Taken

by Quinn Blackbird

  For hours, we’re made to follow the path of destruction made by the dark fae army. We walk through clouds of rising smoke before it becomes too thick to see, and we leave behind ash and tears.

  It’s a boulevard that leads to the end.

  3

  The dark fae take us deep into the woods once they are through with Colmar. But even from the clearing we stop at, I can see the smoke rising up from the burning town. An orange glow lights up the sky.

  I scold myself for wishing so many times that light would illuminate the sky one day, because now the light means destruction and fae. They’ve tarnished light, like they have darkness. Be careful what you wish for, comes to mind.

  It’s in that burnt-orange light that we stand in the clearing. It illuminates even the darkest shadows between the thicket of trees, where silent fae stand guard around the perimeter.

  I expect we’ll make camp here. But as the hairless steeds and carriages and regular horses are taken to the edges of the clearing, it makes a giant space in the centre of the clearing, and no one moves to start fires or pitch tents (which I know we have, since the supplies are stacked on wooden carriages, drawn by the regular human-world horses).

  Us captives don’t move either. We are all standing, unmovable in the faint breeze crawling over us. No one sits, no one speaks. It’s total silence in the clearing.

  Our guards remain tightly-bound around us, encircling us in their trap. All of their gazes look straight ahead at the mouth of the clearing. Up there is where the leader dismounts his skeletal-like steed, and another in fine-looking armour hammers a wooden post into the damp earth. From this distance, I can sparsely make out the glint of black metal dug into the posts. Little hooks, I think. But for what, I don’t know.

  Before anything is done in the camp, the post is firm in the ground and a space is cleared around it. Only the leader stands near it, his bleak black eyes like pools of nothing. Even from this far, his eyes give me the chills. Or maybe that’s the silence pressing down on us.

  I get the ice-cold feeling in my veins that something terrible is about to happen. Some sort of ceremony, human sacrifices to the dark fae’s gods—I don’t know what, but my tummy churns like butter and my legs tingle with the violent urge to run.

  I daren’t move, though. Not with every fae in the clearing standing like armoured statues. I’ve never felt more aware of myself before—like they are all waiting for one of us to breathe too loudly before they cut us down in sprays of blood.

  There’s a rustle of movement that ripples through the clearing, starting with a whispered wind on the tree branches. It ends with the leader as he raises his strong chin and calls out in a voice that commands undivided attention, “Bring forth the deserters.”

  My heart plummets to my bum.

  I dig my nails into my palms and slowly turn to watch as the father-and-son-runners are heaved up into the arms of guards. The runners are awake, but too weak to fight—they stay limp and beaten as the guards carry them across the large glade to the post. I wince as they are dropped to the dirt at the leader’s boots.

  I was right about the ‘something terrible’ about to happen. But I’m relieved it doesn’t involve me. I’ll be alive for another night. Safe from the back of the glade, ignored if I stay silent through what’s coming. And as the two runners are tied to the post by their wrists, I know it’s something terrible that’s coming.

  Adrianna hobbles up to my side, clutching her shoulder. She looks too pale to still be standing. Without tearing her wide-eyes from the post, she mutters, “Caspan.”

  I shoot her an uneasy side-look. “What?”

  “Him.” She jerks her head to the leader. “Caspan,” she says. “That’s his name. He’s the cruellest of them all.”

  “He’s terrifying,” I whisper. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  She turns her wide-stare on me. “You met him?”

  I shrug. “Didn’t you? When they checked you for freckles?”

  Adrianna shakes her head. Her dark brown hair rustles over her shoulders, cropped just an inch too short. It exposes ugly, twisted scars that creep up her neck. Looks like knife wounds.

  “No,” she says softly. “After they saw my hand—” she pauses to flex her hand in my face, and I catch the three dark dots coming down from the crease between her thumb and finger. “—they took me straight here,” she adds with a look around at the other captives.

  Maybe the fae who captured me didn’t intend on bringing me to their leader, Caspan. It could be that the alley they dragged me down just so happened to be the same one that Caspan was about to walk. A coincidence—a terrifying one, but still just that. A matter of chance.

  I look back at the post, where the two runners are fastened to it by course ropes looped through the black-metal hooks. They look to be made from the same material as Caspan’s diadem that gleams darkly across the glade.

  Caspan takes a determined step toward the post.

  Even from this far away, I can see the violent tremors rippling over the two runners. My heart aches for them in an echo. Not strong enough to spur me forward into saving them. I’m no fool. There’s no way to save them from their wicked fate, and even if there was, would I risk my life to try it? Not at all. Even with my frail will to live, I am what I am—selfish. Just another survivor out for herself, and herself only.

  Caspan addresses the clearing as whole; “Whose decision was it to flee?” He’s not asking the runners. Likely, he knows that the father will lie for his son and take the blame as the decision-maker, when really it was the boy who grabbed his father and forced him to run.

  I look down at my boots.

  I saw the whole thing, but I don’t want to rat anyone out. I don’t want to be in any way responsible for someone’s pain. I’d rather just turn my back on it and ignore it altogether.

  “Kuris!” Caspan’s voice booms through the glade, and as I glance up at him, I see that he—and all the dark fae—look right at us. “Who among you can shed light on these deserters?” His peach-toned lips twist into a wickedly savage smile that chills my bones. “Who among you will claim a reward and confess to what occurred?”

  Kuris is what they call us, I gather. It must mean human in their native tongue. Or maybe it means something far worse, like dirt or prey.

  It doesn’t matter what kuri means, because no matter how he addresses us, I won’t participate. I turn my gaze back down to my boots. Reward or not, nothing can tempt me into dragging more attention to myself than I already have.

  Never claimed to be brave or strong. Not in this world, or any that came before it.

  All I ever wanted was to simply live in peace, off my inheritance. It wasn’t a lot, mind you. Not like my parents were loaded or anything. But when both of them died in a car crash a few years back, they left me everything they had, and both of their insurance policies. It was enough for me to do what I wanted.

  This, what’s happening here, is not only something I never wanted, but it was unimaginable to me back then. Still, it doesn’t change that I want no part in the new world order.

  Adrianna nudges my side with her sharp elbow. A fierce blush heats my face as I throw an outraged look at her. What the hell is she doing? With all eyes in the glade on us, that one nudge could betray me as someone who knows exactly what happened with the runners. I can’t believe her, and my furious stare shows that.

  “What the hell?” I seethe under my breath.

  “If no one speaks up,” she growls lowly, her lips barely moving, “then we’ll all be punished.”

  This drains me, like a pipe is stealing all the blood from my face. My breath hitches and I throw a quick glance around at the other human captives. Most of them look on the brink of fainting, they’re so panicked. Others are looking around as though they can spot the information they need somewhere among us.

  All they have to do is look right at me.

  “I can’t.” My voice is a low mutter as I turn my attention
to the post ahead.

  Caspan lingers his stare over me for a beat, then observes the other human captives one at a time. He makes no secret of the suspicion that narrows his coal-black eyes.

  It’s not that I don’t want to be responsible for the torture they will inflict on the young runner for deciding to escape. I mean, I don’t want a part in that at all, but that’s not the reason I won’t speak up.

  Adrianna confessed to me that she wasn’t taken to Caspan when she was captured. But for some cruel chance meeting in an alley, I was—and I don’t like how I catch him looking my way as he stands by the post. I don’t like the suspicion in how he looks at me. So I refuse to bring more attention to myself than I already have. I’m comfortable floating under the radar.

  But Adrianna has other plans.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, louder than before, too loud—and now the nearby guard are turning their ferocious stares on us. “But we’ll all be punished if I don’t—” that’s all she says before she raises her good arm high in the air and a tense hush falls over the glade.

  Caspan tilts his head to the side as he glances at her, but quickly brings his slitted eyes back to me. “Speak,” he demands. His voice effortlessly booms through the clearing.

  Adrianna drops her hand to her side and tosses me a sorry-glance. “Vale saw it happen. She didn’t mean to conceal this from you, General Caspan. She is new and afraid.”

  I clench my jaw so tight it’s a wonder my teeth don’t crumble in my mouth. Adrianna might have tried to save me with that last titbit, but I’m fuming. I stretch out my hand at my side, fighting off the temptation to smack her hard on her wounded shoulder.

  Caspan is looking at me, and it’s as though his eyes are daggers that pierce right through me and carve out all my darkest secrets. Icy tingles erupt in my belly and I shift on the spot, ill at ease.

  “It was the boy,” I say softly.

  A guard knocks me on the back. “Speak louder, kuri!”

  I stagger forward from the force before I catch my balance. Pain blossoms between my shoulder blades.

  Rolling my jaw, I bite back all of the poisonous words that gather in my mouth, and hold my head up high. Louder this time, I say, “The boy was the one who started it. He grabbed the older man before anyone could stop him, and made him run.”

  Caspan’s mouth slides into a cruel smile. “No one is forced to do anything,” he counters darkly. “We are all faced with a choice.”

  I don’t argue. Though, considering I’m standing here as a captive in an army of dark fae, I’d have to disagree with his bullshit. It’s hardly a choice when a brutal death is the other option.

  “These two,” Caspan announces and points his sharp, black fingernail at the tied-up runners, “chose to desert, aware that the punishments here fit the crimes. So punish them, we will.”

  The dark fae turn restless. A shout of excitement erupts from the crowd, and they punch the air above them.

  My shoulders stiffen at the sudden bloodlust pulsing through the glade. I shrink back into the group of captives, careful to keep some distance between me and Adrianna. I want to be as far from her as possible right now, in case I fall into the temptation to knock her over the head, and keeping tucked away in the group helps me feel invisible.

  It’s from here that I watch the bloodbath ahead; Caspan wastes no time before he draws his dagger and stalks over to the post. The coal-black blade cuts through the air suddenly and takes the older man’s throat with it. There’s not enough time to look away or shield my eyes. One moment, he’s marching over to the runners, the next, he’s tearing out the man’s throat with a single swipe of his small dagger.

  I bury my face in my hands.

  Cheers rise up from the crowd and flood the glade. I can almost feel the slap of the man’s throat hit the packed dirt, spatter over the blades of grass. But I do feel the boy’s scream. It claws through the glade like a monster’s grip, and I feel his agony in my bones.

  His screams drag on for a while, long after the cheers from the crowd disperse, and long after his dad is dead. No one unties the older man from the post and disposes of his body. He is left there—I suspect—to rot beside his son.

  As I peer between my fingers at the post, I see Caspan wipe his dagger clean with a rag. His gaze lifts the second I look at him and it catches mine. A shudder runs down my spine and I turn away.

  “Prepare to make camp,” Caspan says, and I look back at him. He’s tucking his dagger into his belt and, with a throwaway glance at the sobbing boy, he turns back to his steed.

  A calm quiet descends on the glade. I can feel the relief ribboning throughout the crowd.

  Adrianna turns to me with a flat, grim smile on her face. But she doesn’t mention what she did, how she threw me under the bus like that. She just sighs a relaxed sound that says ‘glad that’s over with’.

  I throw a scowl at her before I drop onto a boulder. Before I can get comfortable, I’m hoisted up by strong hands in a blink.

  “Who do you think sets up the camp?” Hassan grips my arm too tightly and he shakes his head. “We don’t get to relax, not until our work is done.”

  “Work?” I echo with a confused look around the captives. “Is that why they keep us?”

  Hassan shrugs. “Maybe it’s one of the reasons, yes.”

  “Better get started,” Adrianna says and rolls her good shoulder as if to prepare for hard labour. “The sooner we’re finished, the sooner we can sit down and eat. I’m starved.”

  I find it hard to believe anyone can eat after watching a throat fly through the air. But just as I think it, a gurgle cries deep in my stomach and I realise I could probably eat a horse.

  Guess we’re all just a bit fucked up in this new world.

  4

  The first thing that happens is the guards leave us alone. But that doesn’t mean escape is on the table.

  New guards take up position around the glade and stand between the trees where shadows gather in the darkness. The fire-torch light doesn’t make a dent in the darkness around the clearing, and so the guards there slip away into the shadows, unseen.

  Next, I watch as the captives automatically divide into small groups. They all know what they are doing, their purpose is in their confident steps and determined faces. Nicole—the scarf girl—is the only one who stands alone.

  Adrianna makes to move past me to join the tribe gathering at the edge of our group, but she pauses by my side. The look she wears is unsure. She twists her hands uneasily, unconfident in speaking to me after she went against me so boldly before.

  “It had to be done,” she says quietly. “The longer you’re with us, the better you’ll understand.”

  In answer, I stare at her coldly.

  “If I didn’t speak up, we all would have been punished,” she says. “No food, and lashes given out at random. You don’t know what they’re like,” she adds with a look around at the dark fae. Most of them relax on the grass, and some of them unfasten packs from their steeds. “You think you know, but you don’t. Not until you’re with them.”

  My withering look is steady.

  With a sigh, Adrianna leaves me standing alone and joins her group by the edge of the dirt patch. They head off to the wooden trolleys carted by the regular horses (those with hair!) and start to unload.

  I look around at my fellow captives.

  They are all confident in their chores. Pitching tents that are carried in the horse-carted trolleys; gathering firewood in the darkness of the trees, accompanied by a few of the dark fae; starting small fires all around the glade for the fae to gather around; setting up huge metal pots and filling them with cans of soups and packets of pastas.

  There’s a rhythm here that tells me most of them have been doing this for a while. I wonder how long they have been captives for. So long that the servitude just comes with no qualms.

  “You just going to stand there?” A voice nags at me.

  I look up at Nicole, the scarf-g
irl. She’s holding stacked baskets at her hip and has her narrowed eyes on me.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing,” I confess.

  Her look is anything but sympathetic. She’s as hard as nails. “Not standing around for starters,” she bites. “Here.” She untangles a basket from the pile balanced on her hip, then hands it to me. “I just lost two of my helpers,” she says with a throwaway look up at the post. “You can be on laundry duty.”

  My mouth flattens into a thin line. I take the wicker basket and let it hang at my side. “What are we washing?”

  “Uniforms,” she says with a shrug. “We start with the General and work our way down. How much washing we do depends on how long we make camp for.”

  I nod and slowly turn my stare up at the head of the glade, where all the steeds and higher faes are gathered. I guess they are the higher fae from their hairless steeds, and how close they all are to the General. I suppose further down the glade is further down the ranks.

  Already at the far end of the glade, two tents are pitched, one noticeably larger than the other. The General’s tent; black like the skies, and erected by a tall post in its centre. More of a marquee, I think to myself.

  “Do they bring their laundry to us?” It’s a stupid question, but I ask it anyway even if to stall heading up that way for a little bit.

  Relief ribbons through me as Nicole shakes her head and tells me, “You can start by boiling water. You’ll find cases of it up there—” She gestures to the nearest cart, unhooked from its horse. “—and you can boil it on one of these fires.”

  I glance at the half-dozen fires already burning around our little group. This, I assume, is where we—the human captives—stay in the camp. There are no tents that punch up from the ground, and no cots laid out for us. Maybe only the higher fae have tents.