Every face that was turned to me before now looks up at the one on the throne.
The general.
Her ungloved hand is a slender feather as she lifts it from the arm of the chair—and flicks it in the most disinterested, elegant summons I’ve ever seen.
Then she distorts.
Her edges wobble, her body twists, and for a moment, frozen on the ground, I think she’s about to transform into something, another kind of beast, another version of the monster she already is.
But I blink, and nothing happens.
She blurs in and out of focus—and I realise it’s me.
The glove on my hand rustles as I slide it over my chest, away from my heartbeat to the pulsing sensation in my bleeding shoulder.
Lashes are drooping too low, too much, and I squint my eyes over and over, as if to help fight keep them open, keep my vision clear.
But I’m losing blood…
A lot of it.
I hold onto the burn of my shoulder as firm as I can. The threads of my glove are quick to soak through to my palm.
Bee has a bargain.
That’s what she told me.
So maybe I won’t be killed for passing out, or maybe the cold warrior who kneels at the throne, and speaks his foreign language, maybe he’ll come back and stop the bleeding.
My mouth almost curves, lazy, at the thought. A ridiculous, stupid, delirious thought.
I don’t trust them, any of them.
Bargain or no bargain, I’m not safe here.
But that truth isn’t stopping my eyelids from lowering over my already distorted sight.
I cling to consciousness as firm as I can.
The rope I hold onto is the still-pulsing adrenaline lashing through me, those threads of fear that whip and burn me from the inside out.
And that is my tether as the general’s voice, another language, barbed but somewhat softer from her, somewhat elegant, floats around the camp—and another fae approaches.
I frown on him, the tall and slender one, that looks like he’s been stretched. Reins loose in his hand, he guides the fucked-up version of a horse with him.
The firelight grazes over the length of the steed. Hairless, grey skinned, sickly—but now, the light cuts into the jagged, sharp edges of its ribs, and brightens the crimson of its beady eyes.
My face twists, fear and disgust.
I’ve seen them before, on the road when I first saw the fae, and again from safe distances through binoculars, just like I’ve seen the dark fae.
There is no safe distance now.
I’m in their den.
I’m captured prey.
And I can only watch the sway of the creature’s tail moving steady, side to side, but it’s sharp and metal-like, and I think it might be some sort of venomous weapon.
