YARIS

I have not said more than fifty words to Bandit. I am always aware of where she is and what she is doing, but I have no idea what to say to her. She is definitely my sister and reminds me of my mother, who was tolerable on her good days. I see my mother in the way she holds herself, the quiet lilt of her voice, the sharpness of her eyes, and the slight height of her frame. It is very strange, and I am still processing how horrible things must have been on her. In comparison, I have had it easy. I want to know how she got away from my father, how she survived him, how she has managed to stay hidden this entire time and how, after two thousand years, she still seems to be perky and wanting to move everything forward.

I wish I thought like that. I… do not see a happy future. Not for me, at least. But maybe… just maybe, I will have Ruin. Perhaps Shatterjaw and Magnum.

I just do not know. Her very presence is disrupting. I can see her subtly interacting with the spirits around us, most of which are hostile towards me, but kind to her. Her charisma must be incredible. It is something all Fae can do, the very root of our magic, and if you cannot persuade spirits to work for you, you die.

At least, that is what they taught me in lessons I learned, even though it felt wrong, like I was lording myself over unwilling beings. I do not use it unless it is strictly necessary because I do not want any reminders of… well, anything having to do with Fae. My face is enough to depress me.

Ruin is sleeping on me, his arms tight around my waist, as my horse makes her way through the forest cautiously. It has become more dangerous with more toxic plants and sharp drops and snakes and lizards in the brush. We have been going for a few hours now, but we have not gotten very far. Bandit leads us on some path known to her and unknown to us. The sun curves in the sky, showing us it to be a little after eleven in the morning and we will be stopping for lunch soon.

Ever since the conversation about the pillars yesterday, my mind has been on my dead siblings. I thought for sure that they would have gone along with anything Bacchus, my father, said, but I see that was not the case. The case is somehow worse because they might have been kind, good souls. My current siblings are an utter disaster. Most are angry and abusive, a few are apathetic, and the rest hide. That was the case the last time I was at that abomination of a home. Maybe it has changed. But I was the only one with the courage to defy him.

Or so I thought.

Here is Bandit and she has a whole network of people working for her and against the Fae. She has succeeded where I have failed and that is typical of my family—everyone outshines me. I am a masterful warrior, a brilliant strategist, a sound Fidchell player, and my charisma was, at one time, better than everyone else's. But all of that is short lived and pales in comparison to anyone else at court.

I simply am made to make trouble and do not have the time to invest in myself.

Or so I say.

"Yares?"

I cannot stop the chill that goes through me. I have not heard my name in Fae in a very, very long time. I have not heard Fae spoken in that same time and have not spoken it myself. It is a beautiful language that dances on my tongue, full of rolling vowels and soft ‘r's, but it is sour in my mouth and heavy on my ears. I have heard so many foul things said in that language that were directed at me, at others, at the world and the sky and the ocean that I cannot abide it anymore. It has rotted in my mouth.

I snap around and look at Bandit, who is beside me now, watching me carefully, her eyes guileless. Well, at least she did not say my nickname, but… I wonder if she would know it anyway.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I just want to talk."

"About what?" I say curtly, refusing to speak that offensive tongue.

She glances at the others.

"About your magic," she finally says. "I'm sorry. I don't get the opportunity to speak Fae very often. I thought you might not mind."

I twitch.

"I hate speaking it," I say bluntly and, in fact, rather rudely too.

"Ah," she nods, and I feel Shatterjaw's eyes on me. It is… uncomfortable. "Well, if you are comfortable speaking about it in mixed company, that's fine."

I flush. I do not know what she means by ‘mixed company' and now Magnum is scowling alongside a stony Shatterjaw. That was rudely put on her part.

I glare at her.

"‘Mixed company'? You mean the demon and the human?" I snap, my heckles raising.

She looks confused and shakes her head.

"No. Well. Yes. But not in that way…" She glances around, sensing danger as she well should. "I mean… do you want them to know the particulars of your magic or…?"

She means my charisma. People do not react well to that knowledge, and I hesitate because she may be right. Magnum is watching me curiously while Shatterjaw is openly scowling, obviously wondering what I am hiding. I am not… hiding exactly. It is more like a… strategic retreat. Charisma is a wonderful thing for the Fae, but the other races tend to view it differently than we do. They see it as a manipulation rather than just… the magic that it is .

"Very well," I say reluctantly, my native tongue stiff and disgusting in my mouth. I can even hear a subtle accent as I speak, which is new, but, then again, I have not said one word of Fae in centuries. "What do you want to know?"

She nods and offers a tentative smile.

"When we… had that almost battle, I noticed that your command of charisma wasn't… uh… what you would expect of a royal Fae. I've heard that yours is particularly potent, but what I saw was…" She weighs her words. "… lacking."

Which is a polite way of saying I was terrible at it.

I sigh softly.

"I know. I know it was desperate. It always fails me on some level. I am horrible at it by now. I only use it in emergencies."

She nods slowly.

"Why is that? In terms of raw power, you've got it."

I snort.

"Because I would rather die than do anything associated with any Fae ever. Fuck Bacchus. Fuck Hydrangea. Fuck the courts. Fuck the mages and fuck, oh, fuck those prickish scholars. May all their corpses poison the land and sink into the muck."

The harsh hate in my voice takes me aback. I do not know where all the resentment came from, but as I curse my parents and their courts, something in me unwinds, as if that is the way it is to be. It feels… good to bear my naked anger for her to see. Perhaps it will put her off or… something. But she does not look the least bit surprised and just nods in understanding, which surprises me instead.

"I understand. The Fae have harmed a lot of people and you in particular. Of course you don't want anything to do with them. But… do you think that, perhaps, there may be good parts of them, despite them having bad parts too?"

She says it as a gentle rebuke and I am startled by the thought, my jaw working itself open in wonder, over and over again. A fire starts in my belly, and I glare at her sharply.

"Do not be stupid," I snap angrily. "They do not have any redeeming qualities at all. They are greedy little bastards that destroy everything in their path, without regard to life or limb or anything else. Do not try to paint them as good in any sense of the word."

She smiles knowingly at me.

"Yares, I'm old enough to remember the Faelands. I know you don't. You were born here and that's fine, but perhaps you need to consider that we are a complex people. If we were all bad, wouldn't you be bad too? You are Fae, just as I am. There are more like us too. You shouldn't paint us all in the same stroke."

I scowl, furious with her, and am about to tear her a new one when Ruin shifts against me and jerks awake.

"Wha's wrong?" He slurs sleepily. "Yaris?"

He gentles my chest, rubbing soft circles on it, and I start to calm down, taking deep breaths. She just has no idea what she is talking about. She has not seen the court in a thousand years so surely, surely she is wrong.

"This conversation is over," I snap at her, and she shrugs, as if none of her words mattered, and that just makes the fire in me heat even more so I urge the horse forward and take the lead, blindly leading everyone. Ruin has sat up and I feel him shifting against me, obviously groggy and confused.

"Yaris," he says lowly. "What's wrong? Sweetheart?"

I take a few more calming breaths and huff, trying not to be dramatic and somehow failing.

"She… she said that maybe… the Fae are good. " I bemoan and Ruin laughs.

"Of course there are good Fae, you silly man," he says and squeezes a thigh. "I know because you're good, Yaris. And you had a whole ass rebellion, didn't you? Some good Fae must have helped."

My cheeks are hot with embarrassment, anger, and shame. I do not really know Bandit so it is one thing for her to say it, but then for Ruin to agree—my mate—then there must be some sort of… something to what she said.

Fuck.

"It… it is more complicated than that," I say briskly, and Ru in kisses a shoulder.

"I know, darling. It always is. It always is."

Hours later, I am still stewing when it comes time to settle in for the night. Ruin, very carefully, clears an area for us to set up camp, burning away the thick growth with a tender precision that I admire. Fire is such a volatile element that I almost expect him to burn too much, to let the flames consume whatever they want, but dragon riders must be something else because he commands fire as easily as Shatterjaw commands her blades or Magnum his void magic. It is fascinating to see and once an adequate area is cleared, Bandit mentions hunting to which Shatterjaw scowls and says that she will go with her since none of us trust her anyway and she should not be alone. Bandit is hardly deterred and smiles at the fierce woman.

"Lead the way," she says with that gentle lilt that would disarm anyone but the formidable captain. They disappear into the woods a moment later.

That leaves Ruin, Magnum, and I to set up camp. Ruin, of course, starts a fire and Magnum snorts as he takes out a tent.

"What?" Ruin asks, cocking his head. "You've been grinning all day today."

Magnum nods absently.

"I have," he says and winks at Ruin. "I'm… amused."

"What could possibly be funny?" Ruin asks, baffled.

Magnum waves him away.

"It's nothing. Nothing at all."

A few minutes later, everything is set up and we wait for the women to return. Magnum pulls out his dagger and starts to absently twirl it, as he does every night. It reflects the firelight, the brightest light in the dense forest. This far in, the canopy of trees is absolute, and we hardly see any stars, save for the biggest and brightest. They hardly make a dent on the black night around us, not like the bright fire Ruin has going. It smells of damp, pine, cedar, and oak, but there is a slight difference to the scents—like there is something repressing them, making them stale. The air is heavy and thick with trepidation and magic and if I think about it for too long, if I feel it in my chest and my heart, it is almost too much. Our voices do not really carry and, somehow, I feel boxed in, which is ridiculous. We are in a forest. You cannot be boxed in just because everything is thick as molasses… right?

"Do you think they'll be okay?" Ruin asks, frowning after the small trail the women made when they left.

"They are fine," I say dismissively and squirm when Ruin looks at me flatly. "What?"

"Your concern for your sister is overwhelming," Ruin says, rolling his eyes. "Have a heart."

"I do!" I object, perhaps too strongly. "I just… Fae are natural hunters. I would worry more about Shatterjaw."

Ruin snorts at that.

"Trust me, nothing can stop that woman."

"Oh, I'd believe it," Magnum says with a laugh. "She's quite the ball buster. I think old age would come to take her out and she'd sit up and say, ‘I'm busy, come back later.'"

Ruin laughs at that and nods his head, breaking into a smile.

"Oh, yeah. Definitely. A few years ago, there was an assassination attempt on me, which is stupid because I can squish people, but anyway, she took out six assassins after they had injured everyone else and then saved my ass all while dealing with broken ribs and a stab to the stomach." Ruin shakes his head fondly. "She is overwhelmingly good at everything she does."

Magnum cocks his head.

"Are you sure she's not magic?"

"She's not. I've checked. Many times," Ruin says with a nod. "She's just extraordinary."

Magnum nods sagely.

"I can respect that. She does give off an incredible ‘fuck off' aura that's only acquired from years of being a badass. "

Ruin laughs and nods.

"Honestly, if I'm even half as badass as her, we have this shit in the bag, yeah?"

I snort and kiss his cheek impulsively.

"I think you are both badasses, darling," I say and nudge him gently while he rolls his eyes.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

I chuckle and shake my head.

"You know, if you weren't an absolute badass, Forbearance and Virtue wouldn't have wanted to meet you," Magnum offers thoughtfully, his dagger speeding up in its flips. "They only asked for an audience with you and your little group and one other person in the 200 years that I guarded them."

Ruin snuggles into my side and looks at Magnum curiously.

"Who was the other person?"

Magnum looks uncharacteristically serious and shakes his head.

"I can't say. Sorry. It's private."

I find that rather odd and it looks like Ruin does too, but he does not pursue it and just nods instead.

Shatterjaw and Bandit appear a few minutes later with rabbits. Bandit is smiling about something and Shatterjaw is… Shatterjaw. She sits down by the fire to gut and skin everything while Magnum gets the grill and sets it up. He starts pulling out spices and I watch Shatterjaw with a measure of fascination. She is very good at preparing the rabbits, but she is doing it in a much more efficient way than I have ever seen. It is like she refuses to waste any part of the creatures. I do not know why I did not notice it before, but I am noticing it now.

"I can feel you watching me, Yaris," she says dryly as Magnum and Ruin discuss magic theory and Bandit sits off to the side, watching the tree line.

"My apologies," I flush a little. "I just… have not seen it done that way before. "

Bandit shifts and I know she is listening to us.

Shatterjaw shrugs.

"It's how Galaens do it."

I sigh softly.

"I hope your people are safe," I say quietly. "I wish they had not been brought into this."

"We're never safe," Shatterjaw says with an easy shrug. "And we were already in the middle of things. The Sovereign knows what she's risking, doing, by helping us. I trust her judgment."

I have not thought much about the Ordeshian monarchy and the disaster that is likely happening due to the fact that I killed Prince Miguel. I do not feel any regret for it. The man was a menace and who knows what the country would have been like if he had become king. But now, thinking on it, I wonder what is going on. We do not have time to find out, but we are fairly safe with the glamours I have on everyone.

"Still. I have to wonder how many more people will suffer before this ends."

I am saying it more to myself than to her and she does not slow down her gutting.

"People already are suffering, Yaris," she points out. "And they will continue to suffer until the rightful owners of this world come back and fix our magic."

I sigh and nod.

"You are right."

"Don't get stuck on the details," she says, offering Magnum a clean rabbit. "It'll become too overwhelming very fast."

I admire that she can see things so clearly and put them so simply. She is a rather reserved person, but she has not been unfriendly. Not to me and especially after I killed Miguel. But I have noticed her being particularly icy towards Bandit and I am unsure why. And… it does not really matter because I am icy towards my sister as well .

"That is true," I say after a moment. "I will try not to overthink it."

Shatterjaw gives a rare smile. She looks amused.

"You? Overthinking? Never."

I chuckle and smile back at her.

"Never indeed."