After what feels like an endless silence, the fire fae rise. Some stream off into the night, but a few step closer to me, as if awaiting instruction. The kitsune who first bowed taps anxiously from paw to paw. “Can I eat him?” he finally says.
I’m caught off guard. “Eat him?”
“The dead king.”
The other kitsune nod, pleading to join the feast. A fire sprite flies overhead. “Can I burn him?” she asks. “That is, if Your Most Gracious Majesty hasn’t consumed all of him with your flame.”
A firebird swoops down from the trees. “May I harvest any remaining scales? They will insulate my nests and keep my young warm.”
My stomach churns at the eagerness in the eyes around me. My human side shouts from the back of my mind,No, absolutely not. This is not how we treat our dead.But a new part of me admits the chilling realization that I know very little about the unseelie.
Both sides confess I’m in way over my head.
Finally, I turn to Aspen. Without reading his expression, I give him a questioning glance. In return, he offers a subtle nod.
“Do what you will,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t quaver. “Harvest him, burn him, and consume him as you wish, but do so without argument amongst each other. You may have your requests in the order I received them, and not one fight will break out amongst you. When you are finished, I want no sign of him remaining.”
Another round of bows follow, and after thanking me, the fire fae disappear into the night. A few remain close; some retreat to the boughs overhead, others burrow in holes nearby, and a few sprites and wisps float about the trees.
Aspen and I are left mostly alone in silence.
After a while, he asks, “Do you know how to turn back?”
I shake my head. “I’m afraid to.”
“Why?”
The lump rises in my throat again. I can’t give voice to my feelings, my fears. In truth, I’m afraid that once my fox side falls away, I’ll crumble. I’m afraid I’ll taste blood in my mouth, feel it on my flesh and never be able to face myself again. And I’m afraid how Aspen will look at me. He seems to accept the vicious firefox. Can he accept the violent woman?
“You can’t stay in this form too long,” he says. “At best, you’ll be putting off the inevitable. At worst, you’ll forget who you really are.”
“What’s the inevitable?”
“You must face what you’ve done and accept yourself. You must feel. For one with human blood, I can only imagine it’s going to be far more painful than anything I’ve experienced. But it’s the only way.”
I’m pulled between two terrors: the fear of emotions that will surely cripple me, and the fear that I could lose myself completely. “How do I do it?”
“Someday it will be effortless to shift between forms,” he explains. “For now, strong emotion is the easiest. What helps me find my seelie side when I’m trapped in a rage is tender feelings. Anything sad or painful or joyful. Do you remember when you stopped me in my stag form when I was on my way to your village? You helped me remember. You made me feel.”
I nod, recalling how he’d calmed and returned to his seelie form. “But you were stuck in a rage. I’m stuck in...I don’t know what this is.”
“You’re in between,” he says. “You’re trying not to feel one way or another, but you must give in at least a little. You must let yourself feel something.”
The resistance is like a solid wall. Fiery anger stands on one side while debilitating sorrow stands on the other. I’m perched on the top of the wall, balance tenuous as I teeter on a blade’s edge.
Aspen’s hand rests on my shoulder. “You can fall, Evie,” he whispers. “I’ll catch you.”
With that, I close my eyes, a sob lurching over the lump in my throat, tears streaming from beneath my eyelids. I shudder, again and again. Then a ripple of pain tears through me from my head to my toes. My body feels like it’s grown unwieldy, heavy, lumbering, enormous hands where dainty paws just were, clawing into the dirt. My eyes catch those looking back at me in the stream. Wide and wild, auburn hair like a tangled nest around my head, blood splattering my cheeks. I slap the water with my hand, disrupting the reflection, then take my damp fingers and smear them across my face, furiously rubbing.
Hands grab my shoulders, warm and strong. I freeze, finding Aspen’s eyes. I’m locked in his gaze, unable to move or look away. It’s the moment of truth. The woman in the reflection was more of a crazed animal than my firefox form was. Is that what he sees too?
He studies my face, and I study his. I’ve never been more aware of our contrast. His golden skin is pure and flawless, his eyes swimming with color. The angles of his jaw and cheekbones look as if they were carved by a master craftsman. And his hair; even in disarray, his blue-black tresses fall in elegant waves around his antlers. But me? I’m...I’m...
“You’re so beautiful, Evie.” A hand leaves my shoulder and lights on my cheek, thumb brushing away the dampness of tears and water from the stream. “In every form, you’re beautiful. In every form, I’m here for you. In every form, I love you.”
His face swims before me as more tears obscure my vision. My shoulders slump, and Aspen pulls me close. I nestle into his chest, clinging to his shirt as his warm arms wrap around my back. The dam breaks from within me, unleashing the sorrow I held back after my mother’s death, releasing my agony over the two lives I’ve taken. I let it all out, let myself break and crumble, break and crumble.
Throughout it all, Aspen maintains his silent vigil, holding me like a vessel for the pieces of my shattered soul.
