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Perhaps, like the Carlin, I was seeing the consequences of my choices.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ash
On the evening of the seventh day, I got myself ready.
I’d already said goodbye to Nua and Gillie. They knew I would be leaving the moment I could, I just hadn’t told them what I planned to do before heading to unseelie.
I packed a bag with some food and water, a change of clothes and as many arrows as I could fit. With my dagger on my belt and my bow on my back, I went down to the drachmsmith chamber to collect the potion I had made in preparation.
It glowed a toxic, luminous orange in its tiny vial. I’d tested it the night before, having horrifying visions of it eating away at my eyeballs like acid when I dripped the liquid into them. But it had worked—maybe worked a little too well. Everything had become way too bright, and I’d had to extinguish all the lanterns in the drachmsmith chamber and sit in the dark until it stopped feeling like I was greening out.
Now, I tucked the tiny vial into my pocket and turned to leave. When I reached the front hall, the two guards posted at the doors hurried to open them for me.
“Would you like an escort, Luad?”
“No need. I’m just going hunting.”
They exchanged a look. One of them cautiously said, “It is quite late, Luad—”
“I’ll be fine.”
The great doors closed behind me, and I made my way down the living steps. The moon was already high, and its light bathed the empty field at the edge of seelie land when I made it to the forest.
I was calm as I set down my pack and transferred as many arrows as would fit into my quiver. As I fished the tiny vial out of my pocket, I looked into the dark forest. My fae eyes let me see well in the dark, but some parts of the forest were almost impenetrable at night. From what the snakes had shown me, Balor tended to skulk far away from the centre of the woods where the majority of the solitary Folk lived.
Tipping my head back, I dropped the liquid into my eyes and blinked rapidly. My vision blurred, but before I even had time to lower my chin, the moon grew blindingly bright. I hissed and snapped my head back down, reflexively rubbing my eyes.
When I looked at the forest again, it was like a spotlight was flooding the entire thing. The tiniest pricks of moonlight piercing the canopy were suddenly bright enough for me to see everything clearly. My gaze zeroed in on the base of a tree as the leaves there twitched and rustled. Something small scampered out from under the foliage and ran.
I briefly grasped Lonan’s favour in my fist. I’d be back with him soon.
Nothing happened when I stepped forward into the trees. I wasn’t thrown back out onto seelie land. I stopped for a few seconds, scanning the forest in front of me, a little disconcerted by just how well I could see every tiny thing.
I didn’t care how long it took me. I was going to find Balor. And I was going to kill him.
So I started walking.
It took a few hours for me to find him.
I had made my way methodically along the treeline enclosing seelie land, moving further and further away from the centre of the forest, my steps light and careful, my eyes scanning between the trees.
For a while, I’d felt something stalking me, but it had seemed more curious than predatory. When I’d turned, bright orange eyes had been peering down at me from a tree. Something dark had surrounded them, too dark for me to see clearly, even with the potion—like a mass of thick black hair, tendrils creeping down and wrapping around the tree trunk. But it had left me alone, so I’d ignored it. I didn’t let myself get distracted, not even when my legs began to ache and my mouth grew dry with thirst.
I hadn’t been able to help Lonan with much else, but I could help him with this. I could get rid of at least one of the people who had caused him so much pain.
And caused me so much pain too.
I wondered if this was how Lonan had felt when his mother sent him out to slaughter Folk. I wasn’t excited or vibrating with adrenaline. I wasn’t nervous or scared. Surprisingly, I wasn’t even filled with the murderous urge to get revenge for Lonan, my parents, myself. It was more like… determined resignation. It needed to be done, so I was going to do it.
Balor needed to be removed from this world, for all the pain he had caused, and to stop him from inflicting any more. He gave back nothing but suffering. He was a stain that needed to be scrubbed from existence.
Lonan had been forced to kill enough people in his life. If I could take one more off his hands, I would.
It was impossible to stay completely silent as I walked, but I kept my footsteps light and irregular to help them blend into the ambience of the forest. I was good at this. I’d hunted the Carlin’s guards for months. So when, after hours of quiet, I heard a faint sound just ahead, I went completely still and listened intently.
After several long seconds of nothing, there was another tiny sound, like a foot shifting minutely over dead leaves. Crouching low behind a tree, I placed a hand on the trunk to steady myself and peered around it.
