Glass is perched on the headstone I was on, but she elbowed me off.
I skuttled to the grass—and there, I’ve stayed.
The rope is coiled around her fist, like a dog’s leash, and I feel just like a pet, parked on the ground, facing the campfire.
The warrior has been gone a while.
Long enough that I drifted off, and when I woke up, all the bodies were gone, and the fires lit, and most of the camp relaxed.
I hate his absence.
I hate when he leaves me to be surrounded by fae who probably want to kill me just for the cheap thrill.
I hug my legs to my chest, watching them over the flames that lash at firewood.
Some warriors sit on the headstones, others have kicked them down to make more space around the campfires, like Glass and Shark did.
A few rest, on their sides or backs, eyes shut, breaths steady in their chests, weapons in their hands.
I watch as holsters are unclasped from thighs, sheaths from biceps, scabbards from spines; boots are kicked off; knives and daggers are wiped at with rags.
But some of the fae have unearthed those purple wine bottles to share with chatty companions—as though nothing happened, as though heads didn’t roll over grass and ribcages weren’t torn open.
The sickly burn chisels into my chest again.
I press my fingertips into my breastbone, hard, and look down the camp at the captives.
A frantic energy frazzles those who are left. Maybe it’s the fear, the trauma of watching that torture show, that has them trembling as they swiftly dart from one duty to another.
Pots of water are boiling, and cookpots simmer over low flames. Bowls are loaded with food I can’t make out through the distance.
I do recognise the soapy water bowls that are being dragged up through the camp, water and soap and rags for the fae to wash themselves.
Every single warrior is stained with blood. Some just smeared. And then the ones like the cold warrior are glossed in it.
But some of the captives are looking a little lost. The new faces. They look around, watch, cry, walk in circles, huddle up, wring their hands together.
A couple of the tattered captives guide them. It’s a silent film of ‘watch me do this’ and ‘then add this to the pot’ and ‘this goes in this basket’. I fill in the blanks, because it’s not like I can hear them from this far away.
They are all the way down there at the bottom of the path, near the gate.
If I had any doubt about them not taking the opportunity to run through the gate, that blood and flesh show stamped it out.
No way are they going to risk it.
No one in their right mind would risk facing down that sort of end.
At least in the streets of towns and cities, the fae are quicker about it. Malicious and callous, sure, and they are blatant about getting a kick out of it—but it isn’t anything like what I saw up there.
I search the faces of the captives, one by one, tattered and new and kept. The group is blended now, no more cliques to divide them into clusters.
Not-Erin is gone, obviously, a sudden and quick end that churns my insides. Because that could happen to me, too.
Any moment, just—bye.
The cold one changes his mind, it’s over for me.
He dies, I die.
