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Jasmine
DO YOU WANT ME TO KILLthem?
No.
Why not?
My mare shuddered as if she could hear the grim conversation taking place inside my mind. The dark-eyed girl was here again. I had to force myself to ignore the familiar frustration her presence ignited in me as I stared at the tall soldier.
The sun shone down on the golden sigil on his chest, making it glow as his suspicious gaze darted across our group. The golden sigil belonged to Lord Merick. We were traveling on his lands, and running into his soldiers wasn’t that surprising, but it meant we had to be even more careful.
The soldier had a scar on his cheek, his uniform looked tattered, and he was riding a horse that blocked our path. And he was not alone. There were six others in his patrol and five of us to face them in a fight if this thing went south.
“Where are you heading?” He asked as the wind blew on his hair, lifting it over his shoulder and making it fall to his chest. The man did not push his hair back, his focus was solely on us.
“We are looking for my brother,” Kieran replied. “Our village was attacked a week ago. Monsters took him.”
It was the story we’d decided on when it became clear that traveling in the Unseelie realm on the cusp of the big war was considered suspicious by most. It was an outright lie, one that had lots of holes in it. Kieran would need our help if the soldier decided to ask more questions.
I felt Fiona’s magic expanding beside me. Calm. Trust. Peace. The soldiers visibly relaxed but they did not let their guards down.
I joined my will to hers.
The tall soldier was the one leading the others. Fiona would focus on the rest of them, but I had to persuade this man to let us go.
I reached for his mind. He was calming down with Fiona’s empath magic, but he wasn’t a stupid man. Suspicion rose in him. I shouldn’t trust these strangers, he thought, trying to push away the trust that seemingly came out of nowhere. There is a war going on. Monsters are everywhere. Spies. Enemies. Danger.
Pushing his worries down was not easy. I had to give him something to hold on to. Monsters were everywhere. That was true. But that also meant many would be looking for their lost ones. It was no use, but we were young. It made sense that we would try to find a lost brother, did it not?
“The road is dangerous,” the man said as his mind turned to where I wanted him to be. Fiona and I kept pushing him onto that path. Her focus on his feelings allowed me to entrench the trusting thoughts deep within his mind. He believed our lie, but we had to keep pushing until he could not poke holes in it. “You should go back to your village and wait for us to..."
He couldn’t finish the lie.
I felt Fiona giving him guilt about it just as I focused his mind on the truth.
He would be lying if he said that they, as soldiers of the Unseelie realm, would find the lost fae taken away by monsters.
Even though it wasn’t common knowledge, the queen turned the kidnapped fae into monsters. That meant, no fae ever returned from being dragged into the forest by the vicious beasts of the Queen of Light.
He knew.
“It’s no use,” the man said, despair taking over his expression and making him unable to pretend for our sake. I’d gone too far. The thoughts that I had implanted in him were seeping to the surface. I decided to go a different route, shaping his thoughts to ensure they benefited us: Perhaps it’s good that they have hope. I should not kill it. They will need hope if they are to survive the war. “But you can try.”
Kieran nodded. He did not seem surprised by the sudden change in the soldier’s attitude. He was used to it by now. Fiona and I have been doing this ever since the beginning of our journey. It was the only way to travel without revealing our identities.
After leaving the Winter Castle to journey into the Seelie realm to save the dark-eyed girl and destroy the queen’s weapon, we had quickly discovered that we were being hunted.
The fae had been told to look for us. Of course, most of them did not know who they were looking for, since if they did, no one would dare to capture the prince and princess of the Unseelie. But they had our descriptions.
The enemies of the king wanted us back in Winter Castle. Now that we’d escaped, they were looking for us.
I knew how they justified looking for us despite the king’s orders. They thought I was a spy for the Queen of Light. Some even believed I orchestrated the ball attack and tried to break out the monster in the dungeon. And now that Fiona, Kieran, Brigid, and Dearen were with me, they could argue that I was keeping them hostage. No one would blame them for saving the prince and the princess from the Light Queen’s spy.
So we had to hide. And to do that, Fiona and I had to work together to convince anyone we came across that they should let us go and forget about meeting us.
“Thank you,” Kieran said to the soldier as I kept my tendrils on his mind. “We know it will not be easy. But we have to try.”
“I get it,” the tall soldier replied. “You may go. Be careful.”
