Page 1 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
CHAPTERONE
All my lifethe Wildness had called to me, and now it had finally gotten what it wanted.
The Wildness held me in its grasp, and I had a feeling it had no intention of ever letting me go.
In one instant, the moment the fae Shiel, the Lord of the Western Court, stumbled upon me in my home village, my life was forever changed. It was more than the sweeping return of the glamour that rocked back through the human realm in that moment, it was the fact that he’d recognized me as something I’d never dared dream was possible.
He’d recognized me as fae.
And he wasn’t the only one.
While he and his men were busy determining how they might save me from the humans I’d been entrusted to, humans who—while masquerading as my own flesh and blood—had abused and tormented me, another fae found me too.
Another lord.
One who now strode before us, his massive black wings gleaming in the dark behind him as he guided us all towards a new uncertain fate.
Icarus, the Lord of the Wildness, had gotten his claws in me before I knew how dangerous that could be. He’d called us bound together, our destinies now irrevocably entwined. I felt it now, not like the ebbing river that had drawn us closer together, but like the ever-spinning silk of a spider’s web—fragile at first, but growing stronger with each passing second.
I couldn’t imagine the others felt this, too.
Otherwise Shiel, my captor as much as my rescuer, wouldn’t be leading us so steadfastly towards the doom now surely awaiting us. I had to ignore my own instincts screaming at me to run or hide, because where would I run? Where would I hide?
I was in Icarus’ domain now, a domain even he claimed he no longer had full control over. It was a place that wanted me dead as much as the fae lords and human rebels outside it.
I hated it, but the only safe place was to stay closest to the fae that needed me—for whatever purpose that may be.
With Icarus’ messenger crows departed, a heavy silence blanketed the forest as he led us further into his Wildness. The trees, their trunks and limbs made of a bark contorted to form many anguished faces looking out at us, twisted as if to let them watch us pass. The crackle of their warping wood sent a shiver down my spine, my stomach clenching at the reminder of those countless eyeless faces looking on.
The air was thick, heavy with more than just the quiet broken only by our horses panting beneath it, their eyes rolling in their sockets as they made soft, frightened noises at the trees observing our pilgrimage. Slowly, the trees began to thicken, growing closer and closer together until it was impossible to see the space between them. We stopped before one larger than all the rest, so large it had to have been more than one tree grown together, but it was impossible to tell where one tree ended and the next began.
Before I had the chance to figure it out, the tree sensed Icarus’ approach.
We all felt it the moment it did.
Something rustled first through the trees forming the tight canopy overhead, but then I felt it underground. I heard it, too.
It was almost like the rushing of blood, an energy flowing from the Wildness towards the tree that began writhing before us. The twisted, curling trunk shifted and groaned until it began to split down the middle, not revealing the tender inners of a tree, but rather unfolding more and more trunk until a doorway formed—not to the forest beyond, but to a narrow, dark stairway formed by roots leading down into the ground.
It was just wide enough for us to enter one at a time.
A hint of light glowed at the very far end of the tree’s tunnel, just enough to convince Shiel and the others, it seemed, that Icarus wasn’t about to lead us into the very pits of hell—or wherever fae believed a dark lord like he might reside.
I alone wasn’t entirely convinced.
And still, I had no choice but to follow.
Ahead, I might find death. Behind me, alone in the Wildness, it was imminent.
Shiel stepped towards the door as if to plunge straight inside in a show of confidence, only for Icarus to reach out a hand to stop him. Neither of them spoke right away. They just stood like that with Icarus’ clawed hand barring the Lord of the Western Court from his court. Their eyes met and a long moment passed as something unspoken passed between them.
Another shiver raced down my spine as I remembered something Icarus had told me those first times we’d met.
He’d claimed to be able to read my mind—or, if not my mind, then at least to know my thoughts when I was here in his forest. I’d never considered that this might be a trait of all the lords. Had Shiel been able to read my thoughts, too? Had he used that ability against me too? Used it to manipulate me into trusting him, however briefly?
The closest we’d ever been to his own court was that day we met in the village. Had he manipulated my thoughts then?
Bile rose in the back of my throat as the silence stretched out between Icarus and Shiel.
