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I glared at the insolent guard, still brave or stupid enough to continue baiting me. How dare he speak of Lorelei that way? I'd half a mind to cut out his tongue and feed it to him. The anger I'd worked so hard to bury, rose up.
Breathe...
It took great effort, but I released my sword. I deeply inhaled the cloying smell of damp forest, my hands fisted at my sides.
The Mythlandrian guard's smug face pulled into a sneer. "Perhaps you've seen the beings we seek. The girl ran off a few nights back. Not that there's any harm in that, but she travels aided by the Prince of Elyssium, Lord Adrius, surely you know of him."
He walked toward me, and I felt his presence growing closer, nearer, within... reach. Then he stopped.
"Not too talkative are you?" he said, studying me. "A cape like that—well you're dressed like the Dwarves, but your stature and carriage indicate otherwise. Not too many foreigners spend time around these parts. Care to share your name and business here?"
"My business is my own," I cautioned. I should have known better, known that my tone would give away where I was truly from, and invite more trouble than I sought. I didn't care.
The guard puffed his chest, visibly insulted by my slight. "I am a guard of Mythlandria. You will remove your hood when addressing me."
He grabbed my arm.
Fourth mistake. My generosity knew no bounds, it seemed.
Tugging off my hood with one hand, he brandished a blade in the other.
My cloak fell back with a gust of cold.
"You." Accusation echoed deep into the night. He stepped back, having the good sense to put some distance between us.
"The Lord of the Shadow Fey. I'd thought the whispers of you holed up in a Dwarven town were mere rumors." His breath hissed in the frigid air between us. "I'll be heavily rewarded for this find."
The arrogance of Elves.
"Isn't it your bride the Prince has run off with? And you hide in the shadows instead of fighting for her? She that bad at her wifely duties that you'd so willingly cast her off onto another?" He chuckled. "Maybe I'll take her for a turn and see for myself what all the fuss is about."
Final mistake.
Elves were fast. Lightning fast. But the Fey...we were faster.
Before the smirk faded from his oafish face, I rammed him into the base of a tree and pressed my forearm to his throat. Blood sounded in my ears, filling me with a hunger I'd not satisfied in some time.
"I might kill you," I said slowly, "but I might not. Here is what you are going to do if you want to live. You stop talking about her. You stop looking for her. And you ensure your hunting party calls off their witch hunt."
The Elf struggled against me. He had little strength, new to the King's army, perhaps. That would account for his underestimation of how easily I could subdue him. I leaned in harder, still exercising a modest amount of self-control. On any other occasion, he would have been dead already.
I glared into his eyes and waited for his acquiescence.
"Not a chance. I think it is I who will kill you," he hissed. Slamming his forehead into mine, he jabbed his blade into my side and wrenched it.
Cold rushed to the wound, sealing me from its pain, though I could feel the sticky wetness of blood soaking through my clothing.
A thin smile stretched across my lips as my hand closed around my weapon. Not because I was angered by his action, but relieved—the way one is relieved by scratching an itch that was just out of reach. He would not stop hunting Adrius, and therefore he would not stop hunting Lorelei. The Elf guard lunged for me again. This time, as my blade lit the night with swathing blue light, piercing the guard through until his frozen body crumpled and slid down in a broken heap, there was no feeling of remorse or disappointment or guilt. Only...satisfaction.
I sheathed my sword and disappeared into the thickest part of the forest, leaving behind his corpse encased in a growing layer of frost.
****
KEEPING TO THE SHADOWS, I slid into the night, deeper through the forest toward the hovel I'd been granted refuge in by the Dwarf. "His name is Tilak," she'd once scolded, "call him by his name."
Dwarves. Witches. Summer Fey. Even Elves. Unlikely allies. I was surrounded by them, and in this case, I was most grateful.
Tilak’s cabin was silent, dark, and dank. The fire in the hearth had gone cold. No matter. I preferred the cold. I leaned my elbows against the mantle, pressing my forehead to the stone. Over the last century I'd let too many things go. My heart. My purpose. My soul. I’d replaced them all with the empty void that only the cold could fill. Is it any wonder all I now feel is hollow...empty? Numb.
I slid into a chair next to the dimly glowing embers and rested my blade on the table in front of me. My fingers absently traced the thin scar behind my ear, where it had been severed with my father's first throw that day, so many years ago. It had taken numerous visits to the Wizards to have it restored, for there were only so many injuries a Fey could heal on his own.
Several other blades had pierced me that day. My legs, my side, my arms. Each implanted blade added more and more blood to the pool at my feet—more and more poison to my body and soul. I did not flinch. Not once. Not even when the final knife embedded itself in my chest, barely missing my heart. To this day, I wasn’t certain whether the near miss was a deliberate act to teach me a lesson, or an accidental miss of a target he'd desperately wanted to hit. I would never know the truth, though I have guessed at it.
From my birth he saw me as a threat. He'd so wanted a daughter, someone to dote on and who offered no risk. To my father, I was no more than a future usurper. A threat to his rule. And while I wanted no part of it, it did not lessen his hatred toward me. It grew exponentially with every passing year, and I believed it gradually stole his sanity, forcing him to do something as insane as attack the High Order of Wizards in their very chambers. Some part of my father must have wanted to die that day. For even a madman had to have seen there would be no other outcome for a sole Winter Faerie taking on an entire council of Wizards.
The unfortunate part was that I never wanted to be king. Not when my father in his paranoia believed I would usurp his throne. And not when the Wizard Hawthrin insisted Lorelei and I should marry and rule all of Faery. More than anything, I never wanted to become my father. I was nothing like the being he was.
There was a time when my grief over Venus's death made me forget I was not my father. I was lost, forgetting who I was...but it was temporary. Finding Lorelei had brought my true self back in full measure. I wanted to be good. To be better, for her. So I'd be worthy of someone as good as she was, whether or not she would ever truly be mine.
I stalked to the window, hands clasped behind my neck. This was madness. She didn't get to choose the pieces and parts of me to accept. It was all or nothing. And it would never be all. My mood darkened as I stowed the blade. A thousand stars littered the sky with brilliant pinpoints of light.
Fatigue swept over me. Fighting against one's nature took a great deal of energy.
She is not mine. I am free to do as I please, I reminded myself. Only, the things I used to take pleasure in, I no longer did. The momentary satisfaction I'd felt in ending the guard's loathsome existence was fleeting, at best. It did little to assuage my feelings of loss.
Our engagement still stood, and Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, would not quickly let our betrayal rest. My mother hunted us both. At least I knew she would not find Lorelei. She would be safely back in her world by now with the Elf by her side. She had made her choice—the choice we both knew she would make.