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“You are different, even I cannot make sense of it. Faenir is many things, but I leave knowing you are safe in his care.”
“Care?” I laughed, finally allowing the tears to fall down my cheeks.
“Make him come to the ball, Arlo, and I will give you the news of your sister. Take it as a peace offering between you and our kind.”
Myrinn left swiftly, not allowing room for my pleading to continue.
I could have chased after her. But I didn’t. Not because I did not want to, but because I knew, deep down, that Faenir watched from the darkness and waited to spring forth and stop me from leaving.
He would not let me go.
Myrinn’s own words had confirmed that.You are his property.Perhaps my parent’s death when I was so young had made the concept of belonging to anyone incomprehensible to me.You belong to Faenir.The thought alone made my skin crawl as though spiders danced upon me.
Faenir had me trapped in his web.
Then cut us free.
11
Iwaited for Faenir to come for me, knife in hand and poised ready to kill.
It had begun with me watching the door with intent, keeping my breathing as featherlight as I could muster to ensure I did not miss a sound. I burned holes into the closed door as my body ached with anticipation for his arrival.
Years of chasing the undead among the forgotten streets and barren landscape of Darkmourn had me in fighting, fit shape. Even with Faenir’s unknown powers over darkness and death, if given the chance I would attack before he could do so little as blink in wonder.
After Myrinn had left early that evening and I had returned to the chamber where Faenir had last been, there was only the table of food left untouched.It had been the goblets of wine and water that had seen me though until now. The water dulled the physical pain of my body, the wine calming the wild torment of my mind.
Minutes of waiting for Faenir turned to hours, hours to days. He never came for me. I had done well to keep the sleep away at first but then I would find myself vulnerable, giving into my heavy eyelids and falling into the comforting embrace of darkness.
When I woke, startling as though a pail of water had cascaded over my head, the knife was still gripped in my hand.
Perhaps reading minds was another one of his sickly powers. Could he sense what I wished to do to him? How my next action would create pain and damage far greater than his healing abilities could battle?
My thoughts of destruction wavered with the time that slipped away. My grip loosened on my knife. Myrinn’s promise of providing me with news of my sister burrowed its way into my consciousness and infected my mind.
The more Faenir stayed away, the want to cause him pain turned into desperation for his return.I needed him if I was ever going to get free of this place. I needed him if I was to meet Myrinn at the ball and hear if Auriol was well.Not that I could have done anything about it if she was not okay. We had been torn from one another and kept separated by the steel bars between our worlds.
It was on Faenir’s third day of vacancy when my inner thoughts betrayed me. I gave in to walking the many halls of Haxton Manor in hopes to distract myself from what my mind tried to convince me of.She will be happier without you. Would she have smiled when I had never returned home? Had she released a sigh of relief to know that the chains I had kept upon her had shattered with my own demise?
Our last encounter had not been positive in the slightest. My disappearance would give her the life she desired, one away from me. Auriol had made her feelings for me clear. Her words replayed vividly in my head, over and over, as punishment.
I grew used to being alone. I counted the slabbed flooring I walked across in my attempts to distract myself. It worked for a short while before the festering poison of my thoughts grew louder.
There was no dulling my anxiety, no counting or distracting that would stop me from hearing Auriol’s hate-filled voice. It was so clear, I could have convinced myself that she followed in the shadows as I ambled aimlessly through Haxton.
I forgot my purpose in those three days. Even the knife I had so dearly clung to was left discarded on the bed in the prison I now saw as my room.
For a time, I had to stop myself from leaving the front doors and throwing myself back into the pits of the Styx; at least there would have been peace waiting for me in the darkest parts of that lake.
It was growing dark beyond the manor on that third day when the silence cracked. I had reached the outer doors of the dining chamber and smelt rot and mould. The stench was so pungent it tore me from my thoughts, and I was left standing beyond the room as though I had slept walked the entire way here.Not that I felt hunger anymore, but the smell was enough to ensure I would never wish to eat again.
Haxton was empty, a shell of dark thoughts and vacant rooms. The lack of presence had caused the food that Myrinn had made to spoil and turn. It made sense at least; this was a place of death after all.
There was only a single goblet of paled-grape wine left within my own room. I had finished the water the day prior.If my own mind didn’t kill me before the sickness claimed my body, the lack of sustenance would.
Careless and lost, I wandered back into my chamber to find Faenir sitting upon the bed as though he belonged there and had never left. I stopped, dead in my tracks, unable to fathom what I was seeing.Blinking did not remove the scene, nor did rubbing my closed eyes.
“I made a mistake,” Faenir’s monotone voice grumbled across the room. My skin crawled in response.
