying not to roll my eyes. This situation was far too serious for such pointless word games.
He tried to shove the bottle into my hand again. “Drink this and I’ll tell you.”
I cast a suspicious glance at the bottle. I wasn’t about to take any food or drink from a male who’d knocked me unconscious, only to force me onto a ship. “No.”
He looked apologetic. “For all our sake, love, I really must insist.”
“Why do you care? What is it?”
I wasn’t really expecting him to answer, but to my surprise he immediately replied. “It’s diluted Gancanagh’s dust, mixed with sea water and clary sage, and I care because?—”
My eyes widened. Shit.
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, as I was already leaping off the bed and rushing for the door. Nice? I couldn’t believe I’d thought so for even a moment. The rebel leader was the complete opposite of nice, if this was what he was trying to give me. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
I’d learned of the existence of Gancanagh’s dust back in the brothel in Inbetwixt. It was a fairy drug, that caused insatiable lust, lack of inhibition, and with too much use would eventually lead to madness. Scion and I had fallen under its effects, leading to the bite mark now permanent on my throat. At the time, we’d been trying to discover where Ambrose Dullahan and his army were, and learned instead that they were transporting the dust in and out of Elsewhere and the neighboring country of Underneath, by way of Inbetwixt harbor.
We’d never learned what they were doing with the drugs, but now, I supposed, I knew where at least some of the horrible substance had ended up.
My fingertips gripped the metal handle of the door, and I pulled, only to jerk back when I found it locked.
Behind me, I heard Dullahan rise from his seat and move toward me. “Wait, you don’t understand.”
I turned and pressed my back against the door. I shrank away, and threw a hand up to block him. I still didn’t know exactly how to summon magic at will, and feared what would happen when I used it, however right now I would be more than happy to summon afflicted to my side if it meant avoiding the rebel king. “Don’t touch me. I know what that does.”
“You don’t know anything,”
Ambrose spat. “You’re proving why this is necessary without even realizing it.”
As he moved closer, I felt the telltale heat of magic rising to my fingertips. “Oh?”
I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “And how is that?”
“You have no idea how to control yourself, and I’m not about to let you figure it out on a wooden ship in the middle of the ocean.”
“There is no world where you can force that down my throat.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t typically force women to do anything. Yes, this is Gancanagh’s dust, but it’s significantly diluted. In this state it’s used to prevent magic. Put your damn hands down and I’ll explain how it works.”
I scoffed, trying to seem unbothered, but in truth I was nearly trembling. As if sparked by my fear, a flame lit in my shaking hand. I looked at it for half a second, shimmering with blue and orange, before Dullahan’s own hand shot out and he grabbed my arm.
He forced my hand to close before dragging me forward away from the door. He barely seemed to feel it as I kicked out, landing a blow against his abdomen. Winding his fingers into my hair, he pulled my head back, and dragged me around until my back pressed against his chest. The white bottle dangled in his hand, next to my face.
“Drink,”
he said harshly, his breath hot against my ear.
“Make me,”
I spat. “Is this your idea of not doing anything to me?”
“Fine.”
He let out a growl of frustration, then flipped our positions. With one hand on my throat, he held me against the wall. Unstoppering the bottle with his teeth, he spat the cork onto the floor and pressed the mouth of the bottle against my lips. “Don’t be so fucking stubborn. It won’t hurt you, just make it so you can’t burn the damn ship down.”
I longed to throw a retort back, but I refused to open my mouth. I choked, and clawed at his hand as he pressed the bottle harder against my lips. I kept my teeth pressed firmly together, and refused to relent even as he squeezed my neck. I narrowed my eyes at him in defiance, silently telling him he’d have to knock me unconscious before I stopped fighting him.
His black eyes bore into me, looking more conflicted than angry. “I hate hurting you, Elowyn, but I will. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you mean more to me than the greater good.”
I gave him a questioning look. Why would I think that? Why would I think I meant anything to him at all, much less more than whatever he believed his mission to be?
With an apologetic look, his fingers tightened and finally, I gasped for breath. Not wasting a second, he shoved the little bottle into my open mouth and tipped the entire contents down my throat.
The potion tasted bitter, like wine gone bad. I coughed, and tried to spit it out, but couldn’t entirely manage not to swallow. Roughly half the liquid trickled down my throat, and I waited in abject terror for the effects of the dust to take over, for my vision to blur, and that uncontrollable lust to cloud my mind.
Nothing happened.
Looking satisfied, Dullahan let me go and stomped back across the room toward his chair. “See? I told you, love, it won’t hurt you.”
I struggled for breath, gasping, as I massaged my throat. “I’m just waiting to feel whatever horrible effect you intended.”
“Wait forever if you must, but you won’t feel anything. In its original state, Gancanagh’s dust removes all inhibitions. We’ve blended it with other herbs, to instead rob Fae of their magic before battles. Otherwise, it would be pointless to train human soldiers.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I suppose I should simply be grateful to still have my clothes on.”
He cast an almost offended look at me. “I wouldn’t harm you, Elowyn…at least, not in such a lasting way.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problem hurting others while you destroyed the palace, or on the docks the other night.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Others, certainly, but not you.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, much less what to say, and so fell silent, leaning against the door while I struggled to gain control over my frantically beating heart.
I had to admit—albeit begrudgingly—that he was correct. I didn’t feel any different, but if his explanation was true, then he’d not only prevented me from defending myself, but also from leaving through the shadows.
The reality of the situation, and how far we were from the shore suddenly hit me with renewed force, and for the first time real fear outweighed my anger. “Even if you have stopped me from using magic, it doesn’t matter. I’ve killed Fae before without magic, I’m sure I can do it again.”
He laughed. “I don’t doubt that, but you won’t.”
“Are you truly so arrogant that you don’t think I could ever hurt you?”
“Not at all,”
he replied. “I’m sure you will kill me eventually, but not today, and not for a very long time.”
I stared at him, nonplussed. He spoke in even more infuriating riddles than any Fae I’d ever met. “I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m sure you’ll kill me…”
What was I supposed to make of that?
As I remained silent, questions flitting through my mind, Ambrose rose and took a step toward the door. I furrowed my brow. “Where are you going?”
He cast a look back at me. “To dinner. I’ve spent the better part of a day watching you, and now that you’re awake and subdued, I’m going to go eat.”
“First tell me where we’re going,”
I demanded. “You dragged me onto this ship for a reason, no doubt, and I deserve to know what for?”
His lip curled. “Oh you do, do you? I don’t see any reason why I should tell you anything.”
“I…”
I trailed off, and snapped my lips shut, unable to think of any argument to the contrary. I supposed if his goal was to murder me in Nevermore, then he really wouldn’t have much reason to give me prior warning.
In the silence that followed, my stomach growled loudly.
Dullahan grinned even wider. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”
“No,”
I replied automatically.
It had been some weeks since I’d felt truly disadvantaged around the Fae, but all those feelings of helplessness and inferiority were swiftly returning in Ambrose Dullahan’s presence. He’d robbed me of my only defense, and now I was as much at his mercy as I had been of the other Everlasts in the dungeon, or during the hunts.
The truth was that it had been mostly Bael who kept me alive in those first days, and Scion in recent weeks. Without the use of magic, I had little defenses, and was just as helpless as I’d been before.
“How’s this, Elowyn,”
Ambrose said, hovering by the door. “You must join me for meals, and so long as you’re sitting at the dinner table I will tell you anything you like.”
His grin took on a wicked gleam. “You will not eat while on this ship unless it’s with me, and for every question I answer, you must answer one of mine in return.”
My eyes narrowed. That was not going to happen. “How could you possibly have questions for me, when you know everything about everyone in the world?”
He pressed his hands into his pockets and moved around me to reach the door. “I suppose you’ll have to come to dinner and ask.”
“No,”
I said stubbornly.
He shrugged, and reached for the handle of the door again. “Fine. Come and find me when you change your mind. I expect hunger will overtake your spitefulness eventually.”
I fumed. Fucking rebels. Fucking…fairies.
No matter how much my opinion on certain Fae had changed lately, I was always rudely reminded that on a whole, most were spiteful, wicked creatures who took pleasure in tormenting me. Ambrose Dullahan was no different from the nightmares I’d had all my life.
“Wait,”
I said suddenly, as the object of my derision moved to close the door behind him.
Dullahan looked back, his expression curious, rather than angry. “Have you changed your mind so soon?”
he asked in an almost pleasant tone. No doubt he was putting on an act, luring me into a false sense of security. I would not fall for it.
“So, if I refuse to eat with you, am I to be a prisoner here?”
He cocked his head. “We are all prisoners here. We’re in the middle of the ocean, Elowyn.”
“But do you intend to keep me in this room forever, or am I allowed to see the sun at some point?”
He seemed to think about it, then shrugged. “I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t be allowed to go where you wish aboard the ship, but be careful. Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Like what?”
I asked, in spite of myself.
“Like trying to escape. You would not make it very far, as even I could not swim to shore from here without falling prey to one of the creatures that lurk beneath the waves.”
“Fine.”
I smiled, picturing him being eaten whole by some slimy serpentine creature. I supposed there was always hope he’d fall overboard. Fall, or get pushed…whichever.
He took another step toward the door, holding it open this time as he hovered on the threshold. “Oh, and don’t think you can sneak down to the galley and I won’t know about it. You will not eat unless it is with me, and should you try, I’ll know.”
He tapped his temple. “I know nearly everything that goes on this ship.”
My smile fell from my lips.
That had indeed been what I’d planned to do; find my own food, then perhaps steal a life boat and make my escape. “If I didn’t know you were an Everlast, I would now. All of you love to offer bargains, and throw me around as if it’s your source-given right to do so. You’re exactly like your family.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me as he unlocked the door, and his black eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Wrong, love. I’m nothing like them. I’m worse.”