by Chani Feener
It was a false sense of security, and one she no longer believed in.
“You’ll spill all your secrets, eventually. I told you before, what’s done is done. Accept it, heart, that’s the only way. Make this easier on the both of us.”
“I never want to do anything for you again,” she snapped, hoping the anger would help chase away the prickling sensation at the back of her eyes. She would not cry. “I hope you’re suffering. I want you to suffer after what you’ve done.”
“What have I done, Arden?” He straightened to his full height, done with placating her. He was tall, his form filling the room with an air of power so thick it was a wonder she wasn’t choking on it. “Tell me.” When she refused to answer, he heaved a disappointed sigh. “I’d hoped enough time had passed for you to come to your senses, but I see that I was wrong. You aren’t ready.”
He shifted back half a step and before she knew what she was doing, Arden was lurching forward, kneeling on the bed to recover those extra inches he’d just placed between them.
She froze, eyes widening in horror. She hadn’t meant to move after him, but the urge had overwhelmed her. The need to not let him leave…
“What…” she swallowed the lump in her throat, confused over what had just happened. “I want you to go.”
“You’re changing,” he said. “You don’t know what you want anymore.”
“No,” she vehemently disagreed, hands clenching into fists on her thighs, “I do.”
He watched as her irritation grew with each passing second. Then he leaned forward again until his face was only a foot away from hers. In the cold room, his warm breath reached out, fanning across her cheeks.
“Do you love me, Arden Rose Archer?” His hazel eyes shimmered in the dark and the air sizzled with the slight tang of magic, a taste she hadn’t been able to perceive before. There was power in names, especially if it was the name of an Unseelie. As a human, Arden’s own was just three words on a piece of paper.
But now…
The truth spilled out of her despite how strongly she fought against it, summoned by him.
“I don’t know,” she breathed, the same answer she’d given the last time he’d played this trick. The same answer that made it hard for her to fall asleep at night—as if the nightmares weren’t enough.
“Come back to me, heart,” he practically cooed, voice lilting, cajoling. That familiar sense of sway wrapped around her shoulders like a blanket, coaxing her to lean closer even as he continued to speak. “Come back. Let me help you.”
Let me help you, he’d said, outside the hospital, under a sprawling willow. The sky had been gray and darkening, rain pattering down around them. He’d flicked open an umbrella, the color of freshly bloomed roses, and held it over her head.
Her mother had died, Arden was grief stricken, and she feared that she and her sister were next.
Let me help you.
“You’re lying,” Arden shook herself free of the sway, the faerie magic that he used to control people and bend them to his will. “You’ve never helped me.”
His jaw clenched a second time and when he pulled back, he did nothing to hide his anger. “No? Who taught you how to do that then? Who taught you how to break free of faerie magic?”
Stubbornly, she bit the inside of her cheek, refusing to answer. He hadn’t said her full name, so she could deny it, but what would be the point of a blatant lie? Mavek had taught her how to defend herself against the fae, how to keep herself safe from them long enough to run.
“I won’t run to you for help,” she told him. “Not again.”
“You will,” he said, and he sounded so sure of himself that an inkling of doubt trickled through her defenses. “But not tonight.”
Suddenly, Mavek’s gaze shot to the open doorway, listening to something that she couldn’t hear. “I didn’t just come to see if you were ready to come back with me,” he admitted then. “A new ruler of the Goblin Market has been selected. I came to share the news.”
“That has nothing to do with me.” Now that Cole was free of his curse, neither she nor her friends had any intention of ever going back to that place.
“Deny it as long as you can,” he said, “but it won’t change anything, Arden. In the end, you are my creature. When you know it, you will come to me. I may have cruelly thrust you into this world, but in this world you are.”
“That’s not—”
“If it weren’t true,” he cut her off coolly, “you wouldn’t have the soon-to-be king of the goblins calling at your front door.”
Arden frowned, glancing quickly at her closed bedroom door before forcing her gaze back to him. Her mouth opened to ask who it was but she stopped herself, not wanting to prove him right on the heels of denying the need for his help.
Still, he knew what she’d been about to do, and the corner of his mouth tipped up, the look of triumph so intense she caught her breath.
“Do you still want me to leave, Arden? Perhaps it’s foe and not friend out there trying to get in.”
“I know which one is in here.” Climbing off the bed, she was glad to find her legs were strong enough to hold her up. It was difficult, turning her back to him, but she did it, heading down the hallway toward the front of the house as if everything was fine. As if she wasn’t feeling a million different emotions.
She didn’t bother checking out the side window, instead gripping the doorknob and yanking the door open with enough force that a gust of icy winter wind was sucked in. A single figure stood on her porch, at first unrecognizable until she glanced down to see the swirl of a misshapen shadow stretching across the wood planks.
“Brix.” She blinked at him, replaying Mavek’s words. “It makes sense that it’d be you.”
He’d been one of the Erlking’s fae, after all. She wasn’t quite sure how the intricacies of fae politics worked—it hadn’t been a priority during her time as a Heartless—but Brix seemed a logical choice in her mind.
As a Lutin, a type of Unseelie who could change their physical form at will, Brix almost never appeared to her as the same person. This time, he had long chocolate hair, tightly pulled back from his face. He was wearing a pale green rain jacket, open wide to expose the gray knitted sweater and faded jeans beneath.
He didn’t look like a powerful supernatural being.
“Interesting choice,” she said, a moment before she felt Mavek enter the living room behind her. She tensed, but didn’t turn toward him.
Brix peered over her shoulder, eyes narrowing slightly. “I thought, perhaps, that you would try and beat me here, Midnight Prince.”
“I’m not the only predictable one,” Mavek replied. “It was obvious that you planned on coming. And I know why. That,” he stepped forward, stopping just behind Arden, close enough that she felt the heat of his body, “is the only reason that I’m allowing your visit to proceed.”
“You can no longer command me,” Brix stated.
“This is my town,” Mavek slipped around Arden, so that he was straddling the doorframe, directly between the two of them. “She is mine. Don’t mistake your new position for absolute power; it is not.”
Before she could think of a way to defuse the situation or deny what he’d said, Mavek turned his head and smirked at her.
“I should give the same warning to you, heart,” he whispered, low enough to make it clear that his words weren’t meant to be overheard. He lifted his hand to tuck a loose strand of her dark hair behind her ear, gritting his teeth when she slapped him away before he could.
“We aren’t friends, Mavek,” she said, alluding to their conversation back in the bedroom.
His anger returned and she held her breath, refusing to back down. This was the first time they’d seen each other in a while. She couldn’t allow herself to appear weak; she had to make her stance clear. To the both of them.
“Speak with the Lutin,” he told her finally, stepping away and out onto the porch, forcing Brix to move or be walked int
o. “I’ll see you again soon.”
Her nostrils flared—she did not need his permission to talk to Brix—but before she could act on her irritation, he turned from her completely and descended the porch steps. The night seemed to swallow him whole so that no matter how hard she strained to find him, all she could see was black.
“He’s gone,” Brix interrupted, tipping his head in greeting as she gave him her attention. “May I come in, Arden Archer?”
With a sigh, she shoved the door the rest of the way open and dramatically swept her arm out. “Why not? The night’s already a bust.” She certainly wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep.
Brix entered carefully, scanning his surroundings, taking in her small living room and the adjoining dining area. He’d only ever been inside her house once before after helping to bring Tabby and Cole here.
“So, what do I call you now?” she asked after he’d settled with his back against the breakfast bar that attached the living room to the kitchen. “I sure hope it’s not Erlking 2.0.”
He may have smiled. She couldn’t really tell.
“The crowning hasn’t taken place yet. But even still, just Brix is fine,” he said.
“Don’t you get a new title with the new job?” Mavek was called the Midnight Prince, and Titania was considered a queen. Surely there was more to his new station than simply… Brix.
“I’ve been given a title,” he admitted, “but that’s all it is, and a false one at that.” His gaze drifted to the wide bay window, but if something was out there, Arden couldn’t see it, even with her ever-improving eyesight. “Only a Puck can be a true Autumn Prince.”
She frowned, more than one part of that statement confusing her. As far as she knew, the Erlking had been just that—the Erlking.
“You’ve lost me,” she confessed, more at ease now that Mavek had gone. It was true that the Unseelie currently standing in her living room had tricked her in the past, but he’d been truthful throughout. She didn’t fully trust him because that would be stupid, knowing what he was and all, but she didn’t think he’d hurt her either.
Mavek wouldn’t have left the two of them alone if Brix posed a physical threat.
“I’m one of the strongest of the Erlking’s subjects,” Brix explained, “but there’s an order to this kind of procedure that, in normal circumstances, wouldn’t be passed up. Royal positions in this world are limited, there are only nine spots and as you know, we can live a very long time.”
They could live forever.
“So… someone else should have become the…” she waved a hand in the air, “Autumn Prince?”
He nodded.
“Why was Herla called the Erlking?”
“We don’t always inherit the same titles, Arden. We’re more complicated than that. We come from a different world. Herla was who he was. We need someone to run the Goblin Market and take control of the dark fae he left behind. An Autumn Prince can do that,” Brix told her, “but the one who was offered the job refused it, and so here we are.”
“Why are we here, exactly?” she asked. As interesting as it all was, Arden was hopeful that none of this would matter to her once she broke the curse Mavek had placed. The second that she was no longer changing, she was getting the hell out of this town. It’s what she should have done after her mother died, instead of trusting in all of Mavek’s lies, and she didn’t want to give herself the chance to be sucked in by him again.
“I took this position for a reason.” Brix eased his hands into his pockets.
It wasn’t hard to guess where he was going with this.
“Everett.” Seven years ago, Brix had fallen in love with the Erlking’s Heartless. It had gotten the human killed.
“I couldn’t keep him safe,” he agreed, holding her gaze steadily, knowing his next words weren’t going to go over well. “I won’t make that same mistake with Thomas.”
Arden’s spine stiffened, but she kept her face clear of emotion. “He prefers Eskel.”
“Whichever name he goes by, he is still Everett’s brother, and I still want to protect him.”
“Ditto.”
“Then send him away,” Brix told her. “Send him far away from here, Arden Archer, and from you.”
“I don’t control what he does.” It was so like the fae to assume people’s actions could and should be dictated by others. This was why she could never fully trust one. “Eskel makes his own choices.”
“He stays for you.”
“That—”
“You are changing,” he added, effectively cutting her off. He watched as some of her anger deflated, replaced with the anxiety and doubt that smothered her every waking moment. “You know it can’t be undone. You should accept it. That is the only way forward. It’s not so bad, Arden, being what we are.”
“Oh?” She quirked a brow. “Being an Unseelie is what kept you from being with Everett, remember?”
Brix’s gaze searched her, staring as if he could see right through into her very soul. “Is getting to be with a human all that you want for yourself? Is that the most important thing to you?”
She clenched her jaw, but he continued before she could lose her cool.
“I mean no disrespect,” he bowed his head slightly, “my questions are honest, as is my intent. I didn’t come here to make you uncomfortable, only to try and ease your burden. Moving forward is the only way through this, Arden, for all of us.”
A humorless laugh slipped past her lips. “Now you sound like him.”
“What the Midnight Prince has done to you is cruel, but it is already done. He is not wrong to tell you as much. His motives have always been clear; he wants what’s best for you. He’s trying to make the transition easier.”
“How the hell could turning me into one of you be what’s best for me?” she demanded.
Brix blinked at her, as if she was the crazy one for not understanding. “Were the two of you not in love? Did you not wish to be with him? Why deny what everyone already knows is true? You asked for his heart so he found a way to give it to you, yet now you are angry.”
“Keep talking like that and I’m going to kick you out,” she said between clenched teeth. “You’re twisting things. That’s all you people ever do. Twist things until it suits you.”
“You loved him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I loved him!” she yelled, losing control for a split second. She barely registered the burst of power around the room as the lamp on the end table rocked and the TV remotes slid an inch across the smooth mahogany coffee table.
“Breathe, Arden Archer,” Brix urged, trying to comfort her but it was too late.
“He never asked me if I wanted to be fae,” she said. “He never asked me, Brix, and that’s all that matters.”
“Then why don’t you hate him?”
“I do hate him!”
“I was waiting outside for quite a while,” he told her. “I heard what the Midnight Prince asked you. I heard your reply.”
Which meant he’d also heard Mavek use her full name. Before she could break out in a cold sweat, Brix held up a hand.
“I won’t use it.”
“How can I trust that?”
“What would you like me to give you to prove it?”
A headache was starting to form and she pressed her fingers against her temple. “I’d like for this conversation to be over.”
For a moment, she was met with silence, and then, “Very well.” He turned to leave.
“Wait.”
He paused, glancing over his shoulder at her.
“That’s not what I want. If you want to prove to me that you’ll never use my name, that you can be trusted, then promise you’ll keep Eskel safe. No matter what.”
Brix shifted on his heels, turning back to fully face her. “That’s what I came here to demand of you, Arden Archer. We want the same thing.”
“I can’t force him to leave,” she repeated, “we’re humans, and our relationships don’t wor
k like that. So I’m asking you to keep him safe. From anything. From anyone.”
“You’re afraid you’re going to hurt him yourself,” he said, a bit awed by that realization.
“That energy burst a moment ago didn’t come from you, Brix.” As much she wanted to deny it, she knew that he and Mavek were right about some things. She was changing, and those changes were scary and unknown. “I didn’t mean to do it. It just happened. If it happens again when Eskel or one of the others is around…”
His brow furrowed. “I knew you feared what you were becoming, but I didn’t realize you feared yourself this deeply. Perhaps you should reconsider what you said to the Midnight Prince.”
“We aren’t seriously back to this, are we?”
“I understand you feel wronged—that you were wronged,” he corrected before she could disagree, “but…” he sighed. “We live a long time. Even the strongest of angers fade, Arden Archer.”
They lived for an eternity.
Soon, so would she.
“You shouldn’t still be doing this.” Sighing, Arden tipped her head back and closed her eyes, enjoying the heat of the sun slipping through the thick branches above her. They were deep in the woods, far from the roads and any signs of human life.
Behind her, Eskel moved around a ring of toadstools, his boots crunching in the fine layer of frost that had encased the ground overnight. When he’d arrived at her place this morning, he’d mentioned his worry that the faerie ring had died in the cold, but she’d known better. It was hard to kill something Unseelie.
“It beats leaving ourselves vulnerable,” Cole said, as he stood, shoulder propped against the thick trunk of the oak tree that sat just a few feet from the ring of mushrooms.
Eskel had discovered the ring when he’d first arrived in town searching for his brother. At the time, he’d believed that it allowed him to see creatures such as spirits and ghosts. Now, he and the others knew the truth––knew how dangerous it all really was––but they’d insisted they come here anyway.