Ena smiled a little at that, but then she turned serious again. "But you killed fae. You drowned them."
"When I was fourteen, my friends and I were minding our own business one day when we saw one. By that time, we knew iron could stop them from disappearing, and we could bind the fae to our world. Well, in theory. We'd never tried it, but that's what books on the subject said. When he saw we could see him even though he was invisible, his brown aura surrounding him, he headed toward us. He didn't say anything. I remembered my first encounter with the other, and tried the same approach. He sneered at me, his eyes glowing silver—"
"Unseelie," Ena said under her breath.
"Unseelie?" Brett asked, looking confused.
Now this was a different story. "Yes, we're the seelie and they are the unseelie. We fought for centuries and the two worlds are separate. Sometimes we run into them in your world, but we avoid any confrontation. They are not nice fae."
He looked at her as though some of the seelie weren't either.
"Just like some of the humans are not nice either," she said, defending her people. "So what happened?"
"He killed one of our friends. He just grabbed him by the throat, squeezed, and our friend had a heart attack. That's what the coroner said later. The fae went for the next of my friends, but we all went into tackle mode and clamped iron manacles on his wrists, put him in an iron net, and dumped him in the nearby lake."
"Unseelie," she said.
"So no, we didn't see a fae and attempt to eliminate him. The only reason we went after Princess Alicia was because we thought she was going to kill us. She had stopped us from trying to contact each other."
"But you didn’t want to kill her."
"We assumed that Cassie had some connection to the fae. That Micala wanted her and it couldn't be good. So we were trying to stop him before he hurt her. We believed if we grabbed Alicia, we could catch him."
"But then you would have had to have killed Alicia also."
Brett let out his breath. "I thought we were getting way over our heads on this one. My friends figured that if we got rid of one… or two fae, no problem. I kept reminding them that they probably had family. Like we have family. And friends, too. I never considered that fae friends would be that relentless in helping their friends out, that Alicia was a princess in the fae world and lots more powerful people would want her safe return, or that she was betrothed to a prince of another fae kingdom." Brett shook his head. "When Alicia didn't want me incinerated, I suddenly realized that some fae were not so evil. And that… that maybe I'm one. Maybe not, but what if I am? I want to learn the truth for myself."
Ena realized her people were all listening from the outer edges of the camp, not wanting to interrupt the discussion, most likely wishing to learn how many fae he had killed and why.
"Okay, so one of you had said something about drowning the others. So there were more. How many?"
"We weren’t fae hunters. We were trying to do our studies, and working out so we could fight the fae if they decided to attack us. We weren't actively searching for them."
"If you saw one, you didn't look away either, did you? Trying to pretend you hadn't seen them?" Ena knew he wouldn't have. Alicia had tried to pretend she didn't see the fae, but this human, he was different.
He shook his head.
"So how many did you kill, Brett?"
"I wasn't going to be bullied by anyone any longer—humans, fae, foster parents. I couldn't do it."
"How… many?"
"Five. But they all had glowing silver eyes. I thought all fae had that."
"Unseelie," she said.
"I guess. When Alicia's eyes turned gold, I wasn't sure why, until you called her a princess, and I thought maybe that was the reason."
"How could you have killed that many?"
"We set traps for them. I kept telling my friends that after the one killed Mike, and we eliminated the fae, others might come looking for him. We thought that the fae would probably tell someone where they were headed, like on a vacation, just in case they ran into trouble."
"They sent trackers or some of his friends could track and they went after his faery dust trail," Ena suggested.
"Right. But we didn't know that. We saw the shimmering dust, but didn't even think that anyone could track it. Only two came the first time. We were waiting, and there were five of us at the time. One of the guys couldn't even see the fae, but he wanted to help out with whatever fantasy game we were playing. Then three more came. By then, there were ten of us to handle them."
"That many fae seers?" Ena felt alarmed that the whole world of humans was turning into fae seers.
"No. Only the four of us still. The others wanted to get in on the hunting game. After that, I was moved to another foster family across country. I was afraid that the fae would continue to search for the guys who had killed their cohort. I… I didn't keep in touch with the fae seers." He let out his breath. "I wanted to, but I was afraid the fae would track me down. I started out clean, thought I was safe, and then ran into the boys at my new high school who realized that I had seen Micala before he appeared visible and went to speak with Cassie. We meant only to protect her. Though I told the others what had happened at my old school and how this could escalate."
"And they didn't listen."
"No."
Ena turned and said to her staff. "Come into camp. It's time for bed."
They all moved into camp then, looking at Brett, and he appeared uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He shoved his hands in his pockets, no cocky smile now.
Lila pulled her bedding nearer to Brett. "The unseelie killed my aunt." Then she lay down and closed her eyes.
"We're not at war with them, but any little incident can set them off," Jacob said, going to his bedding on the other side of the fire. "I remember my grandmother saying that she thought she'd be toast when one of their fae that can control fire, tried to use Gran's own campfire against her. He blasted her for some perceived insult."
"Did she insult the unseelie?" Ena asked.
"She said he needed to see the light." Jacob smirked at Brett.
Brett's face tinged a little red. "I thought the fae was a ghost! And I was trying to be helpful."
Jacob shook his head. "Anyway, she was at the edge of a river, dove in, and disappeared in the water, transporting home. Said she wasn't going on any more solitary campouts again. She used to do them to get away from Gramps," Jacob said.
Ena smiled.
Muriel plumped up her pillow. "I had targeted a human to play tricks on when I saw an unseelie looking to do so with another. But when she saw me and my target, she headed for mine. I wanted to fix her good. My mother always said not to mess with the unseelie. No good would come of it. Fighting one meant fighting ten. So I went after the human she had intended to target first."
"Play tricks on?" Brett said, sounding annoyed.
Muriel frowned. "Not in a bad way. Just pretend I was a human with the hots for the guy for the day. That's all. No real harm done. We both had fun."
Brett shook his head as if he thought that toying with humans was never an acceptable practice.
Ena wasn't going to say anything because she really shouldn't have cared, but she was a little curious about this human. "So what would you have done? If a fae like Muriel, or, just any fae had put the moves on you? Don't tell me you wouldn't have had fun, too."
Brett cast her one of his mystic smiles. She knew even before he said anything just what he was going to say and she wished she hadn’t asked. "If it had been you? No problem."
She nearly gave him an eye roll.
The ladies all giggled.
Ena cast him a dark look. "When you can see me as the fae? No way."
"You'll never know."
When no one said anything further, Ena said, "All right. Everyone get your sleep." Then she turned into the dragon, saw everyone settle down but Brett who was still watching her.
She had work to do. Ensu
re the road up ahead was passable and that no one was lurking about their camp. Then she'd settle down for what was left of the night.
"Watch yourself," Brett said, ultra-serious.
She bowed her head to him in acknowledgement, even though she really didn't need the human telling her what to do. Still, she kind of appreciated it, saw everyone's eyes widen as they waited for her to growl at him like she would have done if anyone else had told her what to do, even if he only meant it in a concerned way, then she flew off.
She really needed to stop acting so… un-dragon shifter like.
She flew high over the treetops, searching for movement or fires where fae might be cooking their meals or warming themselves. She didn’t see anything, assuming the thieves were lying low, waiting for the party to get on their way again when they could more easily strike at them. She wished she knew how many there were.
She had too much treasure for the thieves to pass the opportunity by. Though she didn't want her people hurt over it that did not mean she wished to give it up to these fae who had not earned it like she had.
She dove through a stretch of woods, her wings bent down just enough to miss most of the tree branches, though she sliced through a few of them and the leaves and twigs or small branches rained down on the forest floor when she saw a man darting through the trees just ahead of her. But was he a thief? Or just some unfortunate soul who was at the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was it a trap? Meant just for her?
Chapter 4
Esmeralda overheard King Nereus talking to his advisor as she made her way past his ruling chamber where he spoke with those he wished to have counsel with behind closed doors. "Without proof that she is King Tiernan's sister, I do not see that we will be successful in this endeavor, My Kingship. Aye, she is dressed like a princess. And aye, the girl has her brother's same coloring. But we need more than that. A telltale birthmark of some sort. Some documentation. Something that proves beyond a doubt that she is his twin sister."
"I don't care what you do or how you 'prove' she is the sister to the hawk fae king, but do it. The first interested buyer will be here tomorrow afternoon. If he is intent on wanting her for his mate and pays what we wish, that will seal the bargain. But he will expect proof."
Esmeralda hurried on past the door. She'd had every intention of making her escape tonight, dressed in a glorious gold and burnt orange gown, only because she had no way to steal someone's more utilitarian one, and no way to cover up what she was wearing. Even the towels with which she dried herself after bathing were covered in fine gold threads. No one else was allowed to wear such an expensive thread woven through the fabric of their clothes—as a way to ensure that she always stood out among the griffin fae.
She knew that once she left this place, the king's future queen fully intended to wear all that gold, as she'd been envious the whole year she'd lived here with the king and seen the hawk fae prisoner wearing such beautiful gowns.
Esmeralda had randomly made halfhearted attempts to escape for the last month, and she knew they thought she was just toying with them now. She wasn't. She had been preparing for her big escape. After the last "attempt," she would normally not try again for a week or longer. Sometimes a month, or two. She had never tried it again so soon after—just twenty-four hours later. Never. So she thought she'd catch them off-guard. At least she hoped so.
Her guard was standing at the door to her chambers when she slipped inside, and she smiled to herself. Bertrand tended to ignore her comings and goings at night. When other guards wouldn't allow her to leave her chambers to get a glass of goat's milk so she could sleep better, and would instead call for her maid to fetch it for her, Bertrand always just nodded. She thought it was because he liked the maid and didn't want to disturb her sleep.
Esmeralda did it without fail, at differing times of night with different guards. She'd been testing them for months, though they didn't know it. Or at least she didn't think they realized what she was up to. She had been attempting to see who would allow her more leeway at night, and who wouldn't. She had also varied her time away—sometimes as much as a couple of hours. The first time she had done it, Bertrand had finally found her in the kitchen with a whole meal set out. She hadn't eaten much at the dinner meal, so she had thought to see if he would ignore her absence, or come searching for her, before he sounded the alarm.
She'd done it ten times over the year when he was guarding her, so the last four times, he hadn't bothered to search for her, and she'd slipped him a flask of the king's favorite plum brandy each time. She'd also been very careful to clean up her mess so that no one else would be aware that the guard had allowed her to come down here in the middle of the night to eat her second dinner.
Like she normally did, she hurried on her way down the main stairs like a princess would and not down the back servant stairs, wanting to put on her usual air that she did this all the time and nothing was amiss, just in case anyone caught her. Which they never did. She tended to be a night owl and was surprised that none of the griffin fae seemed to be.
But this time she didn't go to the kitchen to eat. She grabbed a small travel bag in the kitchen's walk-in storage room where leather pouches were used to pack meals for anyone at the castle who had important business to take care of and needed to journey without using fae transport. Usually because the trip was beyond the distance a fae could travel in that manner. She wore what looked like gold anklets, but which in truth were iron manacles, and she couldn't remove them no matter how much she had tried. The problem was that the iron kept her from fae traveling, so she needed to remove them once she got to the mainland.
The other interesting thing to note was that iron ore deposits were prevalent in the island’s soil and rock formation, extending to all of the island and stretching out maybe five miles under the water from there? Or maybe all the way to the mainland. So no fae could transport from the island beaches or even the water either. They had to take a boat like she would.
Once they reached the shoreline, the griffin fae would have to move up into the woods before they could get away from the iron ore deposits beneath the sand on the western coast. She knew because when they’d taken her hostage, they had transported to the woods on the western coast and then they all had to travel by foot. Well, except for her as she’d been carried over a fae’s shoulder.
While she was in the castle’s kitchen walk-in storage room, she heard someone coming, turned out her fae light and waited quietly, praying whoever it was wouldn't discover her.
It wouldn't have been so bad if it was a night when she hadn't planned to escape, but getting caught tonight just didn't work into her plans. She slipped behind a stack of bags of flour and heard someone moving toward the storage room. Great.
She barely breathed as the person opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door. And stood in the dark! Who was it and why was the fae… well, hiding here, too?
What a disaster.
Footfalls headed into the kitchen and Esmeralda thought she'd lose her balance, the way she was crouched behind the flour and her legs were already cramping.
The footfalls stopped in the middle of the kitchen and the person hiding in the closet threw the door open. Esmeralda peeked around the sacks of flour and saw the man, who had been hiding in the storage room, illuminate the other fae with his light. "Princess," he said, the man being a guard and apparently believing someone else was stealing food in the middle of the night.
Esmeralda was glad she'd never been caught at it.
The princess screeched. "What are you doing hiding in the storage room?"
"Beg your pardon, my lady. We thought someone was coming down here and stealing food."
"Well, now you know no one is. Be off with you."
"Aye, my lady." He quickly stalked away.
The princess grabbed whatever she had been interested in and left the way she had come. Esmeralda waited a moment, then as soon as the princess's footfalls faded toward the stairs, E
smeralda hurried out of the storage room and headed for the door that would lead out to the herb gardens.
Outside, she made her way to the forest and then to the cove where the girl's raft was beached. No one bothered to guard the island. Most outsiders knew if they came here, they'd be in a world of trouble if they hadn't been invited. They rarely had "visitors," unless a fae was shipwrecked on the island. They were never allowed to stay, not unless they were griffin fae. What of the others? Well, if the person was a hawk fae, it depended. If the king thought the fae was a spy, he didn't live. If the fae had some ransoming value, the king had him ransomed. That's all that Esmeralda had heard of.
She wasn't sure how long it had been since she left her room, and she kept feeling like the whole castle would be searching for her at any moment now. Until the guard sounded the alert, everyone would believe she was still in her room, sleeping. And they would be sound asleep also.
She found the raft tucked under canvas on the beach in the windy cove. She hurried to remove the tarp, then tied the leather pouch filled with bread and salted fish and two wineskins filled with water to one of the ropes. She shoved the raft away from the beach, got soaking wet in the warm, briny sea, and was covered in sand. She scrambled to get on, or tried to, having a devil of a time with her wet gowns. Nearly out of breath, she finally managed to make it onto the makeshift raft. Using the paddle, she shoved away from the shallower part of the water. At least the water and the breeze were warm, but she felt salty and sandy and wet and the lovely gowns clung to her, making her feel worse.
She wondered how long it had taken her to reach the beach and get on her way—how long before the guard would discover she had disappeared. When he would warn the others she had escaped. Maybe, he would look for her first. Even if he was good at tracking fae dust, the wind off the sea had scattered her trail everywhere, so he probably wouldn't know where she'd taken off from. Well, until they discovered she'd stolen Estes's raft.
Esmeralda wished she could have removed the iron around her ankles, but she'd searched so many times before and never found a tool that could cut through them. First chance she had, she needed to find something that could.