by D. D. Chance
I narrowed my eyes at him, accepting the reality that the king was totally speaking through his mouthpiece Luacra guard now. “Why are you telling me this?”
He stepped closer to me, and I instinctively moved back, or at least I tried to. I’d forgotten I was shackled to the Luacra, and he wound the line between us tightly.
“I’m telling you this because I appreciate the game, witch. I appreciate the challenge of drawing your husband into my snare, little by little.” Once again, he used the word husband as if it were some sort of intimate challenge. He leaned into me, and I could smell it then, something different, the scent of spices and ocean water, cool night air and jasmine. I stiffened, and the guard smiled, and in his eyes I saw the teal-green depths of the Fomorian king’s gaze.
“There is so much you don’t know, so much I could teach you, were it not for your precious King Aiden, but I’m afraid I have other work that needs to be done. The path of the Fomorian king is not so clear anymore. Can you tell me what you see?”
I blinked, focusing on the guard, whose eyes cleared as he stared at me impassively.
The visions that flashed in front of my eyes made me go cold with terror—but they had nothing to do with King Douchenozzle. “You have to let me go,” I told the guard with an urgency that had nothing to do with my own safety. I could tell by the Luacra’s reaction that he understood, because he stiffened and drew away, though only slightly. And his jaw set in a mulish scowl that not even his sleek, lizardly scales could hide.
“There is more you must—”
I cut him off. “No—I’m talking to you, Mr. Guard person, not your asshat king. You have to let me go. You can’t let Aiden or his warriors see you holding me like this. They’ll kill you, and your wife is sick.”
The Luacra’s eyes widened, and mine did too. I saw more than I wanted to see then. Not only the Fomorian female, listless and pale, but her children too, the men standing around helpless, as men were wont to do.
I clamped my fists together and pushed him back, making him walk back a step while pulling me with him. “Stop it. Drop these cuffs right now,” I hissed. “I won’t move. We’re having a conversation. If I move, you can kill me, I don’t care. But your wife needs you. You know she does. If you die, that won’t be on King Aiden’s head, it will be on your own king’s head, and he knows it. As much of a jackwit as he is, he doesn’t want you to die, not like this. Don’t be stupid.”
The Luacra’s mouth twisted in dismay, but a second later, the shackles binding my wrists dropped, and he took several quick steps in sync with me, hustling me through the Fomorian village and leaning over me as if to intimidate me. I hunched my shoulders and let him rant, happy for us to be moving, and the guard didn’t waste his words.
“What care do you have for the lizard people, as you call us?” he hissed, low enough that only I could hear him. “What do you care if my wife is sick, my children hungry no matter how much they eat? We have waited so long to see this much of the sun, and we have no idea how to step closer to it, but turning away from its feeble light would crush us.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I found myself snapping back.
The lizard man straightened as if slapped, and he pulled me into a narrow alley. “Six millennia of Fae bondage would tell you that you are wrong, Witch Hogan. But leave. Your king is coming, at least the one you cling to. Try to keep him from killing all of us.”
He gestured down the alley toward a break in the village houses, and where trees beyond beckoned like the freedom they were. “It’s one of the few portions of the Riven District that isn’t bounded by walls,” the guard said coldly. “I suggest you start running.”
18
Aiden
I could hear her. Smell her. She had never come through so strongly to me, the pounding of her heart, the harshness of her breath. She was running as if her life depended on it, and she was heading straight for me. My heart roared with equal parts delight and fear at the prospect. I wanted her running to me always, but what had frightened her? And who in the seven hells was behind her for her to be running like she was being chased by the damned?
“This way,” I ordered. Niall and Celia seamlessly changed directions despite the heavy overgrowth. We crashed through a stretch of forest that seemed unusually dark and cold. Leaves swept at me like sticky fingers, trailing long wet paths along my skin before finally letting me go free. On the other side of me, Niall’s steady stream of curses indicated he was getting attacked as well. Celia’s laugh was delighted as she edged ahead, unencumbered by the cloying trees.
“If you weren’t such a big oaf,” she began, then Belle’s shout cracked across my mind before it assaulted my ears.
“Aiden!” I saw her then, the trees finally spreading out enough to allow a sort of miniature glade in the midst of the forest, though the canopy of trees that arched overhead stuck out far enough that the sun had trouble piercing through. But there was enough light to see her. She pointed frantically to the right “This way—this way will get us out faster.”
Celia nodded vigorously. “She’s right, the forest is thicker here, but I think I know where she’s headed. The hollows.”
She raised her voice as she focused on Belle. “Green hills and stream, but no one there?”
“Yes!” Belle confirmed, but her voice almost broke on a sob. And then she was running again, so fast I could hardly believe it. We picked up our pace as well, but it was as if she wore winged slippers and darted through the forest like the woodland nymph she so resembled from my childhood dreams. I allowed myself a moment of pride as we chased after her, as I redoubled my speed to catch her sweet form. I had done this for her, given her this speed and strength. We had done this together, another result of the magic of our joining. How had previous kings ever let their witches go? How would that have been possible? I sure as hell wasn’t planning on it.
“Come on!” Belle shouted again, her urgency clear. But we needed no more encouragement. We ran for another ten minutes, batting away the sticky trees until finally we emerged into a new stretch of terrain that had been terribly named. It was a beautiful vista of grasslands, sweeping down to a babbling river. There were a few trees there, but nothing like the heavy, grabbing forest, more like a gentle canopy.
Belle had stopped at the water, practically vibrating with panic, and something told me not to press her, not at first. That realization didn’t upset me because I could feel her emotions. I couldn’t know her thoughts, but I was attuned to her like never before. I would give her the space she needed for at least a few seconds more.
Besides, there was something off about the place. I squinted at it, trying to get my bearings. Niall stopped short as well, equally confused.
Then I got it. “There’s no sound,” I said. “There are no animals here, or birds.”
“That’s why they call it the hollows.” Celia was a few steps off from us, leaning over with her hands on her knees, as was Belle now, the effects of her headlong run finally catching up to her.
Celia stood first, turning back to us. “We were warned about this place, should we ever leave the district—warned not to stay very long. It’s a place where you can forget who you are, which sounds like a good thing unless you forget so much that you end up turning around and heading back toward the thing you remembered last. That’d be the Riven District, and once you were back inside, you may well forget why you ever tried to leave. At least that’s how the stories go.”
She shrugged, looking around. “Gotta say it doesn’t seem that bad, but there aren’t any animals, you’re right about that.”
“It’s not the right word, hollows.” Belle straightened, turning around to look at me. I no longer could feel her emotions as vividly. Was she blocking me in some way, or was my attunement simply sharper when she herself was feeling things more intensely? Still, she managed to smile.
“The real term is the Hallows, with an A. It’s a sacred pocket in the In Between, one of th
e very, very few places where you can’t be hurt. But Celia is right, you can’t stay here indefinitely. It’s safe for now, but not for long. It’ll push you out whether you want to go or not.”
I moved toward her, feeling the shimmering nerves she was trying not to show. “What was chasing you?” I asked her.
“Nothing, no one,” she said, and though the answer was unlikely, I knew she spoke the truth. “I fell into a guarded section of the Riven District, but…they let me go.” She lifted a hand to her forehead and squared her shoulders as if counterbalancing an unseen weight. I scowled at the marks on her wrists. She’d once more been bound, and roughly so, red streaks and bruising marking her slender wrists.
“Let you go, why?” Celia asked, tilting her head. “Did you have money on you?”
“No. But I was in a cell, and there was a demon there. I didn’t realize that’s what it was at first.”
I scowled at her. “A demon was in your own cell?”
“No—no. It was down the way. But it saw me, even though I tried to make myself invisible—and honestly, I succeeded in that for the guards. Then…” Her mouth tightened. “Cassandra came through the jail.”
“They have Cassandra?” Celia asked aghast, but I knew the truth in that statement as well.
“She was with them,” I said. “She knew them.”
“Hell, she was ordering them around,” Belle confirmed. “Pissed and looking for me. When she realized what the demon was, she sent it back to hell. Before it disappeared, it warned her that it was spying on her, and she spat back that I was the betrayer, that I was the one who should be hunted. I think…I think maybe she was working with the Luacra to try to contain me, but for the life of me, I don’t know why. I don’t know what her endgame is.”
“There will be time enough for that,” I said. All this time I had been edging closer to Belle, and now I stood a bare few feet away when she turned to me. I lifted my hand, and she hesitated briefly before lifting hers as well and settling it in mine. She closed her eyes seeming to take strength from the simple gesture as I closed my hand around hers, but there was no discounting the jump in her nerves, the short, shallow breathing that marked her distress.
“Aiden, we need to talk,” she said quietly, and something hard and heavy stabbed through my heart.
I turned to Niall and Celia. “If nothing’s going to bother us here, we should stay long enough to recover. You think the trees are thick enough for shelter?”
“Looks like it,” Niall said. “We’ll scout around and make sure. Unless you’re not done wheezing?” He directed this last at Celia, who snorted a colorful human curse.
“You wish, old man,” she said, but the two of them moved off together, both undoubtedly aware of the tension between Belle and me, but having the grace not to point it out.
I turned to Belle and tugged her toward the water. “You’re hurt.” I twisted her hand to reveal the deepest welt on her forearm. “Let me take a look at that.”
19
Belle
“What is it, Belle?” Aiden asked, his voice inexpressibly soft. I looked at him, forcing myself not to flinch. Once again, the weight of my emerald crown and steel shackles had returned…which meant that I’d been free of them in the Riven District. The whole time, or just when I’d been walking with the Luacra guard? And either way, what did that mean? Was it simply a nice gift with purchase for hanging out with a creepy Sleestak, or was there something more to it?
But I couldn’t focus on that question now. All I could focus on was Aiden and me, and literally dozens of possible outcomes of our immediate future—the two of us tangled together under the trees, laughing and loving, the two of us stalking off in opposite directions, angry and hurt. We shouted at each other in a third image, while crackling magic exploded between us and portals flashed all around. In a fourth and fifth image, we were happy…in a sixth, we were dead.
The problem was, I didn’t know what would cause these eventualities. There were a thousand different possibilities that could stem from telling him the truth, from lying to him, trying to explain without explaining.
Forcing my mind away from my visions, I plumbed my own emotions. What did I want? What would be the worst case scenario I could handle, and what was I willing to do to preserve Aiden’s opinion of me? As I struggled under the weight of so many options, I couldn’t stop the small half sob that slipped through my lips before I pursed them tight.
Aiden’s entire body stiffened with concern and the beginnings of anger. I didn’t want him angry, but I couldn’t continue to betray him either.
I sighed. “I don’t know what the truth is, but I need to tell you what the truth could be.”
He straightened, squaring his shoulders, as if he could handle whatever I could throw at him and make it right for both of us. He was so damned noble, I almost choked on another sob.
“Then tell me,” he encouraged. “No matter what it is, I am here for you, Belle—”
“No,” I blurted, not missing the flare of impatience that shot across his face. “No, you don’t understand. You have to look at me like… Like… Like I can’t be trusted.” I swallowed, willing the tears not to fall. It appeared I was going for the truth. Ironic that after so many years of Hogans hiding that I would choose to be authentic at the moment when it could hurt me the most.
Aiden tugged me toward the water. “Fair enough,” he said, his voice even. “I will go one step further. I will treat you as an enemy in my own camp. Would that make you feel better?”
I blinked at him, confused. When we reached the small stream, he knelt in front of me on the grassy bank. Still holding my hand with one of his, he used the other to scoop up a handful of clear, crystalline water. He poured it over the stinging slashes on my wrists, and I gasped at the cold surprise of it. I blinked, realizing that tears were now coursing down my cheeks. When had I started crying?
“Even enemies deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt until they prove themselves unworthy,” he said gently. My heart lurched, and I stiffened in his grasp, wanting to pull away, but he held fast.
“But I am unworthy,” I said, miserable. “I don’t remember what happened to me with the Fomorian king, but something happened, something terrible. Something terrible that could hurt you. And I can’t hurt you. All those years when I was growing up, you were just the Fae. Some asshole who wanted us to do something we didn’t want to do, who wanted to take our women and use them until you were done with them and then they came back, hiding away and never seen. Now I’ve met you and I know differently. You’re a good king. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
His brows lifted. “I’m not sure I remember when you hurt me in the first place,” he offered, and something else broke within me.
“But I must have. He told me I did. He laughed, but he was so certain.”
Finally, Aiden understood at least enough that his face darkened, though his hand on mine never tightened. He leaned down and scooped up another handful of water, pouring it over my other wrist, and the cool balm of it made my eyes swim with more tears. Or something did.
“You’re talking about the Fomorian king,” he said evenly. “What did he say you did?”
And there it was. The moment poised on a knife blade. I sucked in a deep breath and said the truth that I knew. “I only remember bits and pieces—I was scared. Disoriented. And the place—it was so completely screwed up, it still makes my head spin. But the important part is this: He said that I was a tool of the Fomorians now.” I swallowed. “He said he married me. That I was his wife.”
“Well, that can’t be true,” Aiden countered without hesitation, though his face had gone several shades darker, his eyes glittering with malice. “You were already bonded to me with ancient magic before the ceremony of the Fae. You hadn’t become my queen at that point, but you were still mine.”
“I know,” I said, newly miserable. “I told him that, but he laughed and said my understanding of Fae law was a huma
n one and didn’t matter. But I wouldn’t have—I mean, I couldn’t have…” I shook my head, glancing away, barely able to choke out my final words. “I told him I couldn’t be held to a contract I couldn’t remember making. But… Oh, Aiden… What if I am?”
I expected Aiden to drop my hand like a dead fish. He should have. I would have. My heart squeezed so hard in my chest, it hurt, strangling the tears and the sobs that I yearned to let fly. Shame swamped me, the sum total of my suckitude making me want to die. How could I have done anything with the Fomorian king? How had I let him take such power over me? How had I even for a moment leaned into him, needing, craving—it didn’t matter if he had a million years of built-up magic locked up in his lonely cave prison, I was a witch! I should have known better!
Throughout my near-silent struggle, Aiden remained impassive, still down on one knee as I stared at him. I wanted to rush to explain, to defend myself, but I didn’t know what I was defending myself against. I could hardly breathe, in fact. If I’d known a spell to spontaneously combust, I’d be totally calling on it right now, just to escape the hell I’d made of my own life. What had I done?
Abruptly, Aiden shifted back, pulling me forward so that in my already wobbly state, I fell forward a step, squeaking a little as he pulled me into him and we both collapsed back against the soft, springy grass.
He wrapped one arm around me, holding me close—and keeping me close when I tried to shrink away.