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The sight of him takes my breath away. He’s worn his armor today too, including a winged helm I’ve never seen before, but he’s impossible to miss, as if my heart would know him, even if he wasn’t standing tall at the front of a mass of fae warriors. Moria is at his side, holding him back by one shoulder like he might sprint across the wasteland to me.
It’s daylight, but thick clouds hang overhead as though even the sun doesn’t want to grant its light to this dark meeting.
“Sigurd!” I reach for him, but a firm tug on my arm draws me to my feet. Katiya’s grip on my arm is solid as steel, even as her brother releases me and steps forward in front of our group.
“King of Air.” Kallan’s voice booms across the plane, both sides eerily silent behind their monarchs. “I believe I have someone you’ll want returned. Let us discuss terms.”
The Unseelie are vastly outnumbered, but that doesn’t seem to bother them. Despite the armor they wear, they’re not here to fight. At least, I don’t think so. They want to barter, with me as the bargaining chip. If things go south, I have no doubt they’ll shift away again, me in tow. With Katiya here, I doubt Sigurd or any of the others could track them, no matter how awkward and strained the shifting.
Sigurd and Moria detach from their group and advance. Kallan and Katiya do the same, with me in tow. It’s almost like a stage play with how perfectly choreographed their actions are, but I doubt the show will be met with thunderous applause.
Sigurd’s gaze never leaves me as he advances on the enemy. It warms me, heart and soul, but at the same time, I can’t miss the chill sliding down my spine.
I’m a liability, the last thing I want to be.
“You’re okay?” Sigurd asks. His wide-eyed gaze holds more questions that I can process, but one thing I know for sure—he’s truly worried.
He cares. He…loves me?
“Yes,” I say.Focus on them, not on me. I’ll be fine.I will the message to him, hoping that somehow it can come across without words.
Kallan snarls. “I do not condone harming humans.”
“Oh?” Sigurd says, a dangerous lilt in his voice. “That has not been my experience with Unseelie.”
Because they hurt Evelyn long ago, possibly before this king came to power. She was harmed by them in ways even Sigurd refused to voice.
“It’s been long since such atrocities occurred,” Kallan says. “And you’re one to speak, Air King. Did you not bind this human to you, as your father bound others before you?”
Sigurd roars, a sound both vicious and pained all at once. Great wings sprout from his back and linger high in the air, a few feathers drifting down to the stark ground. My chest grows tight at the sight, the uneasy tension hanging in the air. If Kallan hoped to unsettle Sigurd, he’s done it.
“How can you—” Sigurd starts.
“Know?” Kallan speaks for him, completely unruffled.
This earns another snarl in return.
“We know much, King of Air. Much more than you.”
Moria puts a hand on Sigurd’s arm, a vain attempt to calm him. “Who are you to speak for the Unseelie?” she asks Kallan.
Katiya smirks at my side, a little huff of laughter slipping from her lips.
Kallan pulls his sword—an act that has Sigurd and Moria reaching for their blades—and plants the tip in the ground between his feet. “I’m Kallan, King of the Unseelie.”
“How?” Moria asks, wide eyed.
Sigurd’s wings twitch, collapsing down behind him before springing out again. His face gives little away, but his silence says much. When the quiet lingers uncomfortably long, he finally says, “The magic did not settle after the last Unseelie king died.”
“It has now,” Kallan replies.
“That sword,” Moria says on an inhale. If Moria recognizes it, it must be the blade Kallan claimed. She knows her weapons and her lore, maybe as well as anyone.
I’d swear the air around us drops a few degrees as the revelations sink in, one after another.
“This changes nothing,” Sigurd snaps. Whatever thrall the pronouncement held him in is gone, and the fierce warrior has returned. He steps forward, hand outstretched. “Give Wren back to me.”
“Watch your tone, Air King,” Katiya mocks. “One wrong move and I take her with me.”
