For one wild second, I consider running, fleeing into the forest surrounding the camp, and I even take a step toward the entrance. Then common sense returns. I have no idea where I am, and Cairn will find me in a matter of minutes. Iknowhe will. That’s even if I can walk out of the tent without the collar around my throat burning me.
Sighing, I turn back to the fae. He hasn’t moved, and I stand there staring at him.
She said his name was Caelum. Who was he before this happened? Did he have a family? Friends?
I lower myself to the floor.
“I …” I lick my lips. “I don’t know if you can hear me.”
He doesn’t respond.
“My … My name is Alleria. I’m the human everyone hates. The one Cairn brought here.” I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. “I was supposed to hunt him. That’s why I came to the Dell. He was going to be my birthday present. My kill. I was going to track him through the forest, and put an arrow through his heart.”
The words feel strange saying them out loud. Admitting what the plan was for that day.
“I walked past your cages. I saw what they did to you. The filth and the collars.” My voice catches, and I have to stop, swallow, and then start again. “I was horrified. It made me sick. But I didn’t do anything to stop it. I could have, you know. As a princess, I could have given them orders they would have had to follow, but I didn’t say anything. I just … ran away from what I saw.”
Caelum stares at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t mean anything. Cairn’s told me a hundred times that sorry is worthless, and he’s right. But I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to make it better. I think Cairn is right. There isn’t anything I can do that will make it better.”
I rest my head against my knees. “I spent yesterday afternoon being looked at the way you were, and it broke me. I don’t know how he stood it for so long.”
I keep talking. I tell him about the hunt, how it went so horribly wrong. I tell him about the collar Cairn put around my neck and the days I’ve spent in this camp. I tell him about Vel, and how I returned to the shelter so terrified I could barely stand.
And then I tell him about the kiss. Not in detail, I can’t make myself saythosewords out loud, but enough … Enough to admit that something happened, and that my body did things I didn’t want it to do. My face burns as I speak, and I’m grateful he can’t see it. Grateful he can’t respond.
I talk until my voice turns hoarse, until my throat aches,until I run out of words.
Caelum doesn’t respond. His eyes stay fixed on the ceiling. His chest rises and falls in the same rhythm it’s been keeping since I walked in. But I keep talking anyway. Because the woman said Cairn comes here every day, and if he can do it, then so can I.
I don’t know how long I sit there, in the quiet shelter with Caelum, but my body is aching from sitting on the hard ground, my back stiff and my legs half-numb, when Serath finally returns.
“Come. It’s time to go back.”
I push myself up, wincing as blood rushes back through my legs. Then I pause, turning to look at the silent fae one more time.
“I’ll come back. If they let me.”
The walk back is quiet. The camp has settled into evening. I can hear the faint murmur of voices, but don’t see anyone as I follow her back to Cairn’s tent.
“Eldráfn. What does that mean?”
She glances at me. “I’m not sure how it would translate. It’s a … title.”
“Title for what?”
She’s quiet for a few steps, and when she next speaks, the words come hesitantly, as though she’s choosing each one carefully.
“Your people used to tell stories. I don’t know if they still do.” She looks at me. “About the Wild Hunt.”
The Wild Hunt.
Iknowthose stories. There are songs and nursery rhymes. Bards still tell tales of risers who hunted through the darkness on steeds that weren’t horses, and rode down anyone caught outside after nightfall.
If you hear their hoofbeats, you’re already dead.
No one outruns them, they’ll come for your head.
