“Are you a doctor in your day human world? You can look over my body all you want, but you won’t see the poison running through me.” Colin had given up. He was ready to die.
“I’m not a doctor. I am the day human,” Devin tried to clarify. “You know … the one that is bonded to the princess.”
Colin assessed the man standing in front of him. Devin could see he was considering his options. “You mean that you’re the day human prince?” Colin finally understood what Devin had meant by the day human.
“For now, but I suppose when Nessa is queened tomorrow that makes me the day human king,” Devin replied nonchalantly. Colin just stared at him like the thought had never crossed his mind. Devin didn’t appear special. No one would guess who he really was.
“That can’t be,” Colin replied finally, still trying to find a sliver of truth to what Devin was saying. It didn’t seem possible that any day human could enter a night human’s mind, so he had to be special, but Colin never saw anything of the scary leader that everyone said the day human prince was. Could it be true?
“Then how do you think I got into your mind?” Devin asked. Could Colin believe that a day human could go into random people’s minds? Devin could feel some logic dawning in the night human.
That was a good argument as Colin moved closer and looked at Devin. Devin let his image include the now famous swords. Finally, Colin fell to his knees. “I’m sorry, my prince. I didn’t know it was you.”
Devin stared at Colin, unsure how to reply. He had yet to find someone that bowed to him for being whom he was. Devin waved off the bow, but Colin bent down so that he could only see the floor. Devin tried to get Colin to stand by pulling on his arm.
“I’m sorry I was too casual with you. Please help me leave this world as my punishment,” Colin added, face still plastered to the floor.
“What are you talking about?” Devin asked, grabbing Colin’s shoulders and pulling him up. “Leave this world? I am here to bring you back to the real world. There is nothing wrong with you. And there’s no reason for you to want to die.”
Colin seemed to believe Devin’s words now. “How can there be nothing wrong with me? I poisoned Fiona, and Maureen used the onto you spell. I should be suffering from the same fate as Fiona.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then snap out of it. You are completely fine. She’s completely fine. I healed her before coming here,” Devin replied. “Fiona is going to live, so shouldn’t that also be your fate?”
“You couldn’t have done that. The poison was too advanced to heal. You can only heal someone of that much poison in minutes. You weren’t there when I poisoned her.” Colin knew his poison well.
Devin shook his head. “That’s one thing you sidhe need to stop saying.”
“What?”
“That I can’t do something. None of you can imagine the power the old man gave me. There wasn’t much I could do before as a normal day human, but now it seems like there is always a way if we look for it. Yes, Fiona is fine. She is alive.” Devin flashed pictures of Fiona breathing and alive as he carried her into Nessa’s room for Colin.
“Then I’m not dying?” Colin asked. He was trying to grasp the situation.
“No, you are not.” Devin was happy to finally have Colin understand.
“Then you need to kill me now. Don’t let me wake and give Mara hope. I did it. I did it all. I killed the elite sidhe. I poisoned the food given to Princess Vanessa. Trying to assassinate the princess alone is punishable by death, but since I actually killed others my death is inevitable. I already said my good-byes to Mara. Let me go in peace now,” Colin pleaded. He was back to wanting to die.
“No,” Devin replied simply.
“No?”
“No,” Devin said more firmly.
“But I confess. I did it,” Colin replied. “I deserve to die.”
“And in my world the executioner doesn’t get thrown in jail when he follows orders he was given. I have a pretty good idea that Maureen was behind all of this,” Devin added. He wasn’t about to kill Colin for Maureen’s plotting. Mara and Colin had gotten caught in her web.
Colin shrugged. “So what if she was? It’s her word against mine. I’m a castoff. She’s an elite. I don’t stand a chance. Please, let me die now. Don’t make me face her. There’s nothing I can do against her.”
“Who knows what she would have said, but Maureen isn’t around to contradict you now,” Devin added. He needed to get Colin to understand he needed to come back soon. His body wouldn’t continue to function if he brain was telling it to quit.
“What?” Colin stared at Devin.
“I saved Fiona by transferring the poison to her mother,” Devin replied. He didn’t feel sorry for his actions. Maureen got one last chance to be a great mother.
Colin thought about that and shook his head in amazement. Devin may have power, but what made him strong was his ability to use it. Colin was glad that he was able to meet the future king of the sidhe. Devin was a good man, and worthy of the title. The sidhe needed him, and Colin wished he hadn’t done as Maureen had commanded. He could have been around to see Devin change the sidhe world.
“No matter the reasons I did it, I am still guilty and nothing can take that away.” Colin was set on the fact that he needed to die for his part in the poisoning.
“I don’t believe in punishing someone with death if they acted on the orders of someone else without knowing all of the details. I need you to come back. I need you to stand before the sidhe and explain what you did and why. I need this to be over, and you’re the key to the end. When they find that Maureen was behind everything, we will be able to move on,” Devin replied. “I need you to do this for your people.”
“And what becomes of me?” Colin asked. “You can’t wipe clean what I’ve done.”
“No, but I won’t kill you for it. I think I can find another alternative. Just come back. Don’t give up. Don’t leave Mara alone,” Devin threw in Mara in hopes to keep Colin alive. His heartbeat was slowing down dangerously. Even Devin was running out of time. Soon it would be unsafe for Devin to be in the sidhe’s mind.
Colin looked to him and nodded. Devin sighed as he sensed Colin’s body began to grow stronger. His heart beat faster, and Colin would live.
Nessa watched Devin slowly open his eyes. Colin was still lying on the ground unconscious, but his breathing had steadied. Nessa rushed over to Devin to help him stand. It took a lot to go into someone’s mind, and he had been in there for over twenty minutes. Nessa would have been more worried if she didn’t have the bond to peek through and see that he was okay while he was in there. Devin smiled at Nessa’s gesture and stood beside her. He squeezed her shoulder under his arm. He was a bit weak.
“He’s fine now. It might take a bit for him to wake. His body was very stressed and convinced that he would die,” Devin explained. He walked over to Mara and sat down in front of her. Sitting was easier than standing. “We need to know the truth, and I need to find a way to keep you two safe from the elite. You’ve made a lot of enemies.”
“What do you mean?” Nessa asked. It was obvious that Colin had been the assassin. Why would there be retribution toward Mara?
“Mara grew the poisonous plant. Didn’t you?” Colin didn’t have the ability.
Mara nodded. Her eyes were filled with happy tears, but her face was masked in regret. She had not acted on her own will either, but she felt just as responsible as Colin did.
“Our families blessed our union when we married. They thought it was more than appropriate for two plant magic sidhe to marry. My father was happy to get rid of me. We kept everything pretty much a secret from the heads of our family, but everyone else around us knew. No one had a problem with it, until Maureen found out. She was horrified I would marry outside of the family and join theirs. I was the last plant person they had. The Miller family was happy with my choice, as they gained a plant person, but that didn’t matter. We technically broke the r
ules and married outside of our families. They came and took us here, and we’ve been here since.
“I thought we had made it. The castoffs don’t care in the least who we marry or love. We fit in here. Yes, it’s hard work, and maybe a bit rundown, but we were happy.” Noticing the look Nessa was giving her, Mara quickly added, “We really were happy just being together. The clans leave you alone here. You’re not a Ferguson or a Miller, you’re just a person. I liked it that way.”
“Then when did it change?” Devin asked. Nessa could see that he cared and was really trying to find a way to help them.
“A little over a month ago, Maureen came and found us. She told me that if I didn’t help her grow a plant she needed, that she was going to mark my entire family as castoffs because they technically broke the rules by not reporting Colin and me. While I was happy, I couldn’t let my family be here. This is a hard life. I have little nieces and nephews that aren’t even walking yet. I couldn’t let this be their fate if I all I had to do was grow some plants.” Mara looked over to Colin. He was peacefully sleeping now.
“So you grew the plant for her?” Devin asked. Mara nodded as she watched Colin.
“Yes, she gave me three seeds,” Mara replied.
That was how Maureen was able to keep the plant away from the late king. She had her plants destroyed, but not the seeds. Who could predict there would be a plant person born that could specifically cause seeds to grow to maturity? Maureen had to have had those seeds for a long time, just waiting to use them again.
“Did you know what it was?” Devin continued his questioning.
“No. Not at all. I never knew it was a forbidden plant, and I sure didn’t know that she was going to make it into poison,” Mara quickly replied, begging Devin with her eyes to believe her. Mara was innocent. Devin didn’t doubt that in the least.
“Where is this plant?” Devin asked.
“Over there, in the woods behind our house. Maureen didn’t want it linked back to her, so she had us plant it here in the castoff camp. I later heard her tell someone that if the castoffs accidentally came upon it, that it would be a good thing to kill off as many of us as it could. That’s when I knew what I had grown. We added extra thorny plants all around it to keep people away,” Mara quickly added. “I don’t want anyone near it. I hated when Colin would go and pick it for Maureen. That plant scares me.”
Devin nodded. He had been told how lethal it was, but Mara just confirmed what everyone had said. He didn’t see it as her fault—she had done what she was told, and hadn’t known any better—but would the elite see it that way? What she’d done was illegal, and she was already at the very edge of society as it was. What more could they do to punish her?
“How did Colin get roped into all of this?” Devin wondered. Colin was the assassin after all.
“After we grew the plant, and figured out what it was, we didn’t know how to get rid of it. Colin agreed with me that it wasn’t safe, so we went to Maureen and asked her to get rid of it,” Mara explained. “I really had no clue how to kill it. We tried to dig it out, but it grew back. We stopped watering it, but only the plants around it died. We couldn’t kill it.”
“You thought you could ask her and she would do it?” Nessa asked. Maureen was good at playing nice, but even nice Maureen wasn’t one you could ask such a thing of. She always had her reasons, and if she didn’t suggest killing the plant, then she would have wanted it alive.
“Colin thought she had made a mistake. The plant was illegal to grow, or even possess. He was sure once we told her, she would be surprised and want to get rid of it,” Mara replied caustically. “It wasn’t a mistake. She wanted the plant, and by confronting her about it, we’d just made it worse. She told us that if we told anyone, she would claim that I stole the seeds and grew it on my own. She told me that her word, as the head of the elite, would be much more valuable than mine as a castoff. And she was right. As a castoff, we have no rights, and our word means nothing.”
“But she was lying,” Nessa replied, angry that the system could work that way. She’d never heard a castoff list a complaint before, but she had a hard time imagining that their word meant nothing.
A brief expression of disgust flashed across Mara’s face, almost too fast to see. “But it was the truth. We left Maureen’s home defeated, and placed as many thorny plants as we could around the poisonous one. We continued to hope that no one would ever find the plant, and everyone would stay safe. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Maureen returned to us and told us that for our insolence she would be requiring Colin to harvest the plant and place it in food at the palace.”
“You knew it was poison by then,” Nessa replied in shock. Mara had intentionally poisoned people if that was the case.
“And I told him not to. What more could she do to us?” Mara answered. She agreed completely with Nessa. “But Colin didn’t see it that way. Maureen threatened us again with my family, and Colin being thrown out. Colin didn’t want to poison anyone, but he did for our families.”
Suddenly, Colin coughed behind Devin, and everyone turned to watch him gasp for air as he woke. Slowly, he sat up, shaking his head. Mara hurried over to sit beside him, placing her arm around his back and supporting him. He was weak, but awake and alive. She couldn’t have hoped for anything more. Tears of happiness trickled down her cheeks.
“I didn’t do it for my family,” Colin said in a raspy voice. “I did it for Mara. Maureen told me that if I didn’t act as the assassin, she would tell everyone Mara had grown an outlawed plant. The only punishment we have left as castoffs are our lives. If I didn’t kill the elite, then Maureen would make sure that they killed Mara. I couldn’t let her die. I can’t live without her.” Colin coughed a few more times, and finally caught his breath.
“Did Maureen tell you who to kill?” Devin asked.
“Yes. This was all planned. She never told me why, but I arrived early a few times to overhear her telling someone what she was doing,” Colin replied.
“Do you know who?” Nessa asked. There could be hundreds of sidhe that Maureen would want to know. They had caught the assassin, but that still meant a traitor was out there.
“I never saw them. In fact, I don’t know if the person was even around. It was like she was talking into the air, and when I entered, she would just turn to me and pretend she hadn’t been talking to someone. I swear there was no one there. She was alone and just holding something in her hands. But I know there’s no spell like that. I kind of thought she was just crazy.” Colin described his odd encounters with Maureen. “She was like that a lot.”
“What did you overhear?” Devin added to keep the conversation on track.
“That the plan was to kill off all of the younger sidhe,” Colin replied. Surprised, Ness turned to Devin. It was just as he had suspected. How could he be so smart to pick up on that? “If there were no heirs left, each family would send a new ruling family to our village. Maureen seemed to be planning to take over, and she had the support of at least one village. The person she’d talked to was supposed to get more people or something along those lines. Unfortunately, I really didn’t hear more than that. Right then, I knew who would be my targets before she even told me. There aren’t many young left to each ruling family. I was relieved when you figured it out and took those last two children into your protection.” Colin nodded to Devin. “Then there was no one left that she could order me to kill. I thought we were done, and that she had lost. But she didn’t see it that way. She told me that I had to kill Fiona. I thought I’d heard her wrong ... hoped I’d heard her wrong. But I didn’t. She really wanted Fiona dead. I’m happy she is not. Thank you, Day Human Prince, for saving her and the others, too. I may not like the elite, or agree with their rules, but that isn’t a reason to murder. I didn’t want to kill anyone. I didn’t want any of them dead. Especially not you, Princess. However, I just couldn’t let Maureen kill Mara.”
Mara wrapped her arms tighter around Col
in. Devin had all of his answers, and stood to walk out of the house. Nessa followed behind him, wondering what he was thinking now. She was tempted to peek into his mind, but knew it was easier to just ask.
‘What’s the plan?’ she asked, sure that Devin had no intention of letting the two castoff sidhe die for what they’d done. Everything had been orchestrated by Maureen, all of the deaths were on her hands, yet Nessa didn’t know what other choices there were.
‘Is death really the only option?’ Devin asked. He was planning something.
‘For a castoff? Yes,’ Nessa replied. ‘We can’t let them stay here, and the other villages wouldn’t take them either. No matter if it’s Maureen’s fault or not, Mara grew an illegal plant and Colin killed people with its poison.’
‘And exile?’ Devin asked. ‘Is that an option?’
‘Exile is worse than death to the sidhe. This is our life, and there’s nowhere that we fit in the day human world. The sidhe aren’t made for your concrete cities. This is our home, and without a village to support them, it is death,’ Nessa replied. Exile wasn’t an option in Nessa’s book.
Nodding, Devin turned back to the house, and saw that Mara was still on the floor with Colin.
“For now, you are both under house arrest,” Devin told them, and they nodded their heads in reply. Instantly, Devin placed a barrier around the house. “You may receive food and drink through the spell, but you can’t leave your house. Anyone can bring you food or water, but no one can enter. Understand?”
“Yes,” Colin replied, his voice less raspy.
“I’ll have you brought before the council as soon as I can get them all together. We will get this done soon,” Devin told them.
‘What are you going to do?’ Nessa asked.
‘Be the king everyone expects me to be,’ Devin replied.
CHAPTER 13
Nessa sat beside Devin in one of the two ornate seats on the stage of the amphitheater. It was slowly filling, and Devin was impatiently tapping his fingers beside her. Nessa took his hand to stop his fidgeting. She loved how rough it was; she could feel the years of hard work and training he had done. He had been trained for every type of situation, and was always perfect in how he handled it. How could he be nervous? He was much more of a man than anyone that entered, yet right now his confidence was not there, as she’d expected it to be. He smiled at her hand in his own, and her heart melted. Nessa loved Devin, even if she hadn’t yet told him.