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Oberon and I exchange a worried glance, realizing we may indeed be in danger.
“Then you know who I am?” I ask Lev, watching his reaction.
He smiles crookedly. “Oh yes, Princess Emily, we know who you are. Everyone on this planet can recognize the royal family. I thought you would have assumed that.”
“I don’t get the chance to leave New Aos very often.”
Lev scoffs. “Do you really mean that your father doesn’t let you leave it?”
I instantly feel offended. “I’ll have you know that I have my own projects to work on. I’m not at my father’s beck and call every minute of every day. In fact, I hate what he’s done to your kind. I’ve been trying to stop him for years.”
Lev stops walking, causing us all to falter in our steps. He turns on me with a vicious look of anger and disgust. “And yet you haven’t stopped him. Do you realize what he does to our children,Your Highness? He takes some of them when they are still babies and experiments on them. That’s what your high and mighty king has done to what remains of humanity. It wasn’t enough that your kind destroyed our planet, but you also made us into your experiments.”
“We didn’t destroy the world, we rebuilt it.” My temper flares because I know Lev has the true history of this world all wrong. “I lived through that holocaust. I know what really happened.”
“Do you?”
Lev’s question brings me up short.
“Of course, I do. I was living as a human on Earth at the time. I watched the governments of the world decide to lay waste to this world so the fae couldn’t have it.”
“You’re right,” Lev says with a nod. “They did do that, but who decided to make humanity their playthings? Who was twisted enough to take what was left of us and alter our DNA? You may be a good person, Princess, but you’re allowing your father to systematically tear away what makes us human. You sit behind your ivory walls and pat yourselves on the back for piecing our world back together, but you are ignoring what made Earth unique. It’s people. While your father performs genocide, you stand on your high morals and turn your eyes away from the atrocities that are happening right in front of you. You’re no better than your father, and the sooner you get out of our valley the better.”
Lev turns back around and begins walking as fast as he can deeper into the woods.
His words hurt. They hurt because they’re true.
Of course, I’ve known what my father has been doing to them. That’s why I’ve been working to find a way to reverse his mad deeds. Yet, Lev wouldn’t care to know about that. He believes I should have stopped my father before he had a chance to change humanity forever, and maybe he’s right. Maybe I should have done more.
Maybe Icando more.
It only takes us thirty minutes to reach Lev’s village. It’s a small community, composed of ramshackle homes built at the base of a mountain. All of the people I see are deformed in one way or another. A few have mutations like Lev and Harold while others may have paws for hands or wolf torsos with human appendages. My heart aches for the pain my father has caused these people, making me even more determined to find a way to reverse what’s been done to them.
Lev takes us to his home while Harold joins a small group of people with wolf heads. Lev’s place is nothing more than a drafty shack, but it’s as well kept as it can be under the circumstances. A woman with paws for hands wearing a patchwork dress is lifting a cast iron pot out of the stone fireplace. Once she places it on the wooden dining table in the one-room home, she turns with a smile on her face.
“I was wondering . . .” her voice trails off when her gaze lands on me and Oberon. She glances from us to Lev for an explanation.
“We have company, Elle,” Lev says, moving to the woman’s side. “Princess, this is my wife.” Lev looks at Oberon. “I’m afraid I forgot to ask who you are, friend.”
“Oberon.” He doesn’t identify himself as the dark fae king.
It’s just as well. One hated royal desecrating their village is probably more than they need.
“It’s nice to meet you both.” Elle clumsily curtsies before me, making me feel uncomfortable and unworthy.
When she stands back up to her full height, I notice a small bump around her belly.
“Are you expecting a baby, Elle?” My question instantly causes Lev to place himself between me and his woman.
“You can’t have it.” The anger on his face takes me aback.
“I was only asking to be polite,” I say. “I have no reason to take your baby, Lev. You have to trust that I only have your best interest at heart.”
Lev’s shoulders relax a small bit. “How exactly do you plan to safeguard our best interests when your father can come here anytime he wants and snatch our children up for his experiments?”
He’s right. I’m powerless to stop my father, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I have an opportunity to do exactly what I’ve always wanted to do: strip my father of his rights and make sure he doesn’t have a chance to hurt anyone else.
“I-I’m afraid breakfast isn’t very fancy,” Elle apologizes. She runs her paws over her messy brown hair to straighten it out. “If I had known we would be having visitors, I would have made more than potato soup.”
