“Yes, Princess,” he chuckled.
“Hey,” I wagged my finger in his face. “I'm new to this, cut me some slack.”
“I know this too,” he nodded. “My father told me you were still learning our ways but that your ignorance was a blessing because it made you completely unprejudiced. He spoke very highly of you and that's rare for my father.”
“Oh really?” I blinked as Tiernan muttered something along the lines of;I bet he did.
“He believes that you will be good for Fairy,” Rayetayah went on. “But why are you here, standing against me, when you should be beside me?”
“I'm also an extinguisher,” I said and a sudden fluttering of wings gave away the location of several mockers circling above us. “I am half fairy and half human. Did your father not tell you that part?”
“He told me of your blood but not that you were a human murderer of fey,” he ground out.
“You, of all people, should know better than to call me a murderer,” I chided him. “I expect that you've lived here a long time and you should know that we are peace keepers, not murderers. We only kill when we have warrants to do so. Warrants given when fairies break the truce.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded.
“No perhaps about it,” I growled. “Your kind have been getting away with murder for a long time, Rayetayah,” I accused. “But now the humans have found a way to prove your guilt. They caught a raven mocker trying to kill an old man on tape.”
“Tape?” He frowned.
“Camera,” I explained. “You know what I'm talking about. You live here, so I'm sure you know the technology that's available. Some human investigators used infrared cameras to catch a raven mocker's heat signal on film. We have proof that you've been doing just what the myths accuse you of.”
“You have proof that someone committed this deed,” he narrowed his eyes on me. “You don't have proof that it was an actual mocker.”
I frowned and glanced back at Tiernan in consternation. I hadn't expected him to take this route. He seemed like the type to go for a blatant approach. Something more like;yeah, we did it. So what?But this round about,maybe we did, maybe we didn'tthing seemed silly. A waste of time at the very least. Unless...
“You seriously want me to believe that someone else could have done this?” I lifted a brow at him.
His jaw clenched and with a swift movement, he reached out and swept me against him. In seconds, we were in the air, flying away from the Council House with dizzying speed. I heard shouting and knew that Tiernan would try to follow us. I also knew how fast Tiernan could fly with his air manipulation magic and it wasn't nearly fast enough to catch up with this guy.
“Take me back!” I shouted over the rush of wind.
“Not yet,” Rayetayah stared straight ahead and held me tight.
I could have probably made him drop me but I wasn't proficient enough with my air magic yet to be able to stop my fall and we were high enough that the fall might actually kill me. So instead of fighting him, I held on, pressing myself against his bare chest. His skin was warm, almost hot, and the heat felt good up in the cool air. I might have even enjoyed the ride under different circumstances. As it was, I was supremely irritated by the time we landed in an open field several miles away from the Council House. I jerked away from Rayetayah as soon as my feet touched ground.
“Not cool,” I snapped at him as other raven mockers landed around us. I stared around me at stoic-faced men with wingspans to match Rayetayah's. This had the potential to go very bad for me.
“You weren't listening,” he accused me. “And I had concerns for my people. I saw the amount of fairy knights you had with you.”
“I was listening,” I sighed. “Iamlistening. I just don't understand what you're saying.”
“We did not try to kill anyone,” he ground out. “Years ago, we discovered that we had the capability to take the last drops of life from the dying or the old but it entailed consuming the heart of our victim. Still, the energy was delicious and we gave into the lure of it for many years. But then my mother's people came to us and begged us to stop. The ravens, the beavers, the coyotes, the badgers, even the waukheon and nanabozho; the thunderbirds and trickster rabbits, came. We took very little from the humans, just the last, painful moments of their life, but still the animal spirits believed it was cruelty against the people who had taken us into their tribe. So we stopped.”
“You stopped?” I frowned.
“We stopped. We never again took life from the humans,” Rayetayah confirmed. “But something else did. Don't ask me what or who because I don't know. All I know is that something watched us, learned from us, and took over where we left off.
I considered his words as the other mockers drew in close. The faces on those fairies were somber, their eyes begging me to believe in them. As their princess, I found that I couldn't deny them. If anyone should believe in them, it should be me. So I did.
“I believe you,” I whispered and they inhaled sharply, as one.
“You do?” Rayetayah asked dubiously.
“Why would you lie to me?” I asked him. “You're my people and I will look after you as long as you obey the truce. If you say you're innocent in this, I'll believe and back you until it is proved otherwise. However,” I held up a hand. “If itisproved to me that one of you is responsible for this, I will do my duty as an extinguisher and hunt you down. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Rayetayah inclined his head in acceptance. When he lifted his face, he was smiling. “Thank you. Perhaps my father was right about you.”
