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Salas’ eyes drew back to the witch’s face when her speech suddenly stuttered. Her eyebrows knitted together in something akin to frustration or confusion. Salas’ neck prickled and blazed, but it didn’t hurt. It didn’t look as though the same could be said for the witch. Her grip on him adjusted and loosened, as though it pained her.
Suddenly, her right hand flickered alight ten-fold, as though she were holding a bit of the energy of the sun.
The crowd reacted: gasping, screeching, falling away.
The witch’s eyes flew open, landing on her own hovering palm before looking back in both dismay and shock, at Salas.
As though shaking off an insect crawling up her limb, she chanted harder and dropped the light down the well. Losing her calm composure completely with a snarl, she wrenched her grip away from Salas’ neck. Her hand appeared now red and blistered, like she had been severely burned by his skin and the energy withdrawn from him.
“You,” she hissed at him, her eyes ferocious as she clutched her damaged appendage to her chest. Beside them both, the well glowed from the fallen energy she had dropped. From the stunned faces of all in attendance, this illumination went far beyond whatever the Diagorians were accustomed to. This was not what they had been expecting. “You are not human,” she spat.
Salas swallowed, clutching at his neck, though he felt nothing, now. Despite the energy he knew she had taken, he felt fine.
The witch’s gaze remained on him, recognition seeming to dawn upon her as her eyes widened and focused. “You’re a jinx.”
Salas ran.
Chapter Six
Leaping directly over the well to place distance between himself and the guards proved to be a stunt just surprising enough to forestall the chase that was to come. But the momentary advantage was precious. Salas knew to use it wisely.
He dashed through the group of onlookers, who backed away from him in stunned recognition as the witch called out proclamations to his true nature. Whether her announcements were accurate or lies, it earned him the people’s fear, and Salas used it for what it was worth.
Barefoot and weak, he ran, using his head-start to dash through the open gates of the castle grounds and into the streets of the neighboring village.
A thin scatter of people were about: sizable children playing with dogs large enough to be wolves, women bundling firewood, men hauling their kills to be gutted.
Salas continued running, tripping over a man brushing salt over the ice in his haste. The stumble earned him several pairs of eyes to shift to him, until it felt the whole of the town was gaping at him, but he did not allow it to make him stop.
On, he ran, sprinting and slipping down narrow alleys. He heard the long-awaited shouting, now, as the guards worked to catch up with him.
He turned down the most narrow street yet, a single heavy pair of footsteps approaching his path. He ran out of luck when the particular alley he’d chosen turned out to be a dead end. A single door, its hinges and crevices thick with ice, his only hope.
He grabbed at the frozen handle, straining his entire body with the force as he pulled.
Of course, the door did not give. Not a single bit of ice cracked.
“No!” he gasped frantically, cupping the numbing doorknob with both hands and twisting with no results. He shrieked when arms wrapped around him, pulled him away, and slammed him into the masonry wall.
Eyes like dark thunder, his captor growled low in triumph.
It was King Jareth who loomed over him, his loathsome gaze uncompromising as it bore into Salas. There was fury there, as well as a question that Salas was not ready to answer.
The King used one hand to pin Salas’ hands above his head. The other was wrapped around his throat, adding so much pressure that Salas had to stand on the tips of his toes to relieve it just the slightest bit.
They had been in this position before, and they both remembered it. The difference was, with Salas’ hands immobile, King Jareth would not be making the same mistake twice.
“What are you?” The King hissed, his hand shaking at Salas’ neck, rather than adding more pressure. His breath came out thick and hot on Salas’ face, nostrils flaring. Wisps of dark, silken hair fluttered around his angered face. “I’ve heard from Victoria that you are fae. Is it true?”
Despite the King having asked the question, the answer seemed to already be there, dark disbelief etched into the lines of his brows. It was then that Salas knew that his answer was a death sentence.
King Jareth shook him, hitching Salas further up the wall until his feet no longer touched the ground, handling him like a ragdoll. “IS IT TRUE?!” he roared.
Salas had never met his mother, not truly, but as all creatures of fae lands, he was conceived on a whim. When will-o-the-wisps whispered to his mother how much fun children can be, she grew to the idea, coupled with a young, human goatherd, and bore Salas in the depths of the Faeland Forest. She didn’t care much for him at first, but when he was plump and pretty, she braided wreaths of wildflowers for his soft head, occasionally forgot to feed him, and sang songs to him despite his crying. Then she heard dryads discussing the lengthy process of child growth, fairy children especially, and decided that she had better things to do besides waiting for him to grow up.
She left him in a fairy circle, blooms of red-capped mushrooms surrounding him, in her final parental act. It would ward off predators and draw attention to a passing human who could perhaps raise him instead.
Yet even so long ago, the humans knew better than to wander into the fae lands without caution and provisions for such traps.
