Page 26 of Blood of the Fairest

Drawn from my horrified spiral, I glance at the ghost in a nearby puddle of water. His silver hair glints with many colors, and he has equally strange eyes.

The faerie called him an unmoored soul. Whether he is a ghost or something else, he is right. I must beg this woman for her forgiveness. I must apologize and grovel at her feet and⁠—

No. That would still be more than I deserve.

According to the ancient laws of Nordhjem, there is only one way to rectify the great wrongs I have committed toward her. The moment she wakes, I will see it done.

But first…

I look through the bars to where darkness conceals the Faerie of Wrath. The first time I awoke in cavernous prison, I sensed that I was in the presence of something powerful. The very air in here was laced with a potent fury unlike anything I have ever known.

Now, although the faerie's presence is still ominous, something has changed.

Perhaps he feels the same crushing shame that I do, and that is why he hides in the shadows. I have never laid eyes on him, but like any of the Thirteen Faeries, I am sure he can take many forms.

"You must heal her."

"Wrath cannot heal. It only destroys."

He speaks as if that is all there is to say.

"Do you feel no remorse?" I growl.

How can he not? The screams of this poor woman as I broke her fingers play in my ears once more, turning my stomach to sickness.

Malivant's voice is dry with something akin to bitterness. "Compared to you, you mean? Alas, we cannot all be glorious mortal heroes drowning in sorrow whilst cradling the damsel they put in distress the very first time their self-imposed morals failed them."

"You almost sound jealous," the ghost muses. "But is it of his morals, his mortality, or his cradling the damsel?"

"You are not nearly as untouchable in the mirror realm as one ought to be before daring to mouth off to a faerie," Wrath warns.

The silver-haired man moves to a nearer puddle to address me, his image rippling slightly.

"Listen to me, Huntsman. I know of a way you might heal Verena."

Verena.

Now that she has a name in my mind aside from simply not being Queen Reinhilde, I cannot stop staring at the face of the woman in my arms. Before I captured her, I noticed her scent—a delicate floral hint much like apple blossoms. It is so opposite to the stench of the queen that I should have taken more note.

After all, the scents of people's souls do not change.

"How?" I ask.

"Surely you aren't foolish enough to listen to a lost soul," the Thirteenth Faerie mutters from inside his cage. "They are no better than kobolds when it comes to stirring up mischief."

Ordinarily, I would ignore this apparition. There are many strange things in this world that can lead those who are careless to a grim fate.

But he appeared only to stop Malivant from killing Verena. He must be her guardian spirit.

The opalescent-eyed spirit ignores the faerie completely. "You have a witch stone, yes? I can think of no other way you could have brought Verena all the way here so quickly from Isenmere."

Witch stones are extremely rare and valuable. They allow their owners to travel instantly between the faeries' shrines scattered across the six kingdoms of Eidengrau. The small stone tucked away in one of my pockets was my full payment for slaying a horde of drachen that plagued a village years ago.

I nod.

"Use it to travel to the easternmost shrine of Invidia, in Hamelnmark," the spirit instructs. "There is someone there called the White Mask."

I know the name, but I frown. "The doctor who can heal any malady? He is but folklore. If he ever existed, he is long dead now."