Woe for a Faerie

by Bokerah Brumley

  “Stay with me,” I begged. “Please.”

  He shifted and tried to sit up. “I need you to promise me something, Woe.”

  I kissed his hand that still rested on my cheek. “Anything, Arún.”

  “When I die, take my body home to be buried.”

  “But you won’t… you can’t… die…. You promised.”

  “I always keep my promises.” He stared at the sky behind me, and a smile spread slowly across his face.

  His hand slipped to the gravel, beneath the barren trees, in the exact place where he had saved me the first time. His pupils widened and his mouth fell slack.

  Gone.

  I buried my face in his shoulder and teetered on the edge of a chasm. All the love in me welled up and turned to pain. Tears poured from my eyes.

  Be healed. Be better. If I have any magic at all, use it to save him.

  When I fell, I had earned the right to choose. I had been cursed with mortality but blessed with freedom of choice. I had made my way in this ugly, God-forsaken place.

  The shifter should never have killed my beautiful Arún.

  I stood. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming and raised my firsts to the sky.

  Bile burned in my throat and my fingernails tore the flesh of my palms.

  I would find her, and for her part in Arún’s death, I would rip her limb from limb.

  Then I will deal with her Boss.

  46

  Grief

  Jason

  When Woe stood, I knew we’d lost him. Arún had saved her again, but this time, it cost his own life. As long as he lived, he would always have chosen her over himself.

  Woe’s hope ended, even if her life had not. She didn’t have to say it. I could see it in the slope of her back and the fists that opened and closed at her side.

  “It’s done,” she said. “The bird is free. Like you all wanted.” There was a hiss in the last four words. “Free to eat Arún.”

  Her words stung.

  “Woe,” I said, and she looked up at me, but I didn’t know what else to add, what else to say.

  Her expression turned to one of disgust. “Did you catch her?” she asked.

  I shook my head. I had failed. Everything had fallen apart. We searched for the white peacock when we left, but it was hopeless. We didn’t know how to find her. We didn’t have enough information.

  I was to blame. I hadn’t planned for the possibility of failure. Woe would never forgive me. Her life had changed forever. I had let it happen.

  Woe watched while Vic and Lev loaded Arún’s body into the van. Woe climbed into the back, propping Arún’s head on a spare blanket. She intended to escort him back to the church and down into the Cavern.

  Lev and Vic appeared later with eyes red from crying.

  I didn’t know what else to do.

  47

  Funeral

  Woe

  I escorted Arún’s body to Jason’s church. We belonged to each other.

  I wanted to be with him, to remember all that used to be. I laced his cold fingers through mine and tried to pretend, squeezing my eyes closed, imagining the joy as life poured back into him.

  It didn’t work. I couldn’t call magic. I couldn’t mend my world.

  For twelve hours, in the Cavern, I sat next to him, holding his hand, waiting for him to return. Praying for him to return, unwilling to give up. I begged the Librarian to scan him, to search the old records.

  Solutions existed. We knew so little. There had to be a way.

  The Librarian only shook his head, his shoulders hunched.

  Arún didn’t come back.

  Jason hovered. Vic hovered. Only Lev understood.

  He brought me a bit of bread, patted my hand, and left me to my denial. He understood. I wondered how many loved ones he had buried to gain the experience.

  The next day, or at least Vic told me it was the next day, Jason came to sit next to me. “What will you do?” he asked.

  I didn’t know so I didn’t answer.

  He left.

  Jason came again later. By then, I had an answer. “I have to take him home, Jason. Back to his people.”

  Jason crossed his arms, the fabric stretching. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want you to come.” Maybe it wasn’t fair, but it had been his idea that had ended Arún’s life.

  Vic and Lev helped me bring Arún to our home. Vic distracted the doorman while Lev carried him up in the elevator. Together, they eased his lifeless body down on our bed.

  Lev touched my shoulder. “We’ll carry him through.”

  I studied Lev. “You’d do that?”

  Vic stood beside him. “That and more, Wings.”

  I think he knew my answer before I did. They waited for my answer with worried eyes. She rolled her necklace pendant between her fingers.

  “I’ll let them know we’re coming.” For the wife of their king-to-be, for Arún, they would listen to a mortal.

  Vic and Lev remained behind, one on either side of the bed while I gathered four Fae men from the corridors of the palace.

  When our procession reached the throne room, Arún’s mother screamed and threw herself on her son. She hated me. “You killed him. You killed him,” she wailed the words over and over.

  Each word lodged inside me, bitter seeds in the midst of mourning.

  Ishka gathered her mother in her arms. “Go.”

  Lev’s strong hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me away. Somehow, we made it back to Arún’s quarters. Vic sat with me, and Lev made sure I ate.

  I moved in a fog, not quite believing what happened. I cried for Ishka, but she never answered.

  The next day, the entire capital closed down for the funeral. I could feel the stares and hear the whispered conversations behind raised hands. It was my fault that he had died. He should never have married me. I agreed with all of them. The mourning period was six days. I swore to see it through to the end.

  At the funeral, his parents fell to their knees, weeping together over the loss of their son. His mother screeched Fae words at me, blaming me in a mixture of Fae and English, pointing a manicured finger at me until his father crushed her in an embrace. I only stared. Ishka stood apart from everything, her face covered.

  I had cried everything in me. Only dust remained.

  I passed the time in a numbed daze. Vic and Lev came and went. Jason never did.

  At times, I locked myself in Arún’s royal quarters, to avoid the glaring accusations. At others, I put on the dresses he bought me, wore the slender crown, which was still where he had placed it on his bedside table, and roamed the city. I couldn’t explain why. I didn’t know why.

  On the morning of the third day, I woke, wrapped in covers that still smelled like Arún. Vic and Lev had promised to return later.

  It was time to return, and I packed slowly.

  A soft knock at the door, the sound echoed in the room.

  When I opened it, I froze. “I’m sorry.” I made a move to close it. I couldn’t bear another accusation.

  “Please, Woe, let me in,” Ishka said. “I have to tell you something.” I didn’t open the door wider, but I stepped back. I didn’t have any fight in me. Not for Arún’s sister.

  She glided in and asked to remove her veil. I shrugged and waved at her. She had come to berate me. I wasn’t anxious for it to begin.

  “Arún has a gift for you,” Ishka announced. That was the last thing I expected.

  “Don’t lie.” I glared at her. It was a cruel joke.

  “I do not lie,” she countered. “Come, I’ll show you.” When I hesitated, she patted my knee and said, “Do not worry. Mother is elsewhere. They left it to me to enact Arún’s last wishes alone. Please come. I never let them heal mine.”

  48

  Return

  Jason

  I was afraid Woe wouldn’t come back. For three days, Vic and Lev came and went. They never said where they’d gone, but they didn’t have t
o say it.

  They cared for Woe, and it shattered me. I wanted to take her in my arms and say all the things I should have said before.

  And then she returned, and my knees gave out. I caught the edge of my desk to keep from falling to the ground and weeping. I’d missed her.

  She said nothing when she strolled into the Atheneum. She waited at the corner of my desk with her face downturned. She had aged a dozen years since she had left. Her shoulders drooped. Sorrow rolled off her in waves.

  I let my papers, those old letters, fall from my hands when I stood. I don’t know who closed the distance between us, but she laid her head on my shoulder.

  “I have something to show you,” she said, the sound muffled against my cassock. And then she stepped back.

  Black feathered wings burst from her back. I staggered backward. “You’re an angel again?”

  She studied the wings behind her. “No, I’m still mortal.” She bit her lip. “These were Arún’s last wishes. He made his sister promise to take me to the healers if anything happened to him before he could make me do it.” She hiccupped and fresh streaks of tears spilled over her face. “He’s always saving me, Jason. I miss him so much I can’t breathe sometimes. How can I fly without him?”

  And then she turned and walked away.

  For the first time since I had known her, I believed that this heartbreak would be too much for her to survive it.

  49

  Resurrection

  Woe

  I flew at night, weeping until I couldn’t see straight, looking for the shifter who was still loose. I had my wings, but I didn’t have him. And then I would drag myself back to Jason’s church. Jason would find me propped up against the church door, just like the first time Arún had saved me.

  At some point, Arún had written a formal will, using the fake identity he had created. He left me the penthouse and all its contents. We had never discussed the future or the negative what-ifs.

  I wasn’t used to sleeping in the bed. Sometimes, I woke up and listened for his breathing. Panic attacks, claustrophobia, and guilt plagued me. Vic said surviving could do that to a person.

  Everything I loved died.

  I wanted so badly to wake up and find it had all been a terrible dream.

  I would return my wings. I would tear them from my back, piece by piece.

  A thousand times. A hundred thousand times. If I could have him.

  All I wanted was the silver-haired piece of my heart.

  Scíath Sciathán.

  My winged warrior.

  Arúnsearc.

  My secret love.

  My sweet Arún.

  One Week Later

  Jason stroked my cheek as I leaned against the front door of his church. “You have to stop, Woe. You can’t live like this.” He picked me up and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

  I turned toward the warmth, not caring where it came from. “Will you stay with me?”

  “You’re as light as a feather. You haven’t been eating.”

  My head lolled against his chest and his beard tickled my nose. He hummed a hymn. It had been Hannah’s favorite. A tear slipped from the corner of my eye.

  I never sang it for Arún. He would have loved the words. He would have loved to hear how Hannah would wave to me while I listened from the rafters of Jason’s church. Another tear chased the second. I grabbed hold of Jason’s shirt but kept my eyes squeezed shut.

  Two hundred steps. Two thousand steps. I lost count.

  His footsteps echoed in the expanse of the Cavern. He shifted me in his arms and then kicked something metallic.

  The door creaked open. “Again?” Vic murmured.

  “Hmmm,” Jason answered and stepped into Vic’s apartment.

  The smells were never the same in here, pungent one day, sweet like cinnamon the next. But it wasn’t home. Home had gone when Arún had been stolen from me. The end of my dreams.

  Jason eased me onto Vic’s overstuffed sofa.

  “Keep her company, will ya?” Jason’s voice was sad. They conversed in whispers near the door, then Vic settled on the couch by my feet and I cracked an eye open.

  “Hey, Wings,” she said. “Jason asked me to check you out. Do you mind?” She grinned at me and held up a scanner, a palm-sized screen in her other hand. Her hair fell in soft caramel curls around her face.

  She took my hand and squeezed it. “You know how Jason gets tunnel vision when he wants something done.”

  I sighed. The life blew out of me. I wished the chasm in my middle would swallow me up. I didn’t want to hurt anymore, and I already knew death would come for me. My friends just hadn’t gotten used to the idea yet.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I let her pull me off the couch, hand me clothes, and bustle me into her shower. I stood in the hot spray for a long time, imagining visiting Fae fountains with Arún, clothed in light and happiness. When Vic knocked on the door, I shut off the water… and the daydream.

  She waved the scanner over me. Then she listened to my heart, took blood and urine samples, and served me chicken noodle soup. “My mama’s recipe,” she said with a wink. “Best in Louisiana.”

  Lev showed up with fresh-baked hot cross buns, and we chuckled about how I used to think a bunch of nuns made my daily bread. I told him that I’d been close to the truth. A bunch of nuns wouldn’t have been sweeter.

  “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, kid. I don’t expect either one of those to happen today,” Lev said, grinning at me like a crazy man.

  I ate enough to make them both happy and then Vic tucked me into her bed.

  I watched her at her desk until I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  “Oh, my.” Vic’s gasp half-woke me, but I didn’t move. Her keyboard clicked and her computer beeped. Then she gasped again and spun in her swivel seat.

  I rolled over. “Woe? Are you awake?”

  “Yeah, Vic?”

  “How have you been feeling?” That was a weird question coming from her. She knew how I felt. She took all the readings.

  “Nauseous, dizzy, lethargic.” I paused. “Pretty much like you’d expect to start a life as a widow.” Grief made life hard to live on.

  She nodded. Her mouth twitched. “I have some news.”

  “Yeah, so?” I couldn’t work up any excitement.

  “Woe, you had better sit down for this.” She stood up from the seat and wrung her hands. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her excitement irritated.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Are you sure?” I must be dreaming.

  “Beyond sure,” she said. “Woe, you’re pregnant.”

  The words barreled into me like an avalanche. “Am I awake?”

  “As awake as I am,” Vic answered. She tucked her finger beneath my chin and tipped my head back. “I’ve got something else, too. Ishka sent it for you, and the Librarian sent me an email to let me know it’s here. Be right back.”

  “Fine.”

  She hopped up and jogged out.

  I scowled at her and yanked my chin away. I couldn’t be pregnant. Could I?

  Well, I could be. We did…. That.

  An incredible honeymoon that made a baby. I blushed then.

  Arún would have been so happy. And proud of himself. And smug.

  But he died. And I didn’t. And I had to do this alone.

  The truth sliced through me. I draped my arm over my face, willing myself not to cry.

  The metal door on Vic’s clanged and footsteps approached.

  “Sweetie?” Vic sounded like she stood over me. “Hey, I want you meet someone.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I think that’s reasonable after the bomb you dropped on me.”

  “Oh, come on, sweetie.” Near my feet, the mattress sank.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  The mattress moved again, and the silence stretched. I didn’t move my arm.


  “Woe,” a deep voice rumbled nearby.

  An auditory hallucination. Vic said they were normal in my current situation. That’s what she said when I told her his voice woke me up at night.

  “Woe.”

  “Go away.”

  “Woe. Look at me, my love.”

  I scowled. Mirages didn’t usually talk back.

  A large hand landed on my knee, and I froze. Excited. Terrified. Every nerve ending buzzed with both.

  A tremble rolled through me. “Vic? Are you there? What’s happening?”

  “That’s not me, sweetie.”

  “Who touched my knee?”

  “Well, Wings, why don’t you take a look?”

  Squeezing my eyes closed beneath my arm, a hot tear slipped free and slid over my temple into my hair. “I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, hon’, darkness always comes before the light,” Vic said. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  I choked on a sob then and pulled my arm aside.

  He stood in the middle of Vic’s room, as big and pale as he ever was.

  Shirtless like he owned the place. I laughed and cried at the same time.

  I leapt from the bed. “Arún!”

  I screamed at the top of my lungs and tackled him. Reality crashed over me and emotions crushed me beneath a tsunami. My insides were a battlefield, torn between shock, denial, and joy. I kissed him, and he kissed me.

  Vic launched herself out into the Cavern, frantically banging on Lev’s door. She explained in a voice about two octaves higher than her normal. She asked him to sit with me while she ran upstairs to find Jason. When Lev lumbered in, he sat in the chair opposite me, stuck a stogie in his mouth, and started to light it.

  With a wink and a rumble, he held it up instead. “Better not. It might be bad for the baby.”

  My baby. Arún’s baby. Our baby.