Footsteps sounded outside the cell, and I sat up, clutching my rib cage. Fallon had healed me, which had been amazing, but then I’d been put in another fight.
I peered down the hallway to see a young, lanky fae with light-brown skin and tattoos covering 75 percent of his visible body. He was being dragged down the hall by Maze.
“Eat shit and die!” the teenage fae spat in Maze’s face, and my head reeled back in surprise.
Maze froze, turning his face in the dude’s direction, and came up with an upper cut so hard, the dude was lights out on impact. His body went limp in Maze’s arms, and the fae guard had to now hook him under the armpits and drag him to his cell, which was right next to mine. There was a small window between our cells, and I could see that he was still breathing when Maze laid him in his bed haphazardly.
“Brat!” Maze returned the spit, hocking a big loogie onto the dude’s face.
I met the guard’s gaze but said nothing, praying he wouldn’t take me out for another fight today. I was still nursing my wounds from the last one. When he passed my cell without a word, I sighed in relief and went back to the window to watch the other fae. My gaze ran along his tatted neck and arms. A raven, a snake eating a rat, roses, the crest from House of Ash and Shadow. He was covered in artwork, really well done too.
I watched him for an embarrassing amount of time, but I was bored out of my mind in here and he was the best entertainment that I’d seen since I got here. I also hoped he was okay since he’d been passed out a while. Finally he roused, and I backed up, not looking so eagerly through the window. I hadn’t had a normal interaction with another fae in a long time. I missed my brother and Hayes and having a friend.
“Hey, man, you okay?” I called to him.
He groaned, looked over at me, and sat up, taking full stock of the cell before zeroing in on my face. Reaching up, he rubbed his jaw.
“I’ll live. You been here long? You look like shit.” He got up and moved closer, eyes running over my wounds.
I chuckled. He reminded me of Hayes. No nonsense.
“I lost count. A couple weeks. Maybe forty fights.”
“Geez. They make us work hard for rebirth, don’t they?” He shook his head. “As if we want a chance to be a bloodsucker, anyway. Sick.”
My interest was piqued at that comment. “I know. It’s gross. But it seems like we’re stuck in some type of legal system.”
He nodded. “The Accords.”
I sat up straighter. “You know about them?”
He snorted. “I’m House of Ash, bro. I read the Accords when I was like seven years old. Didn’t you?”
So he’d recently died. How was that possible unless there were more House of Ash living out in the realm than we previously had thought? I swallowed hard. This fae seemed nice enough, but would his friendliness wear off if he knew who I really was? I needed to hide it, get more information out of him—that would be the smart move. But the worst thing would be to not tell him the truth when I had the chance and have him hear from one of the guards and lose trust in me.
“No… I’m not House of Ash, actually. It’s a long story.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he came over to lean against the window causally. At this close distance, I judged he was about twenty years old, black hair and hazel eyes. He had a sharp chin and beaky nose. The tattoos and small scattering of scars across his chin and eyebrow let me know he was a badass and not to be double-crossed.
“Long story, huh. I seem to have a lot of time on my hands,” he said, looking at me expectantly.
I chuckled, took in a deep breath, and told him my story. I was careful to leave out anything that I wouldn’t want Marissa to know in case this guy was a plant of some sort, but I started with meeting Fallon, and by the time I got to the part where Fallon switched powers with me and dragged my body down here on accident, the dude was wide-eyed.
“That’s incredible. This chick sounds powerful! I mean, obviously, she’s Marissa’s daughter,” he said.
I nodded. “I’m Ariyon, by the way. So, what’s your story?”
He bowed lightly to me. “I’m Pax Weathers, humble fae from the Outer Stretch.”
My eyebrows rose. The Outer Stretch was a deserted wasteland full of cliffs and oppressive heat. The cave dwellers there had struggled to find enough water or food. “I thought the people in the Outer Stretch died off a long time ago.”
He grinned. “That’s what we want you to think so you won’t come looking for us and tax us into eternity.”
That caused me to chuckle. I liked this guy. “What did you do there?”
Pax shrugged. “I acquired hard-to-find things, black-market-type stuff.”
Illegal things, it sounded like. “And you were living there recently? I mean you…just died?” I didn’t think there were any House of Ash and Shadow fae left living.
