Twenty-Three

EVE

Ellis talked for a while and I listened.

Until his first mention of Fallon.

"Do you care for her, this fae princess?"

The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I'd been determined to face away from Ellis and keep my back to him, but during his story, I'd turned around. My fingers wrapped around the iron bars separating us as if the closer I was to him, the better chance I would have at understanding his motivations.

"You slept with Alihandro," he accused back.

I flinched, but he was right. It was incredibly hypocritical of me to be hurt that he'd given himself to the female fae—Fallon—when I'd done the same with Alihandro. At least Ellis's intentions had been noble. I'd just been sad and lonely.

"But, that makes little sense, what she told you," I countered, needing him to see I wasn't angry, I was just trying to understand his story.

"You said sleeping with her was done at first to learn their language. I slept with a fae and I can't understand the language." I finished, confused about who had been told which lie. I shook my head. It didn't matter in the end, did it? At least one of us could understand the fae language. Perhaps it was his fae blood?

"I appreciate the lengths you went through, but you realize you've sold yourself to the wrong side," I continued. "The fae girl manipulated you to get what she wanted."

Ellis's face twisted in a grimace. "There is no side except ours, Eve. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe and get us out of here. Even be Fallon's … toy."

Frustration welled in my veins.

"Ellis, that isn't the point! Humans are slaves here! And you've admitted there's an entire rebel faction out there working to overturn it, and they're strong and organized enough that Fennis fears them! Don't you see? We have to get out of here and help them!"

Ellis's gaze dropped to the stone ground, his fingers detaching from the iron rails as he backed away from. From us.

"Ellis, what—"

"Don't you ever think of yourself?" he asked wistfully, finally meeting my eyes as a small smile twisted one corner of his mouth upward. "When you aren't trying to finagle your way into being queen, of course. You're always thinking of the bigger picture, of how to help the most people. Sometimes I wish you were more selfish, you know?"

I balked, unsure if it was a criticism or a compliment.

Ah, perhaps it was both.

Reaching through the bars, I caught his cold hand before he could pull away from me again.

"Ellis, I'm sorry. But I can't just be here and see the suffering, and the need, and not do something. It's not who I am."

His grip on my hand tightened painfully. "Who exactly is suffering? The poorest person here is still far richer than anyone back in our realm!"

I winced as he spoke aloud the same intrusive thoughts that had been bothering me ever since Calten had taken me out into the town surrounding the castle.

"They're still slaves," I argued, "relying on the king and the fae court for everything in life—food, clothing. Hell, they're even told what jobs they will have later in life! It could all be taken away in the blink of an eye."

Ellis shook his head. "Slave is a name only! If being a slave means medical care, food, shelter, clothing, and my every material need cared for, I would happily toil away at whatever task the fae deemed necessary! They even educate the humans for their jobs! How can—"

Ellis snapped his mouth closed, hands curling into his hair and pulling as he screwed his eyes shut. After a few calming breaths, he opened them again. "How can our realm even compete? Our realm, where people murder and beat each other over crusts of bread? Where children are dirty in the streets, with cracked and bleeding feet? Where the houses are flimsy excuses for shelter made of mud and whatever else they scrounge up? That is true slavery, is it not?"

My heart broke for Ellis, watching the despair rise in him.

"It's not all like that," I said softly, but insistently. "There is a large faction of the poor, but it's not all like that. There are good people." I squeezed his hand. "There are good kings. People have the freedom to make their own fortunes."

"Or die in squalor," he spit. Ellis snorted. "Viana will do her best to patch things together, but it's a mess. It's such a fucking mess.…"

I leaned forward, touching my forehead to his as best we could through the bars. "I am no more important than all the human slaves in this realm. They at least deserve the choice to be a fae slave or to take their chances elsewhere, right? That's what it's about: having a choice."

Ellis's mouth opened angrily, ready to argue my first point, then closed when he had nothing to say against my second one.

"You are important," he ended with stubbornly, lips brushing the top of my head.

"No verros." We both whipped around as a fae guard lounged by Ellis's door, arms mockingly draped over the bars.

"What did he say?" I whispered frantically to Ellis, whose eyes narrowed in anger.

"Nothing important," he spat, hooking his elbow around mine.

The fae laughed and rattled something else off, unlocking Ellis's door as more guards came in and dragged him away.

Ellis growled something back in the fae language, the shock of the fae's lilting words coming from his mouth titillating in a way I hadn't expected.

Because Ellis now understood the fae language.

Because he'd fucked Fallon.

And I'd fucked Alihandro. It ruffled my feathers that I couldn't understand the fae language. Either it had something to do with me being human, or … well …

The answer was glaringly obvious as it hit me with the full force of a wagon full of hay. Had anyone realized it yet, or just me?

Unless I was wrong, but I didn't think so.

I couldn't understand the fae language because I hadn't fucked a fae.

Alihandro wasn't a full-blooded descendant of Fennis.

Guards came for me as well, and together they shuffled Ellis and me down the long hallway and into an open yard. I got one quick look at the high, smooth white walls before a guard slapped a cuff around Ellis's left wrist that matched what the other fae had. The guards exited through the same gate they'd shoved us through and locked it.

All activity in the yard ended. Two fae who were throwing a ball stopped their game, the one not even flinching as the ball hit him hard in the chest as he stared at me. Another group froze mid-laugh at something Strumo had said, eyes widening at our approach. Approximately a hundred prisoners paused in what they were doing to stare before hurriedly looking away and pretending they hadn't done so in the first place.

One group kept staring as if in challenge.

"Oh no," I whispered as the group made a beeline toward us. The fae leading them had skin with a green tinge, completely bald with a golden hoop earring in his left ear and tattoos covering his large, muscled chest and arms.

Ellis stepped in front of me and put a hand up, but immediately hissed in pain and went to his knees, clutching at the cuff on his wrist in agony.

The large fae and the other two flanking him stopped to point and laugh. And to my dismay, everyone else in the yard joined in.

Ellis got to his feet slowly as I helped him up.

"Magick cuffs," I whispered in his ear.

"You think?" he growled back.

I resisted the urge to gut punch him. If there was ever a time we needed to show unity and strength, it was right-fucking-now. I'd thought the eyes in the sky during the Royal Hunt had been bad, had made me feel watched, scrutinized, judged, but this was worse. Every single gaze leveled on us and not a single one was friendly.

"This must be the princess or queen or whoever that we heard so much about," the green man rumbled, cracking his knuckles ominously as his cronies surrounded us.

Don't show fear. Don't be afraid.

I didn't want to stereotype people (or fae, whatever), but greenie looked like every baddie from every scary story I'd ever heard about fae growing up.

"Which makes you what?" Greenie snorted at Ellis, giving his smaller height and slight frame a derisive sniff.

"Her bitch boy," Ellis replied lightly with a grin, but his eyes darkened with violence. The tips of his fae fangs glinted in the sun, and magick sparked around us in the air, charged with electricity.

Greenie took a half-step back, perturbed by such a nonsensical, crazed answer. His eyes narrowed, and he gave a shake of his head to his cronies. "You're lucky I'm busy. Later."

He shuffled away with his crew, and I breathed again, my breath fogging out in front of me in the cold morning air. At least I had my thicker morning dress on when the guards took us, the one lined with fur at the neck and wrists. It would be easier to strip down when hot than have nothing to cover up with when the temperature plummeted.

"Come on. Let's get out of the middle. Too many stares."

Ellis tugged me away and I went even though it was on the tip of my tongue to argue that the stares would follow us wherever we went since we were the new, shiny entertainment. He was dead-focused on his target, but I couldn't help but look around.

Spiky thorn bushes grew thickly around the yard's white-washed walls made it apparent that no one tried to scale them. Guard towers loomed over each of the four corners, with guards present with those staffs I had learned about from Ellis.

The prisoners were mostly separated into small groups. Greenie and his cronies held court with a rough crowd that was the largest and congregated in the middle of the space under the only tree in the yard. A second group of a dozen fae loitered around benches in a corner. Shaking and fidgeting humans stood nearby, clearly at the beck and call of the fae. Acid welled in my gut as a blue-skinned fae crooked one finger at a human, forcing him to get on his hands and knees so the fae could prop his feet up on his back.

Another group of twenty humans went through a rough set of drills and exercises. A few fae prisoners supervised them, kicking them behind the knees or smacking them in the face when they stumbled or did something wrong.

Scattered individuals and pairs also littered the area, eyes turning to us as the fresh, new entertainment.

"Here. Sit."

Ellis led me to the edge west corner of the wall, and we sat on a raised ledge that ran the perimeter. It looked like it had been a flowerbed or vegetable garden at one point, but it was nothing but parched dirt that crumbled to dust in my fingertips. A dark statue stood still a few feet away, but I paid it no mind. It wasn't important.

"Nice entrance."

I squawked as the statue moved and twitched, revealing itself to be a fae. He shook off the shadows and darkness like it was a cloak, and it was a cloak that disintegrated around him just like that dusty dirt that had just fallen through my hand.

"I thought no one could use magick here," I asked warily, standing up and taking a step back. Ellis bristled beside me, just as surprised.

The fae had peach toned skin and shaggy brown hair, and a thick black beard that put Shyllon's to shame. His frame was lanky but muscled, like a fast predator. His golden eyes shone at us in amusement.

"Darling, when you're as old as I am, you learn so many tricks that it's child's play."

Old? I would guess he was around the same age as King Fennis. Which was … well, I had no idea how old he was.

"She is not your darling," Ellis sneered at him.

The fae tilted his head to the side, a slow grin curling across his face. "You need—"

He stopped short, eyes falling onto the wound on the side of my neck.

"Interesting," he breathed out.

I put a hand up to my throat, self-conscious about the mark and Alihandro's betrayal.

"Hayida," the fae offered, nodding once at me.

I snuck a glance at Ellis, not understanding the fae word.

"It's his name," Ellis replied softly, not taking his eyes off of the figure in front of us.

"Ah. I—"

"Eve and Ellis. I know. Everyone knows." Hayida offered me a fang-filled grin, bowing lightly. I nodded back, since it felt appropriate. It took an elbow in Ellis's side, but he stiffly inclined his head as well. "Welcome to prison. I see you already met Strumo and his gang. Best to stay away from them. They're all prisoners here in the … classic sense."

Ellis snorted. "And you aren't?"

Hayida gave him a mild look, his index and middle fingers twitching. A small, homemade pipe appeared between his fingers, already stuffed with tobacco. "Criminality is all perspective, is it not?"

He leered down at Ellis, sniffing him as if he stank.

"You're a fire mage, yes?"

Ellis blinked at the non sequitur, storm clouds brewing in his eyes. "My magick is fire, but the cuffs—"

Hayida darted forward and grabbed Ellis's wrists. Ellis jerked as a flare of red burst from his fingertips, enough of an ember that it sparked the end of Hayida's pipe. The fae drew back, satisfied.

"Don't try that on your own. Took a few decades to get right," he cautioned Ellis, one eyebrow furrowed in a memory.

Ellis winced, rubbing his wrists which were covered in angry red burns. I glared at Hayida

The older fae puffed away happily, clearly not intending to say anything else.

"You said Strumo was a prisoner in the classic sense," I pushed, unable to handle the silence and likely to punch him in his face if I didn't distract myself. "What do you mean?"

Hayida took a deep draw on the pipe, then gestured with it toward the other groups spread around the yard.

"You have the worst of the worst here: violent criminals who've killed and raped. You also have the unfortunate political prisoners." He gave a little twirl and a bow, then returned to his pensive expression as he puffed away.

"Political prisoners mixed with violent criminals. That's monstrous! Why would the king do that?" I gasped, realizing we were in trouble.

Ellis huffed. "Father mentioned how our grandfather used to do it as king. Mix in a few inconvenient, loud-mouthed nobles with a murderer, and if one or both of them die in a prison fight, well, that's two problems solved, isn't it?"

I gaped at Ellis, shocked. "That's not—"

Hayida said, "I wouldn't think you'd still be so innocent and full of ridiculous ideals after surviving the Hunt."

I glared at Hayida. "Maybe clinging to them is what kept me alive."

He grunted. "You didn't win, either."

It was on the tip of my tongue to argue we'd won by shutting the whole thing down, but what was the point?

Political prisoners … like Peri? Her dying moments filled my memory. Had she spent time here in this very yard? Did she know Hayida?

"What kind of political prisoners?" Ellis asked.

Hayida blew out a smoke ring toward a female fae's face thirty yards away. She made a disgusted face and snarled, but otherwise ignored Hayida.

"I think you know. Strumo and his crew are rewarded for taking out as many of the king's enemies as possible. After all, the fewer prisoners there are to choose from, then the more likely you are to be chosen to compete for your freedom in the Royal Hunt, eh?"

He chuckled darkly to himself.

"You weren't in the Royal Hunt," I said sharply.

His expression remained neutral. "Got banned after my games."

Ellis huffed. "Impossible. Winners are granted their freedom. You're still here."

Hayida's nose wrinkled. "Does he always state the obvious like a child?"

The grumpy fae was growing on me, but my attention was diverted by yelling. On the north side of the yard, Strumo advanced on a human man, who fell to the ground and held his hands out in front of him desperately. "No! Please! I'm sorry!"

"Might want to look away," Hayida remarked calmly despite his eyes trained on the pair. Ellis watched beside me, silent as the grave.

I thought about rushing over there, but what could I do? Draw Strumo's attention to me? I didn't have time either way; it was over before it had barely begun. Strumo brought his massive fist back and punched the man in the face as hard as he could.

Ellis and I flinched at the wet crunching sound that bounced off the yard's walls. The man fell over, his face busted wide open like a watermelon.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

"Well, at least it was quick," Hayida remarked. "Usually Strumo takes his time. You must have pissed him off."

I whipped around, indignant. "I did nothing!"

"Is violence like this common?" Ellis asked neutrally.

Hayida raised an eyebrow. "Well, this is only the third death today. That's quite tame, to be honest. Then again, right after a Royal Hunt, things settle down for a while. No sense culling the rest of the field when it'll be another hundred years before the next group gets chosen, eh?"

His grin turned wistful.

"I miss the old days."

I sat back down on the edge of the flower bed, stunned. Three deaths a day was quiet. I shot a desperate look at Ellis, whose eyes shone with sympathy as he rested a hand on my shoulder. I reached up to grasp it, feeling just as desolate as I had when we'd woken up in the prison pen back in our realm, freezing my tits off.

Hayida gave us a mocking salute, sauntering off to the opposite side of the prison yard. Ellis and I tracked his movements across the yard, noting how no one (fae or human) got in his way or tried to impede his progress. Rather, it was the other way around—they all ignored him.

"If anyone is behind a rebellion against the king, my vote is on him," Ellis grit out.

I turned around to face him. "Seriously? You're still going through with your mad plan to help the slave king?"

His face pinched. "I won't apologize for doing what I must to keep you safe."

My eyes narrowed at him. "Then I don't apologize for what I have to do."

I left Ellis and strode across the middle of the yard, hot on Hayida's heels.