AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“N-no, En! Wai-wait!” I dug the heels of my feet into the ground as I tensed my body, Keia’s screeches loud and distressed as she fluttered her wings. I tried to grasp on to something—anything!—but he made sure I couldn’t sink my claws intoanything, including him.
“Don’t make me wait too long, little Elf.”
And he shoved me forward.
“En!” I screamed, my eyes widening as the warm light of the portal engulfed me, En’s figure becoming a blurry silhouette before he vanished.
No, no, no, no, no!
Everything changed, from the dark and eerie atmosphere of the Spider’s world to the soft and gentle breeze that carried the comforting aroma of leaves and flowers.
I was wrong. This was worse than being at En’s mercy.Thissituation wasfarworse than having an unpredictable Spider sink his teeth into me. I didn’t know why En did it, I did not know what his reason for doing this stupid move was, but he ruined everything.
He ruined everything I’d worked so hard to maintain.
“Ken… Kenia?” Faelyn’s voice murmured behind me.
32
A part of me mocked me for having the audacity to feel caught when I’d known I’d have to explain myself eventually. I’d known my trips to Eon would need to be mentioned. I’d known my bond with him would need to be revealed so I could go to him in peace.
But in being so careful, I’d never imagined I’d be exposed. I didn’t imagine it being out of my control.
“You…” My brother sounded and looked confused, yet underneath that confusion lied a glimmer of betrayal, a spark of denial. He could cloud his eyes and shake his head as much as he wanted, but the truth was out, and the truth was that I’d betrayed his trust. “That’s the land of Spiders…”
He caught me stumbling out from enemy grounds.
Beneath that denial, a cloud of hurt and anger quickly made its way up to the surface until it darkened his entire face, pulling his brows down and lifting his upper lip to expose fangs of fury. I saw how much he tried to hold it back, how much he tried to tell himself that perhaps he saw wrong.
But he didn’t.
He knew that.
I wasn’t sure why he was standing before the portals himself. Had he finally realised that I was missing—not just today, but all those previous days? Had my disappearance today made him question my previous ones? Did he think I was at the Fairies’ and waited for me since it was so late?
“What were you doing there?”
His question should have been easy to answer, but my words evaporated at the tip of my tongue.
What was I doing there? What made me go there—not just today but all those previous nights and days? Why did I go there when I knew perfectly wellthatplace harboured my enemy: creatures that could easily shred me to pieces, bathe in my blood and possibly use my skin as a cloth to cleanse their skin?
He didn’t move from his spot. Ayen’s panicked eyes were an indication that Faelyn was struggling to ask me gently when all he wanted was to yell and raise a literal wave of destruction. I’d never seen him so angry. When we’d discovered our sister’s death, he was hollow but not furious.
“How could you?” he whispered, his eyes showing the battle he was facing inside his mind. “How could you go in there knowing it will hurt me?”
“Brother, I—”
“How could you betray my trust?!” he yelled—hefinallyyelled—but it was still calm; his calm was a sudden jolt in a river, the slightest high wave in an ocean that indicated a change. Perhaps it was in ournaturebeing water children to never raise our voice too loud or lose our temper too much, but this was different.
This was shock at its peak, denial at its best.
Faelyn turned his face to Ayen, his hands curling into fists and his shoulders tensing.
“Both of you,” he whispered, utterly defeated.
“He didn’t help me, I swear!” I lied because a lie like that was better than seeing my brother lose the only friend he’d ever trusted with his life. “It was all me!”
“I don’t want to hear a word from you.” He raised a finger and spun sharply to face me, his narrowed eyes the ominous shade of the sea before a storm.
