Page 30 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
They were scared of me already.
Steamed buns and weird metal tools were hardly a fair replacement for the lord that had abandoned me, but it would have to do. I’d chosen this, I reminded myself. I could have insisted we leave the court already, gone on with Shiel, and Zev, and Finch before they made the deal to stay with Icarus…but for what? Another court where they’d sense the same mysterious glamour in me and try to use me for themselves without even knowing who I was?
The four of us soon found ourselves condemned to the seemingly endless spiral of stairs—this time, leading ever-downward. From the way their pale faces flushed and their own breaths caught when they’d showed up at my door, they weren’t used to doing so much travel on foot through their court, either.
To their credit, however, none of them complained that they’d been forced into this on my accord—not even when the long trek down turned into a long winding path through tunnels carved beneath the roots of the trees. They didn’t even complain when the silence was broken by the distant sound of footsteps following us.
I didn’t need to look back to know who I’d find.
Still, I allowed myself one glance—just one—and despite myself, had to fight a smile at the sight of the two fae trying, and failing, to sneak behind us out of sight. They might have been more successful if either Zev had been willing to concentrate on keeping his footsteps light instead of watching the shadows silently for any sign of attack, or better yet, if Finch could get himself to stop whispering loudly to Zev approximately every fifteen seconds.
I couldn’t make out everything that he said, but more than once my cheeks reddened when I was quite certain the words he kept whispering had something to do with the shape of my ass in the latest dress that had been added to my wardrobe.
It was a welcome change from the heaviness that had settled over me in the last few days, a heaviness that, from the dour looks on the females that walked beside me, had infected them, too. I wondered if it was because of the fae Icarus had executed on my behalf, or if it had more to do with whatever had pulled Icarus away from his own court so suddenly.
I could have asked, but I had a feeling that would bring more trouble than it was worth. The last thing I wanted was for news to get back to the lord of this court that I was asking questions, and I had no doubt it would get back to him.WhateverI did here would get back to him. If he didn’t see it himself through his ravens, the spies he’d sent in the costumes of companions would be sure to report it to him the moment I turned my back.
Perhaps it was this that had me glancing back at the two fae following in our footsteps more than once. They were spies too, in their own way, but at least the sight of their faces didn’t make my stomach turn up in knots.
The three females led me towards a dark corner of the court, where the market stalls and buildings thinned and the forests and rocks drew close to the outer walls formed by those tight knit trees. Before I had the chance to ask exactly where they were taking me, I heard it.
It started as the gentle trickle of water, but then it grew and grew until—just as we turned a bend and reached the final stretches of Icarus’ inner court—it became a great roar. Water tumbled down from a gap in the trees above, the waterfall casting a soft, cold mist across our faces. I knew the minute the boys saw it too, because Finch let out an audible gasp that echoed loud enough to finally draw the attention of the three females who’d led me here.
Vanya, the only one of my new companions who’d spoken to me so far, ignored them. She set about unpacking the implements that we’d carried with us, her back turning to the fae of the Western court without a second glance.
The other two fae were far more interested.
I supposed the same fear that had been instilled in them about me hadn’t trickled down to the fae that had accompanied me.
As they scrutinized Zev and Finch a little closer, trying, I thought, to decide if they were a threat or not, I took the opportunity to do the same to these females.
From afar, the fae of the Wildness all appeared to look the same. But up close, beneath the elaborately wrapped dark locks and smudged kohl ringing their eyes, they were as different to each other as any other species. That wasn’t what surprised me, however.
It was the fact that, aside from Vanya now straightening up from her place along the dark river, the other two fae females were…for lack of a better way to put it…notparticularly beautiful.
I felt immediately guilty for even thinking it, but I couldn’t help myself.
I’d assumed from my first encounters with fae, with Icarus and the others, thatallfae were beautiful. It was an aspect of their race I took for granted, something I assumed was universal. I didn’t know if it was simply that I’d been lucky—orunlucky,depending on how I looked at it—to be rescued by such specimens of their race. Now that I really thought about it, though, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Beneath the elaborate inky clothes, the hair, the makeup, the posturing and preening, the members of Icarus’ court were…unique…more than attractive. There were some that possessed that beauty of the fae I’d come to take for granted. But there were others, the vast majority, that did…not. It was better to treat them like the demon servants I’d only just started getting accustomed to and to avoid looking at them too closely, not only for my own peace of mind, but to avoid making even more enemies than I already naturally had.
And would,I realized as even Nissa and Envi tore their eyes away from Finch and Zev to help their third companion ready me for the task Icarus had left in his stead,no matter what this time spent with the lord of this court revealed about me.
At least, in that, Shiel had told the truth.
The men of this world hated me for what I was.
The fae, they hated me not forwhoI was, but what Imay be.Those that didn’t hate me yet might hate me still, once they had the chance.
One thing both the human and fae realms shared, if they didn’t understand it, they feared it. And what they feared?
What they feared, they hated.
But what they didn’t fear, they took advantage of. So if they feared me, then at least that was preferrable to being used as a pawn. I might be new to this world of politics, but I’d spent enough of my life under another’s boot heel to know I’d spend the rest of my life fighting to make sure I never found myself there again.
The task Icarus had set for me today involved panning the river for precious stones—something made all the more difficult as I discovered the thick sludge that served as the river bed. He’d sent his fae down with four sets of small silver sieves, small curved bowls made of a mesh so fine that anything other than the slick, silky mud that formed the boggy bottom of the river would remain inside once washed beneath the roaring water.
Vanya demonstrated to me how I was supposed to somehowfeelthe stones I was panning for, how she and the other fae females could simply dip their own sieves into the water and pull out dark glittering stones by the handful.
