My hands shake a little and I chuckle mirthlessly. ‘I thought the Light was a place of kindness and mercy.’
He’s silent now, and I take this time to quickly to force down another three rounds of bread and beef dripping. I learned nothing as a slave if not to eat when food was provided. At least I don’t have to fight anyone for it this morning, I think sardonically.
Locke begins to clear the table, putting everything away nearly in cabinets and drawers.
When my plate is empty, I look up and catch him observing me.
‘What happened to you in the pits?’ he asks.
The sudden question has me feeling as if I’m falling down a hole, scrambling to gain purchase and failing.
‘I already told you,’ I say as calmly as I can, without any of the chaotic emotion that I feel inside. ‘I survived. Just as you wanted me to. What else matters?’
He lets out a slow breath, eyes boring into me.
‘And what did that survival cost you?’ he whispers.
He voices the question that I haven’t yet been able to answer, the one that makes me feel ill when I think about it.
‘Nothing,’ I lie. ‘I had nothing left to pay with.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ he says very quietly, ‘and I’m sorry for that as well.’
I stand up abruptly, saying nothing more about it and wanting this conversation to be finished.
‘I won’t let them do it, you know,’ he says. ‘I won’t let them cast you out. You’re under my protection.’
I snort. ‘What power do you really have here, Locke?’
‘Little,’ he says and he sounds truthful. ‘But I have friends here, and, by extension, so do you. And there is a former slave who lives…close by with her two orc mates.’
‘Orcs with a human slave?’ My eyes widen. ‘As equals?’
I can’t even imagine such a thing.
He nods. ‘A rarity I know, but yes. They were the first to come here and make their lives in this place. The Breach shouldn’t open here, but, once in a while, it does when the tides are very strong. When a portal appears, this mountain, high in The Ranges, is where those from the Dark Realms who find their way to the Light end up. Some thinning of the ether during the Breach’s most extreme currents, they say. Gwen, Drak, and Grim have been here since this place was little more than one small cabin in a clearing. There is a precedent for you to remain.’
‘What if you can’t stop them from making me leave?’ I ask, afraid again that all this talk is just posturing, that he won’t actually help me when push comes to shove.
Why would he? Why would the others? What am I to them besides a Dark Realmer they got lumbered with? Jak and Morgan said they came to Merediea for me, but is that the truth, or just more fae trickery?
My eyes search Locke’s countenance. Perhaps he just wants me to cast him in a favorable light when I answer the questionsin front of their council. Though he, Jak, and Morgan may be in the Hall with me, I need to assume that I’m truly on my own because I might well be.
I can’t leave my life in their hands. I just don’t trust them.
‘If you promise to help me stay here, I’ll make sure that everything I say about you is…good,’ I say carefully, gauging his reaction.
He gives me a quizzical look. ‘This isn’t a deal we’re going to make, Bryn. I’ll help you no matter what. I vow it.’
I frown at him, remembering his words deep in the Dark Realms when we made our first deal.
His eyes avoid mine now.
‘When you’re bargaining with fae, always demand a vow aloud so that they can’t go back on their word,’ he says quietly.
‘That’s why you weren’t held to our bargain at first,’ I say, hating the tears that threaten.
‘Yes.’
