Tithe

by Chani Lynn Feener

  Titania had already called on the last of them, the one across from Robert, but Arden had missed it. Now Titania twirled her hand, the action forcing Arden’s attention back to the present, and cued each Unseelie to escort his Heartless charge toward the outer rim of each faerie ring.

  “This is the Tithe challenge,” Titania announced, not needing to yell now that they were all so close. “You will each hold on to your Bloodheart, no matter what. As the challenge progresses, the longer you hold on to them, the longer you allow them to feel pain. But. Do. Not. Let. Go.”

  Pain?

  “The last Heartless still gripping their Bloodheart wins.” Titania clapped her hands twice, putting an end to her speech and signaling the start of the challenge.

  Arden and the others glanced at each other, and then took a tentative step into their respective circles to join their beloveds. She couldn’t look Eskel in the eye right now, not wanting to dwell on his lie, unable to bear what he was feeling.

  This was her fault, his being here, about to undergo who knew what. The Unseelie had involved the people they cared about, essentially kidnapped them, and Arden should have seen it coming.

  But if she stopped to think about it, the guilt would eat her up. Then they’d both be screwed. No, she had to focus. Had to pretend that she wasn’t screaming on the inside, terrified for Eskel. Feeling betrayed by Mavek for involving him. Angry at herself for being so blind.

  This was what she’d been preparing for, no matter who else was here. If she was going to make it through this, there was only one person she should be thinking about, and that was Ainsley.

  She grabbed Eskel’s wrists and held.

  It all happened so fast.

  The instant her hands touched his wrists, a jolt of courage compelled Arden to look up at Eskel, and everything changed.

  The world tilted and spun, and before her eyes, his body seemed to stretch and pull, like taffy in a machine. He emitted a guttural sound, more startled than pained, but even that changed within moments.

  His skin sprouted hair and he stretched upward so that soon she was holding onto the thick wrists of a large brown grizzly bear. He growled, exposing sharp teeth all the way to the gums, spittle dripping from the corners of his massive mouth.

  Instinct told her to back away, but she recalled what Titania had said. This was it, this was the challenge. Faerie magic was changing Eskel.

  Arden forced her own pain away, reminding herself who he actually was, that this wasn’t really a beast in front of her. Her grip tightened on his wrists and she braced herself. But even that didn’t last. In a blink he was changing again, his body morphing so fast that she got whiplash from it.

  Next he was a snake, slipping through her palms as he struggled. She tightened her fingers, gritting her teeth against the slickness of the pale yellow scales, almost the same shade as his hair. Clinging to that detail, that one similarity, she took a deep breath.

  And he changed again.

  To a toad, then a pine tree with sharp needles that pricked her cheeks as he moved in closer, wrapping her arms tightly to keep hold.

  Robert’s Bloodheart was screaming now, deep, sharp wails that made it sound like he was being skinned alive. The world outside of the faerie ring was a blur, and she caught swirling colors and shifting ground in her peripheral vision.

  She tried not to listen for Tabby.

  Next, Eskel was a burning lump of coal, searing her hands. Before she could think of a way to alleviate the pain while still holding onto him, he altered: now a bird.

  As a crane, he beat his large wings, attempting to take flight. His beak came scarily close to poking out her left eye, so she turned her head, pressing her face against his feathered chest. She was still there when he turned into a porcupine, quills cutting across her as they formed.

  She let out a startled yelp, pulling back enough to put distance between her and them. Blood slowly trickled down her cheeks and forehead, not enough for her to be truly alarmed, though her fear deepened. How long was this going to last? Titania had said until there was only one person left holding their Bloodheart, hadn’t she?

  Arden wanted to look, to see if the others had lost their grip, but caught herself. She needed to remain focused on the task and not worry about how the others were doing. If this was really it, this was the Tithe challenge, then she needed to win. For Ainsley, and even for Eskel, in some ways.

  Once this was over, who knew what would happen to him now that the fae knew he was involved.

  He was a scorpion then, small as her pinky finger, deadly. She pinched his tail between two fingers while keeping the rest of him in her other palm. It wouldn’t be good if she got killed during this process.

  Then he was a guinea pig.

  A fox.

  An albino lion, complete with a mane so thick that all she could see was fur.

  No matter what he was, he thrashed in her hold, as if desperate to get away from her. She wondered if he actually knew what was going on, or if his trying to make her lose was part of whatever spell the Unseelie were currently using. Arden tried not to think of the last option, that he really was in such agony that he’d lost his senses.

  A boar, one of his tusks raking across her right arm, left behind a gash.

  A swallow, with such delicate, hollow bones that she had to form a cage with her fingers in an effort not to crush him.

  A bee. He stung her thumb and she prayed he didn’t lose his stinger and kill himself in the process.

  A crocodile.

  A brilliantly white horse.

  He was a house cat when she started feeling it, the first tug of drowsiness. Eskel’s claws were dug deep into the flesh of her shoulders, and she wavered on her feet, just barely steadying herself.

  It wasn’t possible for her to feel tired right now, not with all the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Not after having wanted to win this for so long. And yet, with each inhale she seemed to grow weaker, so that by the time Eskel had gone through another twelve changes, her arms were slowly dropping.

  Her head spun, and this time it had nothing to do with the circle or the transformation magic being used against Eskel. This was different, she could feel that. It was like all the times in the past few months that she’d been hit with exhaustion. She’d attributed it to stress then, but now…

  As if having a mind of their own, her eyes tore themselves away from Eskel—who had turned into a snow white rabbit with long, floppy ears—and slid over to the right.

  Immediately, Arden locked gazes with Mavek. He appeared to be concentrating, brows slightly furrowed at the center. He stepped closer to the ring she stood in, close enough that she was able to get a good look at his eyes.

  They were no longer the hazel that she’d grown accustomed to, but the deep inky black of the night sky. The eyes of an Unseelie.

  And when they slowly trailed their way up her body, locking onto hers, Arden felt that final push. In the back of her mind, she heard him whisper one word, a command that she struggled against, to no avail.

  Her fingers went lax, and she felt Eskel—now a pale wolf—twist away. She had a split second to reestablish that sense of panic, along with a swell of grief for what losing would mean, before even that was swallowed by exhaustion.

  Sleep, Mavek’s voice seemed to say.

  So she did.

  Arden woke with a cry.

  Her hands felt as if someone had rubbed them against a cheese grater and then set them on fire. It took her a few tries to pry open her eyes. She blinked up at Mavek’s dark head, bent over her and frowning, and she tried to figure out what happened, what they were doing here, in the woods.

  Trees hovered over them, blocking out the dark sky. He was cupping her hands in his, concentrating on something. If he’d noticed that she was conscious, he didn’t show it.

  A fresh wave of pain hit her, traveling up her arms like electricity and Arden bit her tongue hard to keep back another scream. With blurry vision brough
t on by the unshed tears, she glanced down further to pay more attention to what the Midnight Prince was doing to her.

  Her palms were burnt, bright red with blisters, some of which had burst open. She watched as the skin mended, the remaining blisters wilting and disappearing. It hurt, what he was doing, but the pain lessened with every breath and soon any sign that she’d been hurt at all was gone.

  He’d used his faerie magic to heal her.

  “Mavek,” her throat was raw and so her voice came out hoarse when she finally spoke.

  His eyes snapped up to hers and he shuddered. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Arden.”

  “What?” She tried to sit up but he pressed against her shoulder, gently holding her down. The ground was soft and spongy, so she must be lying on a patch of moss. Again, her mind scrambled to recall what she was doing out here, but before she could latch onto anything, he was speaking once more.

  “I let Titania and the Erlking convince me to doubt you, to doubt your feelings for me. The test was her idea, but you passed.”

  “Wait,” she forced his hand away and sat up, “what test?” What the hell was going on?

  “It was proof,” he continued, “that you’re not in love with the Bloodheart.”

  “In love with—” It hit Arden all at once, the memories, the reason they were out here and how she’d gotten burned in the first place. She recoiled backward from Mavek so abruptly that even with his abnormal speed he wasn’t fast enough to stop her. Her back hit the rough trunk of a tree, and she pressed against it, trying to put as much distance between them as possible so she could work out what was going on.

  She opened her mouth to demand to know what had happened with the Tithe when she spotted them standing over Mavek’s shoulders, almost ten feet away.

  Cato had one of Eskel’s arms draped over his shoulders and a hand at his hip, holding him up. Cato refused to look at her, almost guiltily, which gave her the impression that he’d been privy to everything that had just taken place.

  Eskel—or as she knew now, Thomas—looked awful. He had a sallow complexion, and even with the Unseelie supporting him, he wobbled on his feet. The olive T-shirt he’d been wearing in the alley only a few hours ago was now ripped at the collar, and his usually bright hair appeared dull. His blue eyes wandered, as if unable to lock onto anything.

  Arden gasped and clutched at her chest, unaware that she was doing so. The Unseelie had done this to him, had harmed an innocent person all so that they could, what, test their Heartless? To what end?

  “You wanted the strongest love?” she asked incredulously, finally turning back to Mavek. “I don’t understand.” A sick part of her was still hoping that he could explain all of this away.

  “Not love,” he corrected. “Will. Not the will to survive yourselves—that’s basic instinct—but the will to protect, to sacrifice. Those things are what make up strong souls. But, an even stronger soul is one that can instill that type of commitment in someone. You see, humans have a type of energy all their own; their souls impact the things around them.”

  Arden shook her head, trying not to notice when Eskel wavered again and almost toppled like a plastic mannequin. Her breathing was labored, but now for different reasons, and she was already dreading what Mavek would say next. Because that couldn’t be it, and what he’d already told her, he’d done so in typical faerie fashion: in brain-twisters, enigmas, and half-truths.

  “You’re trying to confuse me,” she accused, “but I’m already confused.” She remembered how tired she’d suddenly grown, how she could have sworn that she’d heard him whispering in her head. “You did that to me.”

  She slumped against the tree as the full extent of that knowledge hit her. She’d lost. The Tithe was over and she wasn’t it. Her sister would never get to come back, and they’d never be free. How long did they have before the rest of the curse set in? Before they went mad? After all of this, all of the sacrifices she’d made, she lost. And it was because of the Midnight Prince.

  “You made me lose.” She couldn’t believe it, staring at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, unable to get any other words out.

  “I protected you,” he corrected. He was still crouched before her, arms casually resting on his knees. The look he gave her was intense and left no room for argument. Like he expected Arden to just take his word and be okay with it.

  “You ruined my life.” She dropped her head in her hands. “Ainsley’s life…”

  “Your sister will be fine,” he stated matter-of-factly, and she lifted her head to glare at him. “She will, and now, thanks to me, so will you. You wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself if you’d won tonight, Arden. Now that burden is someone else’s, and you can move on knowing that you and your family will be safe.”

  “How can you say that?” she snapped. “You know what’s going to happen! You saw what this curse did to my mother! You were there, damn it!”

  Mavek hesitated, almost as if he didn’t want to tell her more, but his pause didn’t last long. His knees hit the dirt as he eased himself closer, making sure to keep a short distance between them.

  Which was the clue that the news was something that Arden would find detestable. Considering how she felt at the moment, she became only more fearful of learning the rest.

  “Your mother went crazy because she was seeing things that she wasn’t sure she could believe,” he began. “She thought she was insane, that the Unseelie weren’t real, that we were all in her head. And some of us,” he licked his lips, clearly to stall, “used that. They traumatized her, and eventually, she wasn’t able to handle it any more. But you, you know the truth, Arden. You know that we’re real. That you aren’t crazy.”

  No, that couldn’t be true. That couldn’t be the reason her mom had killed herself. It was part of the curse, the whole reason Arden was doing this, had agreed to risk her soul—all in order to break the curse.

  “You told me—”

  “I know what I told you.” He held her gaze unflinchingly.

  The wounded sound that slipped past her lips couldn’t be stopped, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth to keep another from coming, even as her heart twisted in her chest. He’d lied to her, about everything. Mavek had manipulated her from the very beginning.

  “What kind of monster are you?” she cried. “You played on my emotions, my fears. My mother’s suicide!” She curled her hands into tight fists, welcoming the anger. “You threatened Cole, that’s why he left. All of this, you did it, so that you could, what, have your candidate in the Tithe? So that you could have a Heartless?! And then you make me lose?! Which means all of this, all of the lies, and the manipulations, all of the suffering you put me through was for nothing!”

  “No,” he shook his head vehemently. “I stopped you from winning because it wasn’t for nothing.”

  “Right,” she sneered, fury making her grow bold, “you protected me. From what, Mavek? Tell me.” She got to her feet so fast that she teetered back against the tree. “Tell me!”

  He rose slowly, keeping his hazel eyes locked onto hers; he didn’t speak until he was at his full height.

  The towering tree at her back, and the tall faerie at her front threatened to quash her anger. Only, she had every right to be pissed at him right now, to be furious and, yes, hurt. She’d done all of this for one reason, the argument that he’d given her for agreeing to represent his court in the Tithe, and now Mavek was admitting that it was all made up. That the goal that’d kept Arden going since her mom’s death, that had kept her from completely falling apart after her loss, had been a lie.

  “You really haven’t figured it out yet, Arden?” he said, tone lowering, like he was trying to be gentle now. “Think. I’ve given you all the pieces.”

  “Just like an Unseelie,” she spat, “you’ve given me nothing!”

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s incredibly prejudiced. Are you not in love with one?”

  “Right now?” she growled, wanting to wound
him as badly as he’d just hurt her. “Hell no.”

  “It’s fortunate for me, then, that the heart isn’t so easy to ignore. You’re upset now. That’ll pass.”

  “Do not tell me how I feel, or how I am going to feel.” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger, and briefly considered drawing one of her daggers.

  One of her absolutely useless daggers, because the Tithe challenge hadn’t involved fighting at all. Yet another lie to add to the ever-growing list. She wanted to demand that Mavek explain that piece of the puzzle as well, why he’d wasted so much of her time teaching her useless things like hand-to-hand combat and knife throwing. He’d known all along, after all, how this would go down. He’d effectively admitted it earlier when he’d said that the challenge was usually done with family members.

  “Ainsley.”

  “You’re starting to catch on,” Mavek told her, urging her with his expression to keep going.

  “You were going to use my sister.” The realization made her sick. She glanced at Eskel, who was only just starting to recover from what they’d done to him. “You were going to do that to her.”

  “If I couldn’t find someone else,” he said, “yes. I would have had no choice, Arden. Those are the rules of the Tithe, to which you agreed.”

  “I did not agree to that!” She flung an arm out toward Eskel. “And more importantly, neither did he! Or Tabitha! Or that other guy! They aren’t Heartless, we are! They shouldn’t have had any part in this.”

  “That’s right,” he nodded, “you’re a Heartless. You all made deals with devils, without knowing what that bargain truly entailed. Without caring enough to demand an explanation. You just wanted to break your curses.”

  His accusations of selfishness hurt, even though she’d basically told him the same thing months ago.