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“Tell me howfuckingan elf just sort of happens!” I notice as the parents move to cover the ears of some of the children. “What, did he fall into and out of you forhoursat a time? Because it sure looked to me like you were enjoying it!”
I look down at the ground, noting the increase in vines creeping through the pavement.
“This is humiliating,” I tell her, not meeting her gaze this time. “How could you humiliate me like this?”
Declan coughs, my chains still in his hands.
“Should we carry her away, or –”
“No,” Riya interjects. “I want to hear it from her own mouth. Tell me how you fucked a dark elf. Tell me how much you loved it!”
I look at her in disbelief. As I look up, I notice that the crowd isn’t as civil as I once thought. Many of them are holding bows and swords and torches casually at their side.
Declan shakes his head.
“Normally, we save this stuff for the trial,” Declan says before trailing off. “Why don’t we give her a chance to speak her peace?”
I can see that Riya, in her angry attempt at finding closure, hasn’t just stirred up a captive party. She’s roused a mob, bringing everybody in the city together against me.
And I think I hate her for it.
“You know what they do to people like us,” Riya rants. “You know how badly we’re treated. How many of your friends have died under their thumbs, because they couldn’t be bothered to give a crap?”
There’s nothing she can say to me that I haven’t already told myself in frustration. I can feel myself holding strong against her. I try to shift my face, maintaining a calm stoicism.
“Oh, nothing to say about that,” she asks. “Well, did you ever consider that in your careless,stupid, unnatural trysts, you might actually be endangering the people you care about?”
I look to the crowd, to the mob, who don’t seem terribly concerned for my well-being now. I wonder if I ever really knew anybody here. They’re showing me very different faces now.
If they really wanted to talk, then they could havetalkedto me. But the first thing they do is shackle me up and lead me away to jail.
“It really hurt me to leave those notes.”
I feel the wind exit my throat, ice dropping into my stomach.
“You what?”
“I didn’t have any choice,” she says with righteous anger. “At first, I just wanted to scare you, but when you didn’t heed them, you left me no other option. Then I just wanted answers.”
I shake my head, thinking back to how scared I was upon finding those notes.
“How many of the notes were yours?” I ask, unable to contain the feeling of betrayal in my voice.
“I can’t say,” she says, looking up. “There were a few threatening notes left in the clearing for you, and a few to draw you there. But it was all just so I could see him… so I could know for certain.”
“Well,” I chuckle caustically, “now you know. Bet you feel a lot better.”
She smiles sympathetically. In many cases, her smile would make me feel better, but right now, I just wish she would slap me again.
“I never meant for it to come to this,” she says, her tone having shifted drastically. “I’m so sorry.”
Looking around her at the mob, whose angry expressions still have not relaxed or softened, who would sit through anything if it meant the chance to get their misguided revenge, I scoff.
“You brought a mob to me, Ri,” I tell her, frowning. “Then you had them lock me up. I don’t think there’s any apologizing for this.”
The crowd’s attention begins to turn, and I notice that more of their eyes are leaving me. I furrow my brow in confusion, looking out toward the subject of their vision.
I hear the steps of equu rapidly approaching, their diamond-shaped hooves pelting the pavement leading into Lowtown.
