The prince with Seelie blood steps forward and grabs the mercenary’s other arm, then starts patting him down. When the telltale sound of coins clinking together rings from his pocket, the male begins to struggle in earnest. The prince reaches in and pulls out a small satchel.
He opens it up and peers inside, clicking his tongue. “You said she came from the Northern Lands. This is Seelie gold. Trying to keep it for yourself?”
The mercenary's lip curls, and he spits at the ground. “A male has to eat! The high fae are more than happy to take everything from the lands and leave the rest of us to starve. That will feed my family for the next year.”
I might have had some sympathy for this male, but I'm well aware he doesn't have a family. During the entire journey here, he lamented loudly that they were running on a tight schedule and so he couldn’t stop to have his own fun with me on the way. He joked constantly about the things he could do to me, even offering to make a spectacle of it for his friends, and the way they laughed and joked along with him made it clear it wouldn’t have been the first time.
I’m of the opinion that he should starve so he can’t do the same again to another less capable female.
The Seelie prince steps back and hands the satchel to the Savage Prince, who takes it without looking at it, still silent as he stares at me. I can feel the rage and disbelief rolling off him, but it takes another moment before he jolts out of the stupor the reality of his fate struck him into.
His gaze traces the crowd for a moment, but he says, low voice dripping with cruelty, “Find another horse. It's not riding with me.”
He then turns to the prince with an armful of mercenary and snaps, loud enough for the entire crowded marketplace to hear him, “Kill them. Anyone transporting a witch without direct orders is committing treason.”
A low gasp sounds around us, but the princes don’t hesitate, loyal to their savage leader. The mercenaries begin to protest, exclaiming and cursing under their breath at him, but the high fae are too fast for them as they draw their swords and cut each man’s throat without another word.
I watch it all even as their blood spatters my cheeks and stains the front of my cloak. The coldness that filled my body long ago hasn’t thawed, leaving the entire show of butchery like nothing more than a typical carnival play.
The fourth high-fae prince, who hadn't said a word so far, turns to the Savage Prince and murmurs, “There are no horses to purchase here. No one outside of the castle has access to them anymore due to the regent’s decrees. If you won't ride with her, then she'll have to go with one of us or walk, but at that pace it’ll take an extra three days to return to Yregar.”
The Savage Prince turns back to the Seelie prince, watching as he wipes the blood of the mercenaries from his blades and slides them back into their sheaths.
“Then it walks. I’m not touching it, and neither are any of you.”
* * *
The journey by foot through the Southern Lands is vastly different from the one my brother and I took when we left. Chained and gagged the way I am, there’s nothing for me to do other than take in the landscape of the kingdom. A small crack pierces the ice around my heart, and tears blind me. The gag chokes me, a lump growing in my throat until I struggle to breathe at all.
Everything we pass is dead or dying, no signs of life in the charred remains of the fields. Witches are supposed to be the caretakers of the earth, protecting nature and the seasons by pouring our magic into the land and letting it replenish us in return. But it’s clear that none of the rituals that keep the lands flourishing have been undertaken for a long time.
I don't know if this is a strategy of Kharl’s to win the war, but it’s heartbreaking to see. The witches of the Southern Lands have always been caretakers of the land, nurturing it and holding rites to honor all that it has blessed us with, and to know that my kind have wrought this destruction is devastating. The stories I was told by other witches who fled to the Northern Lands had sounded impossible, embellished, and yet the truth of their testimonies resonates in the barren remains of my once-thriving homeland.
One of the high-fae princes bolts my shackles to the back of his saddle so I'm forced to walk as fast as his horse.
I do so without a word.
I can't speak around the gag in my mouth, but there are still ways of communicating with them if I wanted to. I could open my mind to speak directly to the Savage Prince again, but I’ve put the wall back up between us, and it stands as strong as it did when I first created it at the Seer’s temple two hundred years ago. The disgust emanating from my mate still permeates the air around us, and no doubt he’d react poorly if I spoke to him that way again.
Back then, giving up the comfort of his presence was a great loss to me. Grieving as I already was for my family, it felt especially cruel to lose him too. Time didn’t heal the wound; with every snippet of news that came to the Seelie Court from the Southern Lands, the pain only intensified and burrowed deeper within me. No matter the tactics I tried, my memories of his voice and honeyed promises never faded.
The Fates are cruel and fickle, but I’ve had a long time to come to terms with that.
The high fae ride in silence, though I sense it's more of a cautious thing. I'm sure none of them know what to say, and it makes me curious what the Savage Prince knew of his fate.
Did he assume he was meeting the perfect female, some high-fae beauty, only to find his greatest enemy staring back at him? I should have sympathy for the male, but, staring at him, I find that I’m as cold and empty as ever. I feel as hollow now as I did standing onthe Shepherdreturning home to a place that had left me with nothing but heartache and sorrow.
Never did I think I would return. I never imagined I could leave my brother behind in the Northern Lands to come back and face my fate, though I'm glad Pemba isn’t here to see how they’re treating me.
I can hear his voice in my head right now.
Kill them, Rooke. Kill them and be done with it. Return to the Northern Lands, to me, to our friends and family, to everyone who loves you.
He never wanted me to leave the Northern Lands in the first place.
Without telling them the future the Seer had laid out before me, it was hard to explain to everyone that the Fates were calling to me– that I’d seen too much death and destruction for the sake of an unfulfilled fate and I couldn’t let that happen again. We barely survived the Fate Wars, and I don’t need to look around now to know that the Unseelie Court is far less equipped for such a war than the Seelie Court was.
The entire Sol Army was almost wiped out before we defeated the Ureen, and I doubt these Unseelie princes have as much support behind them.
