Elm
Hot water beaded on my back as I stood with both hands pressed against the wall. I let it soak into my skin before emulsifying the bar of soap and washing away all the dirt and debris. So rarely did I let the tears fall, but the day had been so hellish. We lost so many people I’d gotten to know in the last year. And even though I’d never call them my closest friends, it still hurt to know I’d never get to walk into Grady’s and be greeted with a wave of their hand. No more welcoming smiles.
I’d failed them all.
Father failed them. He always talked about wanting to bring humans and fey together, yet he didn’t seem to care at all about Oread’s successful co-population because it wasn’t done the way he wanted it to be. He thought the only way to truly ensure a healed relationship was for a royal member to marry a human. Like my brother, he looked at the common folk as lesser than, and had not uttered a word of appreciation for the Hunt’s careful work in bringing our peoples together.
The scalding water stung the white scars on my back, reminding me of the pain Father had caused. Every time I fucked up, he’d form a whip from his magick and use it on me. If I ever tensed or moved, he’d add another three lashes. Baz rarely screwed up, but when he did, I’d lie to Father. Tell him it was my fault and take the whipping so that he never had to know what that kind of torture felt like. Besides, he was going to take the role of King someday. He needed to maintain that perfect complexion for his future. Eventually, Father caught on to what I was doing, but he continued to use me as his personal rage deterrent.
I’d failed Baz by taking the brunt of his discipline. Because I never wanted to see him hurt, he never learned how to properly care for his people. He lived a wonderful, royal lifestyle free of pain, but that also meant he never saw what the other fey went through. Never knew how truly bad their lives were. How cold the winters were when they ran out of firewood and had to slip out into the snow to chop more down in the dead of night.
So, I’d failed my people, too, by not showing him what they went through. Because I protected him.
I stepped out onto the plush bathmat and sighed. My life was also pretty cush compared to those outside of the Dullahan border. The ashrai lived in total darkness. The water fey suffered every summer when their homes were destroyed by either a drought or trash pollution. Even the perpetually happy nymphs dealt with problems that we, as royals, would never know.
Tugging on a pair of gray pants, I couldn’t stop my mind from slipping to Kol. He’d had it the worst of anyone I knew. The sylph territory, a tiny sliver of land made up of rocky mountains and lush forest called Gailbreath, was the closest to human lands. He’d been only a child when his family was brutally murdered. Kol had to teach himself to fly, to hunt, and cook his own meals. Until he met Jules, he’d done everything on his own. And that one human boy changed his world, softened him slightly. When I’d met Kol, he and Jules had just moved to Oread to start their life together.
And then Jules got sick. I’d only just officially joined the Hunt when I heard about his illness. Kol and I worked together relentlessly, trying to heal him with herbs and researching what could have caused him to become so sick. By the time I realized it was bedlam fever caused from drinking tainted tepid water, it was already too late.
I wrapped a towel around my head to catch the dripping water from my hair before it drenched my clean pants. Steam fogged the mirror, and I felt grateful for its mercy. If I were to wipe away the generous condensation, it would reveal red-rimmed eyes. I could blame it on soap in my eyes, and maybe Phyre would believe me, but Rhen wouldn’t. She saw straight through my hard exterior that I worked so hard to put up. Understood why it was there and didn’t expect me to bring it down just for her.
And I loved her for it.
Kol and Phyre understood enough about me to know that I didn’t want to talk about my past life. Both of them took me for who I was and became my friend when I didn’t deserve it. Loved me despite my questionable actions. Protected me when I couldn’t protect myself.
And Kol had swept in and saved Rhen when I couldn’t. Had nearly died so that her death wouldn’t be one more added to my guilty conscience.
Cold air nipped at my damp chest as I opened the bathing room door and shimmied through to the infirmary. Fern must have just given him a dose of medicine because he was sitting up with a glass of water in his hand.
“You’re alive.” I breathed a sigh of relief, but hid it with a smirk. “Thought for sure you were gonna meet the Mother herself.”
The winged fey groaned. “Wish I had. I’m in some serious pain, and all that bitch will give me is herbs.”
I chuckled, then plopped down on the side of the mattress. He groaned when it shifted, making a pointed face at me. “Don’t talk about a lady like that. Wanna smoke?”
Expecting him to turn me down like always, my mouth dropped open when he nodded. The pain must have been worse than he let on.
“How’s the girl?” he winced, adjusting his wings against the infirmary’s too small bed. It was no wonder he was so uncomfortable. With nothing to support his winged body, the muscles in his shoulders remained tense, just trying to keep them from slumping to the floor.
“Can you walk?”
Kol hissed. “I almost died a few hours ago and you want me to walk? Asshole.”
Standing, I held out a hand. “Fern would flip her shit if she caught me drugging her patient with mukkweed.”
He struggled but managed to get to his feet with my assistance. With him up, I could see just how bad the damage to his wings was. More than half of the feathers on his left wing were missing, revealing raw, shredded flesh.
“Gods, Kol. You look like shit.”
His chin jerked up, and he flipped me off with his free hand. “‘Preciate it.”
“What? Want me to lie to you?” I raised a brow, letting him prop himself against the door.
A nod. Through clenched teeth, he whispered. “Next time tell me I look pretty. Boost my morale.”
I chuckled, placed a hand on his shoulder and glimmered us both to the greenhouse. He found the wooden bench and plopped down with a groan. With his wings spread wide behind him, he took up the entirety of the bench. I found the little brown picnic basket that I kept most of my mukkweed stash in and dug through to the pre-rolled joints. Kol held out a hand for his, and I slipped it between his fingers, lighting it with a match. I lit my own and sucked in a deep breath. A large cloud of smoke filled the room with the earthy scent. With a nod, Kol took a small puff, but immediately started coughing.
“I don’t—” he wheezed, “—know how you do it, man.”
“Slower, draw it into your mouth before you let it hit your lungs, then out in one swift exhale. Like this.”
His next try went much smoother, and I could see his pain easing on his face. That’s why I loved the mukkweek. It worked quickly as a pain-relieving agent without the psychedelic effects than some other natural remedies held. I’d turned to it after one of the first times Father had used his magick whip against me. Luka found me curled up against the garden gate, blood soaked through my jacket. I begged him not to tell anyone in the palace, forced him to apply a secret rune on his calf. But that didn’t stop him from finding the Solemn witch and bringing her to my aid. She offered me a small cigarette filled with the herb. And Luka sat next to me while I inhaled the mud flavored smoke. It didn’t make the pain go away completely. Nothing short of Mag’s healing magick would have done that, but it did the job. Made it easier for me to pretend that I was okay. And none of us ever spoke a word to my brother about it.
“So,” I said, hovering over Kol with a half-smoked blunt between my first two fingers. “Rhen has her first official assignment. I’m going with her to the human realm tomorrow. Are you going to be okay on your own?”
Kol offered a toothy grin, holding up his own cigarette. “Leave a handful of these bad boys and I’m golden. Why haven’t I ever done this before?”
“Something about wanting to keep your brain cells intact or some shit,” I chuckled with a shrug. “I dunno.”
“Shit, I’ve been missing out. I feel like a newborn!” He lifted his wings, tensed with pain, and lowered them back. “Or not. So, what’s the deal with you guys?”
I looked down at my feet, avoiding his eyes, though I could still feel them boring into me. Some of the potted plants set around on the tables drooped, as if they weren’t getting enough attention. I supposed I had been neglecting to water them as often lately, so I used it as an excuse to fill the awkward tension. Moving over toward the sad ferns, I placed a hand over it and let my magick whisper around it.
“What do you mean?” I asked as the dry brown leaves fell off and fresh green ones bloomed.
Kol flicked the lit end of the blunt, knocking ash to the cement floor. “Have you even talked about what happened? She fucked your brother while he was disguised as you.”
I dropped my hand from the plant, letting it swing hopelessly at my side.
“What is there to talk about?” It was done. Over with. Both Rhen and I avoided the topic of my twin to the best of our ability. There was nothing to be said.
“Well,” he said, rolling his loosened shoulders. “if it had been you. If she had knocked on your door and it was you in there instead of him—”
My mouth went dry. I knew what he was asking before the words left his mouth.
“Would you have taken her?”
My answer should have been immediately no. I tried to shake my head, but only tilted it in thought. “I don’t know.”
“C’mon. She’s the prophesied queen of the Fey. Like a blood rite to screw her, right?”
He smirked. He knew exactly what he was doing, trying to rile me up. And the drugs lowered both of our walls enough that honesty flowed out without consent. I wondered how long he’d been harboring those thoughts. He’d seen me kiss her that day —
“Shit, Kol. She’s a person! Would I have wanted to? Sure, absolutely, but I know what she’s been through. Any person who I invite into my bed is there because they want to be, not because they feel like they owe me something.”
“Hey, hey. No shame here. I get it. Have you ever, with a human, I mean? With Jules—I was always afraid I was going to hurt him.”
“Kol,” I warned. “It’s not like that with us.”
He laughed, then tossed the butt of the cigarette to the cement floor. I stepped on it, twisting my foot to extinguish the flame. “Sure, bro. Whatever you say.”
The cool menthol of the weed’s vapors coated my throat with a sort of buzzing hum that reached my chest. I refused to allow myself to think of Rhen as anything more than a friend. Running from my own royal fate my entire life taught me a few things.
First, there is always a choice. I made a conscience effort to avoid any responsibilities that had to do with running Dullahan.
Second, bonds were built on trust, friendship, and love. Not from a red tether that the gods magickally bestowed upon you. Fated love was bullshit.
Third, and most importantly, there was no such thing as fate to begin with. Things were set in motion by our own actions. Honestly, the thought of a deity sitting in the clouds assigning mates at birth and throwing random obstacles into people’s lives just to thrust them together was laughable.
Of course, I believed the seer’s intuition about most things, but even their visions weren’t set in stone. A split-second decision from anyone at any place in the world could change the future.
And tomorrow, if Rhen failed to gain help from the humans? If they chose not to align themselves with us in the oncoming war? They’d be signing their death warrants.
And probably ours as well.
Rhen
Sleep didn’t come easily. I tossed all night, unable to clear my mind from the haunting memories of my old home. I doubted anyone had realized—or cared—that both my mother and I had been missing for the past couple of months. Going back to that shit-show of a life felt like stabbing a knife in my chest after it had finally started to heal.
I no longer had to worry where my next meal was coming from or if the roof was going to cave in on top of us the next time it rained. And no one in the house asked me for anything sexual in return. Within two months, I’d found a fellowship I’d never known existed within a group of people I’d once been terrified of.
The colors around me were more vivid, the food more flavorful. Once I reentered that old, gray scale world, would Elm force me to stay? Had my breakdown in front of Kol caused him to want to shove me away?
Hide away in this hovel, human, until the war is over. I could hear him saying.
No.
He usually respected my decisions, even if it was only to set himself apart from Baz.
After hours of tossing and turning, I finally threw off the thick comforter and slipped my feet onto the plush carpeted floor. I padded through the long hallway toward the kitchen, where I found Kol sitting.
His wings were still in terrible condition but seemed to be healing. Still, I doubted Fern would be very happy to know her patient had escaped to the kitchen without her permission.
“What are you—?”
He dug a hand in a bag of deep-fried crisps, held a finger up to his lips, and winked. “Did you know that smoking makes you hungry? How the fuck Elm stays so slim after smoking that stuff all the time, I’ll never know.”
Oh, he was high. I choked back a laugh, covering my mouth with my arm.
He offered the bag to me, so I grabbed as much as I could fit in one hand and sat down at the small oak table across from him.
“You know,” he said, tossing a fistful of salted crisps into his mouth. “I like you.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the way he bluntly confessed it or if it was the coarse sea salt coating the chips that dried my mouth out. I stared at him in disbelief.
Kol held up a hand, waving it. Crumbs coated the table as he shook his hand. “Not like that. Just—you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Jules?”
His silver hair shimmered like glittery stars under the feylight as he nodded. Deep sadness washed over his expression, and I felt him wanting to slip back into his shell. I didn’t want to push him, so I nibbled on the edge of the chip, letting a gap of comfortable silence stretch between us.
“Thank you,” I said finally, “for saving me. And I’m sorry that you got hurt. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a member of the Hunt after all.”
He slammed a fist down on the table, brows furrowed in frustration. “Shut up.”
The sudden sound startled me, and I dropped the chip to the floor. “But—”
“I said shut up! You are exactly what the Hunt needs right now! Do you know why I saved you? Not because you’re some prophesied person that’s meant to save our world, but because you are good. Truly good, Rhen. I know what kind of life you lived before you came here, and most people would be filled with hate and anger, but you?” He released a sigh, dropping both arms onto the table. “Jules would have loved you.”
Words; I couldn’t find any to express what I felt to hear him say something so kind. So, I smiled. I liked high Kol, this vulnerable version of him.
“Thanks.” In any other circumstance, it wouldn’t have felt like enough to convey what I wanted to tell him. But something in the way he glanced up at me through teary eyes told me he understood.
“I better get back to the infirmary before the bitch wakes up. She’s always up so fucking early.”
I nodded, watched him rise slowly and toddle toward the door. “Oh, and Kol?”
He swiveled, careful not to graze his wings against the wall.
“I like you, too.”
With a wink, he kissed his fingers and sent it flying through the air toward me. And maybe it was just the overwhelming exhaustion, but I swore I felt a peck of warmth on my cheek.