CHAPTER 18

Gyah was a shapeshifter. Erix had whispered the name of her kind, sending a shiver over my skin as his lips practically brushed my ear. Eldrae . A fey with the ability to rip, snap and then repair her body into something new. A powerful creature whose wings hardly had to move to keep us aloft as we sailed over The Sleeping Depths.

Gyah's body was long and thick, like a snake made from shards of black glass. She had wings but no other limbs to hold herself from the ground. Her two options for travelling were slithering or flying.

We sat in a row, each clinging to one another for fear of falling from Gyah's slick side. I tensed my thighs, worrying it would cause her discomfort. But nothing seemed to bother her.

Erix, as I was growing all too familiar with, sat close behind me. His own thighs gripped on either side of mine, his hands wrapped around my waist where they comfortably rested on my lap. If we weren't so high up, slicing through the dark sky with a terrifying body of water a sure drop below, I might've allowed myself to enjoy his closeness.

But there was no time for that – at least not yet.

It was a long while before a glow of campfire from below could be seen. A fire, gleaming in tones of red, orange and yellow, haloing its light and keeping the chill of winter away. The Hunters. It had to be them.

Althea shifted before me, pointing to the glow when she noticed it. Then my stomach lifted awkwardly as Gyah began her sudden descent. Soundless, she slipped above the lake's dark waters.

From the heaving rise and fall of Erix's chest at my back, it was clear he was far more nervous of flying. He'd not seemed shocked to see Gyah shift into this form, nor did he hesitate when climbing onto her back. But the tightening of his hold as we dove suggested I'd uncovered a fear of his.

Gyah touched down a distance away from the camp, far enough that we couldn't see the fire among the darkness; moonlight was our only source of light. I watched, in awe and unknowing, as Gyah shifted back to her fey-form in an unravelling of smoke. There she stood, skin ashen from exhaustion, but fully clothed as though she'd never been any different.

Magic was confusing, but equally as impressive.

Althea offered an arm when Gyah stumbled a step forward. "You were fantastic."

"Thank you, my princess." Gyah yawned, holding onto Althea as though she were a pillar keeping her up. "Give me a moment, and I will be ready to proceed. It has been many a month since I last allowed the beast to take over."

I moved to Erix, who was pale and silent. "Are you alright?"

He looked up at me, the lines around his eyes relaxing. "Besides the urge to spill my guts across the ground, I am fine."

"Good," I said. And I meant it. "You knew what she was, didn't you?"

"I did, but only when Althea informed me before leaving. The Eldrae," he whispered, "they're very rare beings. The majority of the surviving lines reside among Elmdew, so I was surprised Gyah claimed Cedarfall as her home."

I regarded her from a distance, noticing the points of her ears and tall, straight frame. "There are others?'

"Of course. They are much like you. Half fey, Gyah is the descendent of a powerful line of beings who could change forms. They were believed to be created directly from Altar, the father of our kind. Like all the Old Gods, Altar was greedy in love and had many partners. Gyah and her kind are the offspring of one of his many relations, or so that is what the stories say. Part fey, part monster."

I wanted to ask him more questions, but they hitched in my throat as I looked up at him. Flakes of snow still fell around us, some catching across his hair and in the dark lashes that outlined his steel-coloured eyes.

"It would seem I've got a lot to learn," I muttered.

Erix wrinkled his nose as a flake landed at its tip. With the back of his glove, he smeared it off, leaving a trail of glistening, cold water in his wake. "That you do."

"Are you both done?" Orion's drawling tone called to us. "Or would you prefer we wait for you to finish up?"

Erix looked over my shoulder towards him, lips curling into a slight snarl. But when he spoke, his voice was nothing but controlled and emotionless. "We are simply waiting for your command, prince ."

It was obvious that Erix didn't like Orion. I simply put it down to Erix being a good judge of character. Then again, even the dead could recognise that Orion was a prick.

"Then join us over here, and receive it."

I followed at Erix's side as we rejoined our party. Althea gave the command, explaining what would happen next. As she spoke, I listened carefully, wanting to make sure I was equally as prepared, since naturally I was on the back foot.

It wasn't that I was worried I'd be a hinderance in a fight. I knew I could handle myself, and frankly needed the second chance against the Hunters to prove it. I'd never been dreadful in a fight before, and now I came with a new skill set. Something that itched beneath my skin, begging for me to use it.

Magic .

Nervous adrenaline flooded my body, its presence a sickly-sweet taste which lathered my tongue and filled my cheeks. I tried to focus on Althea as she laid out our plans, but that became impossible when Erix touched me. His large, strong hand rested itself upon my shoulder and squeezed. His touch made the noise drown away, both grounding and distracting.

Orion noticed and smirked to himself. That reaction alone made the urge to reach up and lay my fingers atop Erix's hand almost too delectable an idea.

"Are you certain you want to do this?" Erix whispered as Althea finished up.

I peered over my shoulder, swallowing the small part of me that wanted to admit that I didn't want to help, but the iron resolve and belief in his gaze seemed to clear any remnants of that feeling from me. "The Hunters almost had my head. I feel it is only fair to find out why."

We surrounded the camp in the shroud of darkness. The messenger who tipped Althea in the first place, and whose anonymity she worked hard to keep, had been correct. The camp was small, only six Hunters visible.

Althea had mentioned that the antidote for Tugwort was a thin-stemmed flower with a bulbous violet bud. Turned out Tarron Oakstorm wasn't wrong. Because the closer we gained to the camp, the more of the weed we found. I caught her snapping a few as we went, clearly in case we didn't get the chance when we came face-to-face with the Hunters.

As we approached, footsteps light, I listened in to the drunk singing. It was awkward and loud, grating on my nerves. Two of the Hunters sat with their backs to us, bodies outlined by the glow of the campfire before them. They had their cloaks wrapped around them, the symbol of a hand etched in golden thread across their backs. My nose tickled at the scent of charred meat, before I saw it skewered over the flames. It made my mouth water, as did the welcoming scent of stale ale that filled the tankards in their hands.

It reminded me of home.

Another of the Hunters swayed where he stood, legs apart, stumpy cock in hand. He pissed into the waters of The Sleeping Depths without a care in the world. His head was leaning back, face to the star-filled sky as he sang his raspy song, words slurred due to the sheer amount of ale he'd clearly drunk.

It was Orion who pointed out the huddle of three Hunters on the opposite side of their makeshift camp. From here, it looked as though they rested, large bodies nestled into one another like pieces of a puzzle as they slept on snow-covered mats rolled out on the bank.

They were no threat. These men had no fey in chains. They presented no clear issue.

My grip on Erix's dagger relaxed as I regarded the intoxicated crowd. I'd dealt with others like this before, back at the King's Head. It wasn't uncommon to be throwing out drunkards onto the street who always tried their luck with sloppy punches.

I hardly imagined that this bunch would put up much of a fight.

Orion moved first, listening to the command that Althea had given him. He outstretched a hand, focusing on the campfire. Lines creased over his brow as he pinched his eyes closed in concentration.

Then the flames began to dim, licking tongues of red dwindling and shrinking. It took a moment for the two Hunters to realise, halting their singing, rubbing their eyes as they watched the impossible happen right in front of them.

Orion was undeniably an idiot, but I still admired the control of his blood-given powers. I didn't have to like him to admit to being slightly impressed.

The Hunter next to the obsidian lake dribbled a trail of piss across his boots as he turned around to see what the fuss was about. He barely made much of a noise before the axe in Althea's hand swung wide, embedding itself into his skull with a ferocious crack. She slipped from the cloak of shadows before he hit the ground.

The Hunter crumpled in on himself, hand still gripping his cock, blood spluttering out like a spring of water. Althea burst forward, the twin axe in hand, as she pulled free the other from its place in the man's head. The slick, wet sound that followed dried my throat, but there was no time to react as the camp exploded into chaos.

Something felt wrong about this. Even if I wanted to share my worries, it was too late. Death had arrived in the form of our group, and only one of the humans would survive the night.

Althea stood, chest heaving with a devilish smile sliced across her downturned face as she surveyed the remaining Hunters. "Who is going to be the lucky one tonight, boys?"

Her question spread across the camp of shocked humans, each fumbling for a weapon as they rose to greet her. It could've all been over by now, a quick in and out, but Althea had told us all to wait in the shadows. She didn't need our help, nor did she want it.

Not yet anyway.

Althea surveyed the humans like they were nothing more than her playthings, toys ready to claim and destroy when she was done with them.

"What do you fucking call this?" one of the Hunters shouted, slicing his sword from his sheath, metal singing against leather. Everything about his movements was untrained and awkward, from the ale, or his lack of experience, it was not clear. "You promised us a peaceful welcome–"

It was his comment that caught me off guard. Even Erix spared me a concerned glance where we waited, kneeling on the ground, ready to spring forward when Althea signalled.

The Hunter's comment didn't go unnoticed by Althea either, whose expression faltered. I watched as the words settled over her for a moment of confusion which lasted no more than a single breath.

Then she twisted her wrists, flicking the axes in a wide circle in warning. Like a cat, bored of waiting for its prey, she pounced, a blur of auburn hair and glinting armour as she sped through the group.

I winced as the axes met flesh. Sprays of hot, dark blood filled the air in bursts. Althea's brute strength had her blades pass through bones as though they were constructed of water or mist.

She'd finished with the camp long before my knees began to ache where we waited. Her foot pressed down on the chest of the final living Hunter, who whimpered like a child on the ground beneath her. The bodies of his comrades littered the area in chunks around him.

"Consider yourself blessed tonight," Althea said, barely out of breath. "Do as I say, and you may even make it to morning."

Althea whistled through her teeth, the signal we'd waited for. I followed as Erix and the others stood from their perches and entered the bloodied camp.

"Record timing, sister," Orion said, his sick sense of humour only making the cold touch of dread intensify down the back of my neck. He joined Althea at her side, looking down at the final Hunter with a sneer. "Then I suppose it was rather easy, wasn't it? Are your ventures into Durmain like this?"

"Killing is never easy," Althea responded, her snarling expression splattered with red. I didn't know her well, but I could see from her frantic glances to the shadows around, that something unsettled her. It was a feeling we both shared. "But is necessary in most cases."

Was it? It felt different, watching on in silence as Althea cut her way through the camp, not as it had been during that fateful day when I'd been taken to the Hunter's camp outside of Grove. These were just men. There was not a single sign that captured fey had even been with them.

Not to mention the first's strange comment about being ‘welcomed peacefully'.

But it was the noticeable clumsiness about the Hunters. Clearly untrained as they each gripped onto swords with shaking, uncalloused hands. They were dressed in the garb of Hunters but were far from the ones I'd seen before.

Novices, all of them. And even that was an overly kind remark.

"I have some questions for you," Althea sneered to the whimpering Hunter beneath her boot. She rested her axe across a shoulder, stained garnet from the deceased's blood. "And I think it'll be wise to answer them, for you may end up like your friends if you do not cooperate."

The Hunter beneath her was the youngest, his face untouched by bristled hair, his skin peppered with spots and marks of youth. His lips were pure white from tension, chin wet with spit and tears as he stared up at Althea as though she was a harbourer of death come to take him to the next realm.

"Wh – why are you doing this?" he spluttered, tugging at the hiding sympathy that I pushed to the back of my chest.

She cocked a head. "Why what, boy? I will ask you the same. Why do you need fey blood?"

His gaze nervously scanned the group of us as we looked down upon him. I could see the gleam in his ocean-blue eyes, that he forced some sense of bravado. Evident how his jaw tightened, clenching teeth hard until they almost broke in his mouth.

"They told us not to trust you." His voice was as rough as the village he was likely brought up in, accent thick with years on farms, not the precise accent I had heard from the Hunters who had stolen me.

"And it is they who I am interested in," Althea said, voice as calm as the lake behind her, it matched in deadliness as well. "Who is funding you? Who gives you your orders?"

"Why would I tell–" Orion jolted forward in a blink. The Hunter was silenced by a fist to the jaw; his head snapped back as knuckles connected with bone.

"Was that necessary?" Althea said, glaring at Orion, who shook his hand out at his side, pride creased across his freckled face.

"Ask again and find out."

Althea simply looked back to the young boy who flinched beneath her stare. Even the slightest of movements had him cowering, as though another fist would rain down upon him. "So, are you going to answer, or would you prefer to be reintroduced to my brother?"

The boy spat blood over her boots, a fat glob not making it further than his chin, turning his teeth black as he snarled. "Fuck – off."

He did well to hold himself in confidence as Orion reached down once again, cracking his head back with another punch.

Erix spoke up, mirroring the internal disagreement I was experiencing. "Not that I care to tell you what to do, but perhaps the aggression is going to hinder the answers you are hoping to achieve."

"Did I ask for your input, Berserker?" Orion seethed at Erix, who held his stare in return. Orion, like I, had to look up at the towering giant of a man. It gave the sense that he was a misbehaving child arguing with their parent. The parent, in this case, being Erix, who was deathly still as he looked down upon the Cedarfall prince. "You are not one to make comments on aggression. Do you care to show us what you are hiding?"

There was that name again, a single word that caused a deep purr to emanate from Erix's chest.

"There it is." Orion's skin shimmered with heat.

I was beginning to notice a clear difference between Orion and his sister. Whereas she dealt with anger like a silent assassin capable of control, Orion was a messy toddler, red-faced and chest heaving as though he was the one who'd cut down the group and not his sister.

Erix was mute as he stared down upon the red-faced prince. Then he turned his attention to Althea, expression softening. "Permission to subdue a prince?"

"Denied. Orion, put your fists away before you hurt yourself." Althea barely looked at her brother as she backhanded her disregard towards him. She then focused back on the whimpering boy, removing her foot from his chest. He trembled across the bloodied bank like a worm completely entrapped by fear. "If you tell me what I require, then I will let you live."

"Why should I trust you, trickster fucking fey?" Hot tears rolled down his dirtied face. "I knew we shouldn't have listened to the request. Knew you fucks would trick us."

"What request?" I asked, stepping into his line of sight. His comment echoed something one of them had said before Althea sliced her axe through his neck. "Why are you here?"

The boy laughed as he looked up at me, as though I'd told the funniest of jokes or pulled a face. But his response screamed both delusion and insanity, as though he could see that Althea would ensure he'd meet his end no matter what he answered. "You asked us to come, so we did."

"Say that again," Althea breathed, dragging his narrowed gaze from me to her once again.

"Commander Rackley received a letter of invitation. Sent a guide and everything to take us here. Said we'd be collecting a bounty that the Hand wouldn't want to refuse. Couldn't pass up on it, he said."

Commander Rackley was another name I'd heard before, back in the Hunter's camp.

And the mention of a guide? A bounty? My mind raced with what he revealed.

Orion and Althea shared a look, one that mirrored each other's concern and my confusion. "The guide, they brought you here?" Althea pressed on.

I scanned the dark, searching for a sign of someone we had missed.

"I told them not to trust the messenger, but what Commander Rackley says goes. Would have put him in grand favour with the Hand …" His eyes were wide and full, brimming with tears even the faintest glow from the campfire caught. Tears of fear I believed.

"It is how they got past the Deyalnar Mist," Gyah added, drinking in every detail with wide golden eyes.

Erix nodded in agreement as though they had already shared a conversation prior.

" Who was your guide?" Althea asked calmly, although her arms tensed as she slowly lowered the axe.

"How am I supposed to fucking know that!?" he screamed. "They never told me a thing."

"Then you are no good to us alive," Orion snapped, his reaching hand stopped by Althea.

"If he will not tell us with words, then someone in Aurelia will get it out of him."

"Have you grown soft, Althea?" Orion buzzed with unsettling energy, a coiled snake ready to strike, but at whom I was unsure.

"Silk is soft," Althea replied, "but can still strangle the largest of men. Remember that."

I felt some relief knowing that another life wouldn't end here tonight. The feeling was greatly unsettling, twisting that cord within me into knots. This was Icethorn land and, in some burning sense, I was connected to it. As the blood of the Hunters seeped into the ground, it felt as though it coated my very skin.

"There is a fey working with the Hunters," Gyah said, pulling me from the sickening feeling for a moment of reprieve. "If that is the case, then we have a traitor to uncover."

"What did the invitation promise?" Althea said to the Hunter, agreeing with Gyah through a silent stare.

"Power," he replied willingly, opening up like the pages of a tattered book.

"Power?" Erix echoed the word, hand reaching for the hilt of his sword without thought.

Then the boy's gaze flicked to me, and I felt my feet root to the spot. There was something heavy about his stare as it brimmed with recognition and knowing. "Blood. His blood."

Erix pulled free his sword, a growl erupting from his core. He side-stepped me, blocking the boy's frightful stare from reaching me, but even with the broad body between us, I couldn't shift the horror that'd become a tenant in my blood. Peeking around his frame, I refused not to watch, even if Erix longed to hide what occurred next from me.

"We should kill him," Orion said through gritted teeth, the tip of his glistening blade pressed to the Hunter's neck.

"For once, I agree with the prince," Erix growled.

"No. If someone is working alongside the Hunters, we will be able to find out with him alive." Althea's tone had grown tense.

"Who told you about the Hunters, Althea?" There was accusation in Orion's voice. "You knew they were here, sister. What else do you know?"

I looked around Erix's back as Orion's suggestion settled over me. Who was Althea's informant? It hadn't been something I'd thought to ask, but clearly it was enough to turn brother against sister.

Tarron had mentioned the location of the antidote, but the message about the camp had come from someone else. Althea had already confirmed as much.

"You dare suggest I was previously aware of this?" Her voice was on fire; I could almost see the flames bursting from her mouth as she spat back at her brother. He flinched as she thrust her fingers into his chest, knocking him back several steps.

The Hunter, no longer pinned beneath her gaze, tried to scramble back, only to be stopped by Gyah.

"Who told you of the Hunters, Althea?" It was Erix who asked now, his tone less suggestive but equally concerned. "I do not believe you would have known, but whoever informed you is likely involved."

Althea turned from her brother, chest rising harshly as her breathing deepened. "It cannot be. She would not have known."

"Althea," I said. "Tell us."

She swallowed something large in her throat, face pinched as though it was sour. Then she revealed a name that thrust open the box in my chest, releasing a billowing torrent of icy winds to pour from my skin.

"Lady Kelsey gave me the information. She was my informant about the Hunters."