“How did you know I was here?” I asked our assailant.
“You think we wouldn’t notice a dragon of your size circling overhead for more than half an hour?” he said dryly.
“It wasn’t half an hour!”
“You’re right—it was over.”
I huffed. “Will you offer us shelter or not?”
“You have not come here pure.” His words seemed final, and my reserves began to waver.
How would I keep her safe if I could hardly stand? I wasn’t sure I could get back up in the air, let alone fly for any period of time. “How am I not pure? I have never betrayed you.”
“You betray unwittingly, but you still betray.”
“How the fuck?” I was too delirious for this.
“You have a magical trace attached to you. Our wards detected it. You put us at risk even being here.”
“What?” I searched my body, pressing my fingers into every hole and scrape they’d punched in to my skin.
“You won’t be able to feel it.” He came around me, lifting a hand and moving it in a circle near my chest. “But I know what to look for.”
I closed my eyes, taking a more magical approach to looking for the damn thing, but my energy flagged. I barely kept my feet. “We had nowhere else to turn. I don’t think we’d make it further.” I opened my eyes to meet his. “Please take mercy on us. I pledge to owe you.”
“How do we know you aren’t leading them to us?”
“We don’t even know who they are or why they want us.”
He looked us over. “There must be things you aren’t saying.”
“I’m betrothed to the heir,” Calytrix blurted out.
“No!” I tried to stop her, but it was already out. Surely, she knew that was what would put her at most risk with rebels.
More rebels appeared from thin air. They surrounded us but didn’t get too close.
“Faolan is escorting me to the First Kingdom so I can be handed over. I can help you. I can spy for you,” she stated, playing her hand. It was admirable in the face of such hostility, but was it foolhardy?
“How do we know this is true?” he asked.
She pulled her sleeve back, exposing the markings sealed at birth. “I’m sure even you know the seal of the King. This should be proof I’m seen as property.”
“How do we know this is not some elaborate ruse by the King to discover us?” he asked.
“Because I have just as much reason to hate him as you do.” Calytrix set her jaw, stepping forward almost like a challenge. “My people have been forced to submit to the false King since the unification of the Twelve Kingdoms. We did not choose to bend the knee. We were forced. I am forced marry his heir to satisfy the treaty. I will have to allow him into my body and to give him my magic by bearing his young. To defile my own sovereignty to uphold a treaty signed by my ancestors in distress. Forced to give over our future, female by female, until our superiority is so diluted in their blood, we hold no more power over them.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “I hold the feminine rage of hundreds of generations pulsing through my veins. No one could be more committed to destroying their line than I.”
“Then why do you even go? You have a choice. Faolan’s not keeping you, is he?” He looked between the two of us.
“Because they have my sister, and I have no doubt the heir would kill her to make me suffer. If I have to sacrifice myself, I might as well make it count.”
The fae fell silent. They must have been conversing, but how, I did not know.
“We will help you,” Ryuu said at length. “But we will need to remove the tracer before you come any closer.”
“Of course.”
“With the damage to your body…you may not survive it,” he said in a cold tone.
