I moved from cell to cell, the damp air clinging to my skin as if the walls themselves wanted to keep me here. “The war is over. You can go home now,” I called, my voice echoing through the stone corridors as I wrenched open door after door.
Some of my fellow fae prisoners rushed past me, not waiting for an explanation. Their only focus on escape. But many others stayed where they were, too stunned to believe their freedom was real. A few could hardly move at all, their injuries pinning them to the cold ground, chained by pain rather than iron.
I felt the weight of their hesitation, their fear, but I had done my part. I couldn’t stay here any longer.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the stairwell, and two hulking men descended into the gloom, their faces set like stone. I would have been frightened if not for the sharp points of their ears, a mirror of my own.
“We’ll take it from here. Go on, join the others,” one of them said, his voice rough but not unkind.
I nodded and stepped aside, but my eyes fell to my palm—a faded red burn mark, etched into my skin like a brand. A reminder I was fae and had been bound in servitude under human rule. But now, with the war over, it was just a scar, a mark of the past.
I unlocked one final cell and took a breath, my heart racing as I ascended the stone steps. When I pushed open the door at the top, daylight flooded in, blinding me. I winced, my eyes burning from the sudden light after two months of darkness. But I didn’t care. The warmth, the brightness—it was everything.
Freedom.
“Now what?” someone mumbled behind me, a question as much as a plea.
It had been seven years since the war began, and many had nowhere and no one to return to. My heart ached for all I had lost–family, friends, colleagues, precious places, even my own childhood.
Now what indeed?
There was only one place I wanted to go, one place that had kept me sane through the long, dark days below ground—the place where I had studied, taught, and spent countless years lost in books and ideas. My college. My sanctuary. My home.
I took a deep breath and turned toward the sun.
Yes, it was time to go home.