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Chapter Fifteen
Ash
I’d gotten really, really good at killing the Carlin’s guards.
I refused to hide away in Gillie and Nua’s sidhe forever. And I figured, if I took out enough of them, eventually she would stop sending them to look.
So I went hunting for them.
Nua had been frantic with worry at first, but I hadn’t backed down. And Gillie had agreed that I couldn’t just hide here. I had to do something to take back control over my life.
I wasn’t sure on the total number I’d racked up now, but I knew I had to be making a dent. If I found them far enough away from Gillie and Nua’s sidhe, I didn’t hide the bodies. I wanted her to know that I was killing them. I wanted to taunt her with it.
As I sat in the trees waiting for flashes of silver down below, I often pictured the cold rage twisting her features. Making her single eye flash, her bronze teeth gleam in a furious snarl. The thought made me smile every time.
Killing them appeased some of the murderous fury that still simmered in my gut. I’d take out as many of her guards as I could, but I knew it wouldn’t satisfy me completely. I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied until I’d seen the cold blue dim in her eye, and the eyes of her eldest son. Until I’d made sure that Cethlen could no longer listen in the shadows for information to use, and Bres could no longer trick Folk with his honeyed words or grin at me with his too-wide mouth.
The Carlin really should change her guards’ armour, I thought as I hissed at one to get him to look up before shooting the arrow into his mouth. Making sure no others were around, I dropped down silently from the tree and ripped off his helmet to deliver the killing shot.
I left him there for the others to find. Keeping my bow in my branch hand, I slipped between the trees to my next waiting spot. They were idiots, mostly searching in the same areas every day, close to the market and where sidhes clustered together. Far, far away from Gillie and Nua’s remote little sidhe in a deeper, darker part of the forest.
I wanted to snort with derision. Were they even truly trying to find me? Or were they just traipsing out here every day and searching half-heartedly because the Carlin had ordered them to? Killing them was almost too easy.
A part of me grew fearful when I thought like that. I wasn’t the same anymore. I knew that. Iwascolder. Crueller. My new fae skin felt more comfortable now, and my mind was more calculating and less gullible than it had been as a mortal.
I wanted the Carlin to see me. To see that she hadn’t beaten me. She hadn’t won.
And I wanted the Brid to see me, too. The son she’d tried to have killed as a boy, still alive and full fae. I hated the tiny tendril of childish hope I felt when I thought of her—when I wondered if she would be proud of what I had become. It was pathetic. Weak.
I’d been weak on the Carlin’s land, sitting there and just waiting to find out what she wanted with me. I refused to be weak anymore.
I jumped up effortlessly into the next tree, my branch arm hoisting me up with no strain at all. I settled on a thick branch and leaned back against the trunk, getting comfortable while I waited for the next guard to appear below.
I stiffened when something brushed my flesh arm, a whisper-soft touch against my skin. My eyes darted down. I stared at the black chameleon sitting beside me on the next branch.
What the fuck? We didn’t have chameleons in England. I knew I wasn’t exactlyinEngland anymore, but still. And did jet-black ones even exist? I vaguely remembered reading once that they turned black when they were scared or stressed. This one was a deep, impenetrable black, but it didn’t look scared.
It gazed up at me with its protruding eyes and tiny frowning mouth, and my lips quirked into a little smile. I didn’t speak to it, still wary of guards who may have approached, but having it beside me made a little ball of warmth form in the pit of my stomach.
It could keep me company while I waited for the next guard. It crouched beside me on the branch, staying perfectly still as we sat in the tree. I resisted the urge to let my leg dangle and swing from the boredom of waiting, growing restless the longer we sat there.
Just as I was considering ending my hunt for the day and going home, I felt another tiny touch on my arm. Looking down, I noticed the chameleon’s front right leg was lifted into the air in a little salute.
Almost like it was pointing at something.
I darted my eyes to the side to follow the direction and felt them flare. There was a guard down there, just visible through the trees, skulking low and staying completely silent as he headed this way. He was quieter than the others, and his crouch looked more purposeful, like he actually knew what he was doing.
And I knew he’d already spotted me. I could see the flash of his silver eyes pointing in this direction.
Cursing myself for getting lax, I stayed perfectly still as if I didn’t know he was there, until I knew I’d be able to get a clear shot. My branch arm was already reaching for my bow as I dropped from the tree and landed on my booted feet with a dull thud.
The guard jerked. Knowing a sneak attack was no longer possible, he drew his sword and started sprinting for me, white teeth flashing beneath his helmet.
His head flew back when the first arrow hit, shattering his snarling teeth. It knocked his helmet off, so I didn’t bother stepping closer. I nocked another arrow and aimed it, closing my left eye to get the perfect shot from a somewhat awkward angle.
It wasn’t a perfect shot. It went through the top of his ear, but successfully drove into his brain, stopping his choked gurgles as blood bubbled from his mouth. I exhaled and nocked another arrow in case more were lurking, but decided I’d had enough for today.
I glanced up once at the chameleon, but it was gone.
