Thirty

ELLIS

The barrier was open? What?

My first thought was that it was another fae ploy—a lie to catch me unawares. She was desperate for our help, and would say anything to get it, wouldn't she?

And yet she knew she was dying, and that help wasn't coming. Why lie then?

The wind howled angrily. It was as if the land itself was part of this rebellion and attack. And maybe it was, for all I knew. My magick hummed in veins, not angry, but simply ready and impatient.

"What do you mean, the barrier's open?" Eve asked first, her eyes shining with confusion. "I thought it was closed after we came through!"

The female sighed, leaning back against the rubble.

"When you came through with Cassus, it opened. It stays open until the humans eat the fae food. Then it closes, since it senses that all have accepted their new life in this realm." She closed her eyes, her breaths coming in short pants. "Fennis keeps special humans for his pleasure on a diet of food only made by human hands, grown using human techniques. No magick. No sauce."

I frowned at the odd comment, pitying the dying female before me. The blood loss was getting to her, and soon she'd be incoherent.

No sauce. What a strange thing to say.

But Eve must have known something I didn't. Her eyes went wide, lips parting in an ‘O' of surprise.

The female coughed up blood. "Fennis accidentally killed the last human on a pure diet in a rage, shortly after you got here."

She giggled, a little hysterically. Bursts of magick curled around her, then fizzled out, knowing the situation was futile.

The fae female's eyes tiredly slid to Eve. Was this female a rebel? Someone with Fennis's blood in them? It seemed so incredibly improbable, yet here we were. Then again, what was the line between rebel and court sycophant?

Hayida was right; Fennis's world was crumbling around him. There were more rebels within the fae than Fennis had ever thought, or at least fae who were sympathetic to their human friends, including his own family members and nobles.

"No sauce. No fucking sauce." Eve's voice strained, her fingers tracing the wound Alihandro had left on her neck, now half-healed. If I squinted, the mostly straight gash with bumps almost looked like a bird in flight on the horizon. "What does this mean?"

Eve leaned down, putting her neck in the female's face.

The injured fae gave her a weak, wispy grin.

"It means it's finally happening," the fae female coughed out.

The riddles and vague innuendos were going to be the death of me.

"Eve, what the hell is she talking about? What have you realized?"

Because my love had that look in her eyes—the same look she'd had the first time I had laid eyes on her on the balcony, drunk and depressed. It was a look of fire and vengeance, and of a woman blazing her own path and content to destroy anyone in her path.

I wanted to burn in the holocaust of her convictions.

"The barrier is open because of me. I don't know if it was on purpose or we fell into it by sheer dumb luck, but I didn't eat at the first fae picnic with everyone else. And when I finally did eat …" Her hands balled into fists. "They all knew. All of them knew. Calten, Alihandro, Shyllon … but they're not all rebels, are they? Why'd they do that? Why'd they all help me together, not even realizing it?"

She turned to me, desperation and confusion in her eyes.

And then I understood. These individuals had worked together underneath Fennis's nose to make sure Eve only ate food grown and prepared with human hands. Shyllon wasn't a rebel, but he still sensed something important. And he'd helped.

But why? Why was that so important to the rebel faction? They'd tried to hide it from Fennis as well. That was significant, but I couldn't figure out why.

Lightning shot down from the sky, lighting the roof of a destroyed building on fire. This world was disintegrating in front of our eyes!

Fennis did not have control. He couldn't protect Eve even if he wanted to honor our deal, if he survived. If Fennis wouldn't or couldn't protect Eve, I'd have to throw in with the other side. I had no choice, even if the rebel side kept blowing shit up and feeding my queen like she was an experimental rat.

"Ellis, help me with her."

I gazed down at the dying female, undecided.

"Ellis! Please! She took care of me when we first got here. She was kind to me. She could tell us more about the rebels. Please." Eve's desperate face looked up at me, her eyes begging me to make it better. Fear and anxiety shot through my veins. I didn't know if I could. Back home, I'd been the black sheep of my family—the one who'd brought shame to our name. How could Eve look at me like that, as though I were the hero in her fantasy world? It wasn't right. I was no hero. I hadn't been able to keep her safe; others had done that. If anything, Eve was my hero.

Still, I couldn't ignore the desperate plea in her eyes to make it right. It might not matter in the grand scheme of things, but it was real.

Without another word of protest, I grabbed a rock and heaved it away. The female twitched, pain etched across every inch of her face.

"Don't bother. Nowhere is safe," the female whispered, her lips barely moving. If we didn't free her soon, she'd likely die. Even the fae had their physical limits, it seemed.

Eve kept looking at me with that same pleading and desperate need for me to make it all right. I didn't know what else to do, so I dug deep and pulled the magick that was lying dormant in my veins, like a sleeping cat waiting to pounce.

"Eve, get down."

I pulled the heat forward from my magick and pushed it into the rocks as hard as I could just as she ducked.

BANG.

A few rocks around us exploded, and the female shrieked with fear, but only a few bits of shrapnel pelted us on our arms and face. The largest rock pinning the female shifted and changed, melting down into a black, porous type of rock. I drew back as I neared the end of my strength, reluctant to give it all if I didn't need to.

Tentatively, I reached out and touched the black rock, surprised my fingers weren't burning. Grasping it in my fingers, I pulled it toward me, and it rolled it off her. The heat had changed its properties, turning it into something much lighter; a porous stone with little mass.

Eve's horrified gasp drew my eyes down.

The female's leg was unrecognizable just below her thigh: a twisted mess of flesh and bone in a pool of congealed, dark blood. An idea came to my mind.

"Leave me," the female pleaded. "I—"

"Shut up," I snarled, knowing I needed to do it before I lost my nerve. I summoned the scraps of magick left that I hadn't used up and pushed my hand down on the worst part of the wound, where her leg hung on by barely a sinew mid-thigh.

She screamed as fire shot through my fingers, scalding her flesh and cauterizing the wound. Behind me, Eve screamed as well, but I didn't stop. This was the only way I might save this female's life. The scent of burning flesh filled the air and I breathed through my mouth to block out the smell.

Thankfully, she passed out.

Glancing down, relief went through me as the bleeding had stopped. I wasn't sure what to do about the mangled, dangling part of her lower leg, however. I wasn't a healer. I didn't even know how to treat a cut from a piece of parchment!

"C-carry her. I'll … I'll hold her leg." Biting her lips and with her face as white as a sheet, Eve grasped the bloodied leg as I gently lifted the female in my arms. We moved together to keep the leg attached and not jostled as best we could. Her face was as white as the female fae's, but she swallowed her fear and marched on.

My proud, brave queen.

I glanced around helplessly. We were in the middle of a war zone. Fae and humans and half breeds alike screamed and ran, nobles fleeing their homes as the people rioted and fell upon the castle.

"I don't think the castle is the place to go," I muttered.

Eve nodded.

"If the barrier is open, let's just go home," Eve suggested, her voice strained. "We can take her with us unless we find Shyllon or someone else to help."

"Do you know where the barrier is?" I asked.

She shook her head, and my heart sank. With a hiss of pain, she stopped suddenly, clutching the mark on her neck that asshole fae had given her. Al-ah-asshole, or something like that.

BOOM.

A building twenty feet away exploded in shrapnel as more lightning hit, raining rocks and debris down onto us.

Right, we definitely couldn't stay here.

"North," croaked out a voice.

"Did you say something?" I said to Eve, but her eyes were on the female in my arms. Her eyes rolled back into her head, but her hand clutched weakly at my shirt.

"Do you know where the barrier is?" Eve asked her.

She seemed to want me to bend my head down to her, so I obliged.

"G-go n-north." She slumped against me, fighting hard against unconsciousness.

"North," I repeated to Eve, who put her hands over her face.

"We can't take her; she'll die," Eve whispered, talking to herself.

"If we leave her here, she'll die," I added.

Eve paced in a small circle, clearly torn.

The female tugged at me again.

I hated how out of control everything felt. Just like back at home. Just like during the Royal Hunt.

"P-Peri said you'd come. Before the Hunt. She had a dream. L-leave me here. Go find the head rebel. They will keep her safe." Her eyes flicked to Eve, unseeing.

They froze that way. My heart stopped in my chest, realizing what that meant.

"Oh my gods," I breathed out, my arms shaking as I held a dead female in my arms. Gently, I laid her down under the awning of a building that had miraculously escaped destruction so far.

"Ellis, what—no!"

Eve fell against me as we kneeled in front of the dead female, my arms wrapping around her. I didn't even know her, yet this loss ripped itself through my chest. Why was that? Was it exhaustion? Fear? Desperation?

Eve sobbed against me, and I let my own tears fall. I couldn't remember that last time I'd just been able to sit and think. We'd both been running on constant adrenaline and fear for so long. What was even normal anymore?

That was how Fennis ruled this place.

I was an idiot. We had been so consumed with our problems—with each other, with getting home, and with surviving—that we weren't able to see the bigger picture. And that was how Fennis stayed in power.

He kept his people always surviving but never thriving. Our eyes had been open, but we never saw. And it was the same problem with my people back home. Desperate people would go to desperate lengths, even if it was wrong. Even if it meant murdering little children in their beds.

I saw it all clearly now. But there were still questions.

Why were the rebels being so careful about using Eve to keep the barrier open? I wouldn't be surprised if this had been part of a longer plan. And what was the goal?

"Ellis, I need to get to the pleasure house. I have friends there; Hazel, and Annie, and—"

Eve blubbered nonsense; random words strung together that didn't make sense to me as my mind spun.

I had burgeoning suspicions, but if the rebels were after what I thought they were, it would only bring more chaos and more hardship to our world.

"I'm so happy I found you! Please! I'm scared!" someone called.

I snatched the knife from the dead female's belt and held it out toward the advancing figure. It was hard to make out the form and voice through the storm, but they held out their hands wide to show they were not a threat.

Or hide the fact that they were.

I tightened my grip on the knife, Eve's hands tightening on my shoulders.

The wave of déjà vu hit me so fast that I nearly vomited.

A female figure standing cloaked amidst fire and brimstone.

"Ellis, please. We have to go. It will all burn."

Panic seized my throat in a chokehold and wouldn't let go.

"Help! Help me!" The figure's soft voice registered a moment later as they lowered the hood of their cloak, Feyanna's cheeks stained with tears as she carefully picked her way over the debris toward us. "Please, I barely escaped the palace. Please help me!"

Her hood fell back, revealing the last person I expected to see.

Eve tensed as Feyanna approached.

"Who is it? What is she saying?"

Ah, further confirmation it was Feyanna. Feyanna only spoke the fae language.

"What are you doing here? Did the rebels storm the palace?" I asked Feyanna.

She sniffed as she reached for me, nodding frantically. "It was awful! They came out of nowhere, swarming us and attacking our father. I didn't see. I couldn't look … I just ran! You don't think I'm a coward, do you?"

Feyanna peeked up at me from underneath her eyelashes, distress creating lines on her delicate features. She clutched the ragged, filthy cloak close to her chest and reached a hand out to me.

Thunder and lightning boomed, and she shook with fear, lunging toward me for safety.

"Get away from him!" Eve put herself between us, practically shoving Feyanna away. The fae female stumbled and fell, thick tears spilling onto her cloak.

"Eve! She's upset and distressed. Rebels attacked the palace and her family! She's asking for help!"

A surge of kinship and protectiveness rose in me. I knew intimately what it was like to have your home and family slaughtered by rebels. It was something Eve would never understand. Feyanna needed our help and compassion. For once, I could actually do something and help someone. I had control. I knew it would be difficult for Eve to understand, because to her, Feyanna was the enemy. I'd have to help both of them overcome this.

"Wait, so Fennis is dead?" Eve asked harshly.

Feyanna cried harder, confirming it.

"Come now. You may travel with us if you like," I offered before I thought about it, earning myself a glare from Eve for my troubles. Why had she wanted to take the injured fae with us, but not Feyanna? I couldn't admit to Feyanna where we were going, could I?

"Excuse us for a moment," I said, giving Feyanna a small smile. Eve pulled me back and whispered furiously in my ear.

"What are you doing?"

I took a deep breath. "She is scared and alone. Just like I was. Except there is no Eve to save her." I ran a hand through my hair as Eve's eyes widened at my vehemence. "Look, she probably knows where the barrier is. She can help us."

"She is not coming back to our realm," Eve said stubbornly. "Her people can have her like they had Hayida." Her voice shook, remembering the horror.

I swallowed, determined not to let that happen to Feyanna. She didn't deserve it. I understood Eve's reticence, but I didn't see an enemy fae when I looked at Feyanna. I saw myself. I saw my brother's bride, Ildris. I saw my younger sister, Rowan.

It must have shown on my face, because Eve's expression crumpled. "I used to be tough and stubborn before you," she grumbled.

I grinned, flashing my small fangs at her. "Used to be?"

Turning back toward Feyanna, I slipped my hand in Eve's.

"You may travel with us." I left off any other information about where we were going.

Her face brightened like the morning sun cresting over the mountains. "Thank you, thank you!"

Feyanna clasped her hands in front of us, eyes alight with joy. Together, we started moving north, out and away from the rubble and horror of the ruined city around us. We couldn't speak over the clash of thunder and the rain beating against the rubble, so we moved in silence. Part of me felt the need to stay and help—to save those I could.

But this wasn't my kingdom.

These weren't my people.

Mine were waiting across the barrier, and that's where I needed to be. And I was helping; I was taking Feyanna with us. That was the reason her eyes sparkled with triumph. She was simply happy to be rescued, and there was nothing more to it.