He could see it.Understand it, even, which was worse.
“Yes,” Zyr confirmed.Short and succinct.“And all of it premised on an error.Humans aren’t seelie.That’s a fae convenience at best.To Faerie, there are three anchors.Four, if you count the Gates.Unseelie and humans sustain it.Seelie maintain it.And the Gates define the borders.”
“Humans are an anchor for Faerie,” Antonio murmured, all skepticism.
“Your bond is a sluagh,” Zyr said flatly, but not like the word was a curse.“The very heart of that Wild Hunt.A ritual long ended, leaving Faerie starving.Our realm is maintained by sacrifice.”
“Sex.Blood.Spilled life, either way.”See?Declan could make sense, of a sort.
“Fae, even unseelie, are stagnant.We’re of Faerie.And while it can feed on itself to some limited degree, it’s not enough.One can only survive for so long by consuming their own flesh.”
Antonio squeezed Declan’s hand, who gentled his own cling in turn.Who took a breath and steadied it on the grounding heat of Antonio’s affection and that spark of respect.Of liking.
“Could you see a properly-raised seelie sacrificing sex on an altar?Or blood, to honor something other than their own pride or House?”
He thought of Nimai.That smug smile.The way Everil faded beside him, seeming to become less as Nimai grew to be more.
Declan offered Antonio a slim, small smile, easing back against him, leaning close, hand turned palm up.Nearly holding, fingers not quite threaded together.But only just.
“There is some sense to be made,” Declan continued, finding center in Antonio's nearness and support.“Humans as an anchor.If humans and fae weren’t tied to one another somehow, why would there be Hollow or other sensitive humans?Voids, why would they have the ability to bond to us?”
“Yeah.It makes sense,” Antonio admitted, returning Declan’s smile with one of his own.“Doesn’t mean I like being Faerie food.”
“Youaren’t.You’re a Hollow.Indigestible.”The beithir was smiling.It was an uncomfortable expression to see.
“Sounds about right.”
“I wouldn’t sacrifice you even if you were digestible,” Declan reassured him, falling back on his own ridiculousness in hopes of another smile.“Groups are only fun if everyone is on board.”
That did it.Antonio grinned again, a flash of teeth to match Declan’s.Both of them unsettled.Finding comfort in humor.Each other.And being eaten by Faerie sounded…
“Your face just did something, Murderpunk.Share with the class?”
Stars, thefondnessthere.
“Why does Faerie need sacrifice?”Declan looked at Zyr, nudging Antonio once more with his knee.Fingers, warm to cool, threaded, then, and no nails to dig in.“Things feed to live.Faerie isn’t collapsing around us.It’s not as if a sacrifice means a new baby fae takes form from the voids.”
“We didn’t use to fight for the barest scrap of space.”Zyr’s armrest became little but shreds of leather and stuffing as Declan spoke, the wood frame creaking.He didn’t appear to mind, gaze distant.“Without the recognition, life spilled in acknowledgment, Faerie dwindles.”
That was…
“But that’s…” He needed to finish his bloody thoughts.But everyone led to another, even more uncomfortable revelation.
“Faerie isshrinking?”Antonio asked, with a gratifying level of horror.
“I believe so.Before the convergence, it was as big as it needed to be.Now–”
“Now,” Declan interjected, “fae will pay in blood for the chance at an allotment.”
His blood.
“Precisely.”
“I’m not entirely sure how to process the weight behind that right now,” Declan admitted, words slow and careful.He breathed.Antonio squeezed his hand.“If what you’re saying is true, we’re all in quite a bit of trouble, should the Council succeed in what they’ve threatened in their anti-human pushes.”
How could he, one unseelie, and Antonio, his mortal Hollow bond, hope to change anything?Declan needed to.Antonio had bound his soul to Declan’s on that need.Been dragged into danger by fae after fae, and now faced something worse than Calloway for it.
Dead infants.Families wiped near clean.Histories long ago erased.
