12
We spend the next couple of days planning. The King and Cole tell me where the prophecy is kept and debrief me on what might happen. Apparently it’s not as simple as walking in and having a listen.
They also show me where we’re going on the map, it’s just a little further south than we are now but up on the mountains.
“We have a transporter that takes us directly from here to there.” The King says, pointing at each location on the map.
“Isn’t that dangerous— can’t anyone use it?” I ask him, my words escaping me.
He chuckles softly, noting my worry. The worry that comes from Erix being so anal about the transporter he had at the Agency.
He always had several guards around it. Never allowing anyone but himself through, unless it was for a specific purpose.
Even then it was only his most trusted assassins that were tasked with jobs that involved the transporter.
“The transporter only responds to the blood that runs in my family, you both have to be touching me to use it here and anywhere it connects.” The King explains.
“How convenient for you.” I mock.
“What? Were you planning to leave me on the mountain? Sorry to spoil your plans.” He drawls.
I roll my eyes. “It was a pleasant thought.”
“I’m sure.” He replies with a slight smirk.
Cole gets up abruptly muttering something about grabbing us weapons. I sink further down in the armchair to wait.
The King moves to stand in front of me, resting against the wall next to the fireplace with his arms crossed. His blue eyes quickly find mine to ask his next question.
“How are you finding Erador so far?”
I consider him for a moment, wondering how forthcoming I should be with him. Trust is something I’m not sure he’s earned yet, despite us talking more.
“It’s peaceful.” I say simply.
“Hm.” He murmurs, his lips in a tight line.
“How do you keep it so peaceful, how do you stop people from attacking?” I ask suddenly.
The King looks down at me, gaze piercing, like he’s trying to read me. Something flickers across his features before he quickly recovers, before I can even work out what it was.
He blows out a breath and quickly looks away. “I am afraid I don’t quite trust you enough to share that detail yet. But I’m sure you’re aware that only residents and married fae may come and go?”
I look down, I guess the feeling is mutual.
“Yes.” I answer bluntly.
“That’s only one part of the protections and enforced by the guards, the other protections use magic.”
“Interesting.” I hum in thought. I knew it was magic that kept unwelcome people out but I’d never seen it in action, I still don’t know what exactly it does.
No one knows.
He looks at me cautiously while in thought, like he’s wondering if he can tell me more, I don’t even know if he should myself.
“Why do you come on these missions?” I ask him, mostly to move on from the last subject but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little interested.
“I just told you, no one else can use the transporter.” He says obviously, frowning as he looks at me.
“Yes, other than that.” I say, shooting him a pointed look. “You came to the front lines before, you seem to be more involved than any other King I know. Most just bark orders.”
He kicks off the wall and walks over to sit on the arm rest of the chair I’m sitting on. Getting much too close to me, though it doesn’t seem to bother him.
“There are many reasons but for the most part, I would get incredibly bored otherwise.” He says and smirks.
“You risk your life and your kingdom, for a cure for boredom?” I reply, the tone of my voice accusatory.
“In a manner of speaking but it’s never a real risk really and I have plans in place for the event of my untimely death, my people would be okay.”
I don’t say anything in response, I just look towards the fire.
“Are you nervous?” He asks.
“I haven’t been nervous for a mission since I was fifteen and started going out on my own.” The words come out harsher than I’d intended.
Xander looks down at me, surprise flicking across his features before his blue eyes soften.
“You were on your own, doing missions at fifteen?” He questions, his voice gentle.
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry.” He replies and sounds as though he means it.
I don’t say anything in response. I hate when people apologise to me, especially if it’s because they’ve heard my story.
“How old were you when you first entered the agency?” He asks, as if his curiosity has taken over all other thoughts.
“Ten.”
“Gods above.” He breathes out and looks at me with sorrow in his eyes. I get up from the arm chair in the next second, leaving him there.
“I don’t need your pity.”
“I didn’t say you did.” The King says gently.
I say nothing, but cross my arms and turn away from him. I hate when people look at me like that, like I’m still a child or something to feel sorry for. I made my own and I did well with the cards I was dealt.
“How old are you now?”
The question is so carefully asked and yet so loaded, I keep my face turned away from him as I answer.
“Twenty eight.”
He says nothing and I don’t need to turn around to know how he’s looking at me now. Twenty eight in fae years is nothing. He’s probably thinking that I’m still practically a child and that he’s chosen the wrong person to help him.
But he surprises me with what he says next.
“It was all so recent for you.”
The way he says it, barely a whisper. His words only intelligible through fae hearing.
I look down at my boots.
“It doesn’t feel recent. It feels like another life.”
I don’t look back to see his expression, to see whether it’s sorrow, pity or if he doesn’t care.
“Why did the agency scout you, how did they get you?” The King asks, his voice changed in an instant, gone is the pity from before. Replaced with anger and almost a hint of desperation. Like he needs an answer at this very moment, like the answers would matter to him.
I whip around to face him, suddenly filled with rage. My shoulders tense as I square up to him. Why should my life matter to him, he barely knows me.
“What's with all the questions? Let me dig through your brain, through your past, how old are you, your highness?” I bite out the words, staring daggers through him.
He holds his hands up in defense.
“I’m just curious, I want to get to know you better.” He says, before bringing his hands down and sliding them into his pockets.
“I’m one hundred and thirty four.”
I scoff at him. “That’s young for a King.”
“You’re young for an assassin.”
“We’re all young, that’s how they get you, young fae who are knocking on the god of death's door with no other alternative, no other choice.”
He falters, the sadness coming back.
“There’s always a choice.”
His voice is so soft, so gentle and yet his words leave me fill with more rage than I’ve felt in a long time.
“How dare you?” I exclaim, charging forward, an anger filled promise in my eyes.
When I reach the King, I push him hard against the wall behind him. Before pulling out the dagger sheathed at my thigh and holding it against his throat.
I narrow my eyes up at him, the height difference between us more clear from this close.
“How dare you say there’s always a choice when you know nothing of desperation. How dare you say that when you know only castles and all you can eat buffets.” I spit the words out at him, unable to control myself but I don’t want to anyway.
“I was a child, I did what I had to do to survive, to save—”
I stop myself and shove that thought back down. My past, my reason for everything, the very thing I have kept in the dark for years now. I shove it back into the depths of my mind, where it has to stay.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course at that age with little to no resources at your disposal and the manipulation of the Agency, it would have been the only option.”
His eyes are searching me, desperate to get what he needs to say off his chest and apparently desperate for me to understand his words.
“I just meant that now, now you do have a choice, you can change the rest of your life.” He’s slightly breathless as he says this.
I’m holding the dagger steady to his throat, not letting go just yet. My body still shaking, my anger not having left.
“What in the gods' names is going on here!” Cole shouts as he grabs my shoulder and rips me away from the King.
I stagger back and turn away from them both, before resheathing my dagger.
“Well?” Cole demands.
“Nothing, just me not thinking before speaking as per usual.” The King says to Cole.
He blows out a breath as he claps Cole on the shoulder and walks over to the discarded weapons. Cole must have dropped them when he was rushing over.
“Are we ready to do this?” The King says slightly breathless as he tries to redirect the conversation.
I nod and walk over to all the weapons on the ground. Still pissed at Xander but I don’t care to fight with him. Not when he can’t ever know the full story or the reason why I still don’t have a choice.
“Are we sure she should have a weapon after what I just walked into?” Cole asks bluntly, staring at the King.
“Yes, she needs to be able to defend herself if we run into trouble, we can trust her not to kill us.” He looks across to me before continuing. “Besides, I don’t think she needs the weapons to kill us anyway.”
“And I won’t kill you before I get paid.” I add, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
The King smiles slightly to himself and Cole just stares at me. I shrug, wanting to move on from what he walked into before.
I bend down and pick up some more daggers to use as my preferred weapon going into this. I'm trained well with swords but I don’t find them as convenient when trying to get in and out of somewhere efficiently. Plus they’re heavy on my back so it’s honestly just a hindrance to have one in most cases.
The King and Cole on the other hand, seem to prefer swords as they strap two big swords each across their back.
The guys walk ahead of me, leading the way towards where I presume the transporter is kept.
I’ve travelled like this once with Erix about ten years ago, the only time he trusted me enough.
Transporters aren’t common, a certain type of fae is needed to make one.
A fae with the ability to jump from place to place with their power.
But they have to be older, trained enough to project their power.
For the King to have his own transporter blocked off for his bloodline only, means he had a very strong fae at his disposal.
Maybe even a combination of fae.
We make our way up a few flights of stairs and I feel my legs start to ache in protest. We’re climbing all the way up the tallest tower.
I feel the energy and hear the buzz of the transporter before we even enter the room. The pull of the magic is so strong, it feels like it’s begging to be used. Pulling at every fibre of my body like a silent command.
Cole opens the door and brings the transporter into view, making the pull almost irresistible.
It’s floating in the middle of the room, buzzing and spinning. The purple orb of the transporter gets lighter and lighter until you see the white centre. It flicks its energy out everywhere, almost reminding me of fire.
I turn my eyes to the rest of the room and see open archways on all sides of the hexagonal shaped building.
“Can’t anyone see it?” I ask.
The King shrugs. “Maybe but they can’t use it anyway so it doesn’t matter and more importantly, every fae in this city can be trusted.”
I nod my reply before asking a different question. “Why did you have it made here? Of all places?” I gesture around the room. It’s truly beautiful with all the natural light pouring in over the transporter but still, Erix had his hidden away.
“This transporter in particular, links to a lot of different places over Aressor, it had to be made in a room where the energy can escape, if need be. If we had it made in a closed room, it would explode while trying to disperse its energy.”
I nod and turn my gaze back to the transporter, watching as it sends its sparks everywhere. Looking more and more wild with energy the longer we’re here. Like it wants to take us, wants us to reach forward and close the gap.
“How many places?” I ask, giving in to temptation and reaching a hand out to touch one of the spokes shooting out towards me.
Xander pushes my hand down so quickly that I don’t have time to register what he’s doing. His eyes are wide as he looks over to me, his hand gripping my forearm.
“You must never touch this without me. It would drag you in and shred you to bits. No matter how strong the fae, you can’t even touch it without my blood.”
I gulp as I stare at him, his hand still firm on my arm, his gaze unwavering.
“Alright you two, let’s get on with the plan.” Cole bites out.
We both nod, not taking our eyes off each other, before the King drops his hand from my arm and sighs.
Xander moves to stand in between us, grabbing Cole’s hand and then mine. I can’t help but flinch a little when his calloused hand closes around my own. I look up and I swear I could see a flash of something in his eyes, almost like pain. It’s gone in a moment, replaced by the mask of a King.
Xander holds us steady as he steps into the transporter.
Suddenly everything goes quiet.