6. Alana

SIX

Alana

E ldrion summons two guards and orders them to prepare horses for us. He is different somehow, and yet it is not a physical difference. It's in the way the air moves around him, and the timbre of his voice.

Unnoticeable, perhaps, to anyone but me.

Studying him as he throws himself up onto the back of a large white stallion, I let down the gates in my mind and reach for him. In the past, it hasn't worked. But something tells me that now, it might.

Next to me, Briony watches as if she knows I am attempting something I shouldn't be.

At first, an overwhelming sense of adrenaline washes over me. It settles on my skin, burning with its intensity.

I try to move past it and see what lies beneath. But it hardens and solidifies in front of me.

"I might have lost my shadow magic," Eldrion says, staring down at me from his horse, "but my mind magic is intact, Alana. You can't read me. You never could."

I press my lips together and swallow forcefully. How did he know? Did he feel me reaching into his mind?

"What about your other magic?" I ask, choosing not to defend myself but to, instead, jump up onto my own horse's back and take hold of her reins, waiting for Briony to climb up behind me and loop her arms around my waist.

Eldrion shakes his head. "Everything else I possessed was powered by the shadows." He looks up at the sky, dark and brooding, thunderclouds gathered above the castle as if they are preparing to unleash the most almighty storm on us. "And now the shadows belong to Finn."

"And you don't think we can get them back?" I ask him.

"We?"

"You."

"Maybe." He takes hold of his horse's reins. "But I doubt it's something I could do without your assistance."

I let that idea settle in my head for a moment. Eldrion can only get his magic back if I help him? Why would I do that? Why would I give him back the power that allowed him to be so cruel for so long?

"Shadowkind..." I mutter, stroking my horse's mane. I glance back at Briony, but she lowers her head as if she doesn't want to confront what I'm thinking.

When I turn my head to meet Eldrion's eyes, I realise they are the same as mine: scared, ashamed, but also determined. "I suppose it makes sense. Perhaps this is what they used to be. Perhaps this is why their wings were bound?"

Eldrion nods slowly. "Perhaps."

I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to centre my thoughts. "How did you notknow? You are the oldest fae in the kingdom, Eldrion. How did you not know what he was?"

Eldrion rests one hand on his horse's neck and bites the inside of his cheek. After staring at me for a moment, he laughs. The sound surprises me. He shakes his head and laughs again. "Don't you see, Alana?"

A shudder grips my shoulders and forces me to hunch forward a little, as if the movement might shrug off whatever haunts me.

"My visions were meaningless. All this time, I was exactly as weak as my parents and my brother always told me I was. I did not see what Finn was. I misread every sign that was sent to me. I failed."

He speaks without an ounce of self-pity in his voice, and yet the rawness of his words takes me by complete surprise.

I want to tell him he didn't fail, and that his parents were wrong about him, but I have no idea why I feel the need to offer him comfort.

So, instead, I remain silent.

Eldrion watches me for a moment. Then turns his gaze forward. "We are wasting time." He clicks his tongue and taps the horse's flank. "To the woods," he commands.

I wait a beat, then follow him, Briony holding on tightly behind me.

Should I be following him?

Have I simply stopped believing in one monster and turned to another instead?

The castle looms behind us, silhouetted against the dark thunderous sky. I can't help looking back at it. Once a prison, it now feels strangely like a sanctuary. And the desire to lock myself away there, away from all of this, is almost too much to ignore.

Eldrion, however, keeps his gaze fixed ahead. We leave the citadel, enter the city, and follow the same path we took the night he made me accompany him to the inn.

When we pass through the streets, they are eerily quiet. I have no idea if the inhabitants of Luminael saw what happened above the castle. Did they see Finn's transformation? The shadows swirling in the sky? Did they feel something shift in the air?

They must have, because there are barely any signs of life.

"It's eerie," Briony whispers. "I don't like it. Where is everyone?"

Windows are shuttered, market stalls are vacant, and there is an unsettling lack of noise. No chatter or movements of the day beginning.

I glance at Eldrion. I might not be able to read his emotions, but my powers are still intact. So, I let the gates down and reach behind the closed doors as we pass them.

It is probably a foolish decision. I am weak, and my own emotions are running so high I can barely contain them. But I need to take back some control. I need to do something to make me feel as if I have a grasp on what's happening around us.

The first thing I feel is silence. It is almost deafening in its intensity. A swirling cyclone of silence. Like shadows. But then the silence is ripped apart, and it is swallowed by fear.

My eyes blur. I grip on to my horse with my thighs. I hold the reins tighter. My stomach twists with the overwhelming sense of terror that swells inside the houses and taverns of Luminael.

They saw.

And they are afraid.

When I slam the gates back down and look at Eldrion, he has slowed his pace and is staring at me. My skin is clammy, and I know my cheeks are flushed. My hair sticks to the side of my face. I push it back and try to remember how to breathe.

"They know," I mutter.

Eldrion nods slowly. "Of course they know, Alana. Even if they hadn't seen it, they would know." He inhales sharply, then taps his horse with his heels and breaks into a gallop. Over his shoulder, he calls, "Everything has changed, Alana. Everything."

For a moment, I simply sit, staring as Eldrion races away from me. But then I lean into my horse's neck, stroke her mane, tap my heels, and follow suit.

We leave the city through the large archway in the Shadowkind Quarter.

We pass the stadium where the Gloomweavers sold me and the other Leafborne at auction. I remember the first time I saw Eldrion. I remember thinking my only problem was that I needed to survive a cruel elf lord who wanted to keep us as his prisoners.

And that memory leads me back to Finn. The first time he appeared in my chambers, tending my injured feet with such tender care. Unafraid to touch me. Unafraid to see me.

Pain grips my chest. I know what he is now, and I know it was all a lie. But that doesn't stop my heart from remembering how it loved him.

The pretend version of himself that he crafted so carefully is tattooed on my heart, and I am not sure I will ever be able to erase his poisonous ink from my soul.

I know he is evil.

I know he used me and betrayed me.

But perhaps he loved me, too.

Perhaps both things can be true?

The dusty track that leads through the fields beyond the city, towards the forests, billows beneath the horses' hooves as we canter in the direction of the trees. Frequently, I look up at the sky, wondering whether the storm clouds will begin to chase us or whether Finn will suddenly appear in the sky. A devil with wings. Blotting out the sun, and swallowing all that is good with his anger.

For a moment, pity settles in my gut.

Finn is doing this because he is angry. He is not evil. Or, at least, he was not.

If the things he showed me were true, and I believe they are because I know Eldrion, and I know what he is capable of, then does he not have a right to be angry?

He is doing this because he wants to free his people.

A flicker of hope ignites in my chest. If that's true, perhaps there is a way to get through to him. Perhaps I can make him see this is not the way. That he doesn't have to hurt anyone else.

I glance at Eldrion as I overtake him.

If we can reach the camp before Finn, and I can talk to him, look him in the eyes, make him remember who he is, then maybe... just maybe... I can stop my vision from becoming a reality.

Maybe I can save us all.

The horse is picking up speed when, suddenly, she whinnies and stumbles. She slows down, quickly, almost throwing me over her neck because I wasn't prepared for the sudden change in motion.

"Whoaaaa." I try to soothe her, but then I realise why she has stopped. "Maura?"

Standing in front of us, arms wide, Maura stares at me with steely eyes.

My heart races so fast I feel it might rip a hole in my chest. "What's happened? Where are the others?"

She lowers her arms, resting her hands on her hips as Eldrion comes to a stop beside me. She doesn't even look at him. "I have no idea what happened. I left the camp to try and stop you from doing something stupid." She looks up at me, disgust swimming in her eyes. "But it seems I was too late. Your stupidity began months ago. When you decided to trust a Shadowkind jester more than you trusted your own kin."

"Alana, don't react," Briony whispers. "She's trying to get you to?—"

"And why would I trust you?" Indignation flares quickly in my chest as I stare down at the elder fae, but it is laced with hurt. The hurt I've felt over and over and over again since I was a child. Because, no matter what I do, I am never enough. "You have done nothing but?—"

"We do not have time for this." Eldrion extends a hand to Maura, moving his horse towards her. "Are you coming with us or are we leaving you here? I do not care which option you choose."

Her eyes flash. She hates him. A deep, fiery hatred. But she takes his hand, flicks her wings, and jumps up onto the back of his horse. She does not hold on to him, even though she looks frail enough to topple over if the horse moves too quickly. Instead, she uses her wings to help her balance.

Eldrion doesn't say another word. He simply grunts, and continues towards the forest.