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Etain noticed his nose was rather flat now where it used to be rounded. He looked unkempt with his usually clean shaven face covered in a few days old beard, and it was clear he hadn’t showered in what smelled like months, but could only have been nights. Etain clenched her eyes shut and tried to focus on what he had said. She had no idea what he was talking about. Help him with what?
“Help you? Help you when?” Her voice was starting to wake up more. She wanted to shout at him and ask him why he thought he would be deserving of her help in general, after he had tried to violate her. Though considering she was tied up and he was not, she thought better of it. Seamus looked down at her with such disgust, she had to hold back a flinch.
“The entire time you were galavanting with your demon lover, I was strapped to a table in his dungeon! You could have asked him to release me. We could have gone home, and forgotten this whole thing. You still had a chance at being my wife and ascending to the Kingdom of Light with me. Now…,” he sneered, “now that you have made yourself the demon’s whore and left me to rot. I will never tie myself to you.”
Etain felt herself mildly relax with his words. At least she didn’t have to worry about him trying to finish what he started that first fateful night in the woods. She was still fearful of him, remembering the pain he made her body feel.
“Seamus, I didn’t know…,” she started and was interrupted by his cruel laughter.
He smacked her across the face and glared at her.
“Everything that’s happened to me is your fault, Etain! You had to be stubborn instead of doing as you were told! Not only did your lover break my bones in a way he said was vengeance for you, he also did this!” Seamus ripped his shirt open showing his scarred skin. Carved across his chest with even spaces between letters was the word “FOOL.” It was in all capital letters and beautiful calligraphy, which almost made an even bigger mockery out of it.
Etain made a mental note to commend Ciaran on his penmanship. She was beginning to think anything she said would only further infuriate Seamus, so she decided to stay quiet. He told her of how he escaped the room of torture and how easily he had snatched her right out from under Ciaran. Then he listed off all the ways in which he planned to hurt her before he delivered whatever was left of her to the Shepherd.
She was in such a state of emotional duress, the fact the Shepherd was in this realm didn’t even register. He obviously had his hands in something. She felt herself growing hotter as her panic took over completely.
“You know what I am going to start with, Etain? I thought it would be nice to let the world know exactly what you are for the rest of your life.” He pulled out a small blade he had likely stolen from a plate during the festival. It looked painfully dull.
“H-O-R-E. I’m going to carve the letters across your chest just as that demon did to me!”
Etain was completely frozen with fear or she would have at least yelled, “that’s not how you spell ‘whore’ you fool,” although she couldn’t force her mouth to move.
As Seamus began to carve the letter H, the pain was horrendous. He had to use tremendous force to break the skin, bruising her while he carved her. That heat she thought she had felt earlier, wasn’t the heat she thought it was after all.
She started to feel her power build. She felt herself pulling more and more from some deep dark place within her without knowing how she was even doing it. She needed it to go somewhere else desperately and release it from her body. She was becoming overwhelmed by it, and couldn’t understand how she had access to it. Had she somehow broken the bind Ciaran had placed on her?
Seamus had just finished the H and was moving on to the next letter when she felt like she was near to bursting with power. She knew she needed to let it out; she just didn’t know how. Soon, she knew, she wouldn’t have a say in it at all.
Seamus looked up from his handiwork, made a startled sound, and crab crawled away from her. “Demon!”
At first Etain thought he meant Ciaran had arrived. Then she realized he was looking directly at her. He steeled himself and leaned closer, but his eyes were still blown in panic. Etain had finally reached her tipping point and felt her power ripping out of her as she screamed. Her body bowed off the ground with the force of the power purging from her, and it felt like her body was being pulled inside out.
Seamus had no time to run, when everything within a few feet of Etain exploded sending splinters and gore flying everywhere. When she had fully released all the power she had spiraled into her body, she sagged hard against the dirt floor. Etain was mildly aware she was covered in blood and full of splinters when unconsciousness took her again.
Anin felt her body jostle from side to side, a feeling which kept her from being able to comprehend where she was. Her head felt like it had been split open. She nearly forgot Kes had bound her magic, which meant she wasn’t healing at her normal rate. She may as well be a human without her power. She nearly jerked her body, which would have given away her alertness, when her final memory from the ball came back to her. The last thing she remembered was feeling Kes’s imminent death through the bond.
Tears pricked her eyes when she thought how he must’ve died. She felt desperately for that pull in her chest; it had been terribly weak the last time she felt it. She had sobbed alone in that cage, because she thought that bond was disappearing forever. Anin felt significant regret in that moment. She tentatively felt her way down the bond. Anin let one tear escape her eye as she felt that bond stronger than the last time she had felt it. Relief like she had never felt before coursed through her.
Anin thanked the goddess then tried to slowly open her eyes, the pressure in her head making it difficult to focus. As her vision cleared, she could see the night sky. That meant she was still in the Night Court. When she slowly surveyed her surroundings, Anin noticed she was caged in on three sides by wood. That combined with the movement meant she must be in the back of some kind of wagon. She felt like her brain was moving at snail speed. Things which should be obvious felt like a mystery, like how long it took her to realize her hands and legs were bound.
Anin forced her head to clear. She knew who had gotten to her, and who was likely responsible for Kes’s injuries. She needed to be alert and get away before being forced to cross the border into the Day Court; if she crossed that line, she would never see Kes again. Never see anyone again, for that matter. The Day Court were no longer content with Anin living in the Borderlands and wanted her dead. To the Day fae, Anin’s life was considered betrayal and unnatural. She represented a new possibility for the Day Court, which would turn everything upside down.
She had been running from them the moment her mother had died and could no longer hide her, to what felt like the night Kes had captured her. She’d had a nice long break from running when she lived with the witches, though she had refused to place any of them in danger. When they received word the Day fae had figured out she was there, she began her running again.
It was interesting the way fate wove itself to intervene all at once. The attempted murder by her court put her directly into the arms of the one who would become her truest family. She wondered if she would have ever met Kes if Day fae had not chosen that exact moment to come after her. The timing was impeccable. Anin was beginning to think she might know which goddess would intervene to make sure fate came together. A goddess who had a connection to both Etain and herself. Anin would thank her the next time she saw her.
Anin made the smallest movements she possibly could and turned herself to see who was spiriting her away. When she was finally able to glimpse the being out of the corner of her eye. She was disappointed to see them hiding under the hood of a cloak. She spent the next several minutes thoroughly inspecting the wagon as best she could, while not alerting the driver to her wakefulness. Anin could not find an open space she could use to roll herself as quietly as possible off the wagon. She could figure out the ropes that bound her after she rolled away, and the driver would continue on in ignorance.
Her next best bet was to wait until they stopped. While the driver was preoccupied securing the horse, she could creep away into the darkened woods. She needed to figure out how to get her hands free, then she could untie her legs and would be able to move silently. She tried to see if she could reach any of the rope with her sharp nails. It was awkward and painful the way she had to twist her wrist on one hand to have the nail of her pinky reach the rope. She began to saw at it over and over hoping her smallest nail was strong and sharp enough to help get her out of this mess.
She had no idea how long she had been in the back of this wagon, but based on how sore her body was, she figured she’d been laying in one spot for a long time. While her pinky kept up its pace, she thought about how scared she had been for Kes and how sick seeing his blood puddled on the floor had made her. She figured Ciaran had done something to save him, but considering she had let Kes place the tracking spell on her and he was not already there, spoke to how severely he had been wounded. She wondered if Ciaran had caught the beings who had carried out the attack. If he had, she hoped she would get the chance to let each of them know how she felt about their actions.
Anin might be a wood nymph, and nymphs are typically nonaggressive beings, but that’s not all Anin was, and she was beginning to settle into a calm rage. If she had her power, she would’ve released it in its raw form, already ripped the driver apart, and hightailed it back to the palace. She tried not to let the frustration get to her. She knew if she got upset about not having her power it would weaken her. She was more than the sum of her power, and she could do this. Just as she thought the words to herself, she felt the first section of rope split.
Thirty One
Kesfeltlikehehad been entirely regrown. He supposed if he were alive it would not be too far off from the truth. He had been unprepared for what greeted him in the shadows. He had also been distracted trying to keep an eye out for Anin. Kes had convinced himself it was likely nothing but a bit of mischief; instead he found himself ambushed by someone powerful. They had set a spell to trigger the second he stepped into the shadowy alcove, and it shot hundreds of obsidian daggers into him. The whole thing couldn’t have taken longer than he could blink. He never even saw the perpetrator.
