14

Luc Zelsor and the Thing that Happened at the Park Four Hours Ago

The presence of Shadows coated everything in a thin layer of frost and fear. Luc fought a shudder from that all-too-familiar feeling. He'd been living in the luxury of freedom for too long. He'd briefly, blissfully forgotten what it was like to live in the darkness.

His father was a vision of destruction before him, cloaked in horrors from his lifetime of torture, chaos, and annihilation. A cruel fairy. A fairy who wanted nothing more than to rule over a cruel son.

Three days. Luc wondered how far he could run in three days. How much chaos and how many terrors he could cause in just three days. He wondered if he could slay this entire division in that time, before they came to collect the lives they planned to steal.

But, alas, his father was the one adversary he would not, could not face.

"Three days?" Luc mused anyway. "How unfortunate."

Prince Reval's robes fluttered in the cold wind beneath his armour. He said nothing more. His face was a detached, hollow shell. No longer a father. No longer an ally.

Ten Shadow Fairies marched around the High Prince, carrying with them a thin wristlet of branches with three white blossoms woven in. Luc swallowed as he considered what each of those blossoms meant. He raised a finger, halting the fairies before they could bind him to that fate.

"Let's make a bargain, Father," he tried. "If I bring you a report of all my findings in the human realm and fulfill my tasks like a dedicated scout should, perhaps we can just put this all behind us? I am your flesh and blood, after all. I am heir to the Dark throne. Has the Queene no compassion left for her beloved grandson?"

It pained Luc to remind his father of that. He hated the words "flesh and blood" and "heir" and "Dark throne." They were poison on his tongue. He would rather watch the aging Dark Queene be tossed into a damp pit of water beasts than admit she was his grandmother, but here he was. Doing it.

One of the Shadow Fairies at Luc's left cleared his throat, pulled out a scroll, and began to read. Reval did not take his piercing eyes off Luc.

"Luc Zelsor, you have been ex-communicated from the Shadow Army," the fairy began, and Luc's lips thinned. He shifted his footing, marking the best possible directions to run. "You have been black-marked as a traitor for fleeing your post, and you shall therefore be stripped of your position.Your remaining fox lives will be taken in three days' time. No longer shall you be referred to as a Shadow Prince—"

"We all know I was never a Shadow Prince," Luc muttered.

"—and no longer shall you have the Queene's favour. You shall die a shameful death by strokes of cold iron, and any fairies who attempt to aid you from here on in shall die at your side, equally as shamefully."

Luc smirked at that one. As if any fairy would care enough to do that.

When the Shadow Fairy was finished reading, he rolled the scroll and slid it away. Reval had not blinked since the moment he'd arrived. As soon as the announcement was finished, he turned his back on Luc.

It felt as though a stone sank through Luc's chest, crushing his heart flat. Its weight grew heavier as Reval disappeared into the swarm of Shadow Fairies. As he vanished into the air, leaving Luc to the division.

It took all Luc's might to force a broad smile across his face. He addressed the Shadows inching in, holding out the wristlet. "Fools," he said. "The Prince didn't even stay to help you get that on me." He nodded to the wristlet. "You're all going to die trying."

A loud ruckus erupted from the streetside. To Luc's surprise, Dog-Shayne came racing in, snarling and growling at the Army. Luc hid his laugh. "Good boy," he said as Dog-Shayne joined him at his side. The Shadows studied Dog-Shayne like they didn't know how to approach him.

"Dog-Shayne," Luc said, patting the mutt on the head. He lifted his hands and snapped his fingers. " Bite ."

Dog-Shayne growled and lunged, digging his fangs into the nearest fairy's leg—the one who held the wristlet. The fairy screamed and panicked, swatting at the mutt. Without thinking, he shoved the wristlet toward the dog, and the wood's magic wrapped around the dog's neck like a collar instead. Luc laughed as the Shadow Fairy seemed to realize what he had done.

Luc struck first. His knuckles broke through a fairy's jaw. He airslipped backward—just three feet and out of reach—any longer in the wind would have made the entire army take chase. He reached into his pocket, his smile widening as he pulled out a glistening ruby and slid it into his mouth. Perhaps a small part of him had missed this deliciously violent chaos.

Luc drew his fairsaber as a fairy charged. He thrust, his blade forming inside the fairy. He tore it back out and went for the next as Dog-Shayne bit into fae flesh left and right. A Shadow tried to stab the hound, but Luc was there, his fairsaber blocking the blade.

Luc and Dog-Shayne whipped through the Army like a gale, too distracted to notice a Shadow pull out a second wristlet. In seconds, dead division fairies covered the sidewalk, their bodies rolling onto the road. Luc stepped over them and Dog-Shayne trotted up the piles, barking at the top like the great conqueror he was.

Luc laughed horridly.

Just until he was grabbed from behind by three sets of hands and dragged to the ground, his fairsaber kicked aside.

That was where Luc stopped giving Dranian the memory.

The recollection fizzled away, bringing Luc and the North Fairy back into the apartment. The sound of coffee chugging through the machine in the kitchen filled Luc's ears, the smell of the neighbour's cooking tickled his nostrils. His mouth was dry; his throat felt thick.

Dranian didn't say a word, but his jaw remained hard. It seemed he didn't quite know what to ask as he opened his mouth and closed it again. The grumpiness and resentment had left his face the moment Reval Zelsor had appeared in the memory.

"You've been mistaken about something this whole time, North Fairy," Luc said, his voice raspy and quiet. "You believe yourself to be broken because of your arm. Because of your fits ." He twisted his mouth and dropped his gaze to the floor. "But I've analyzed thousands of fairies. I've made a study of brokenness, of inadequacies. And you see, a truly broken fairy… that looks a lot more like me."

Dranian drew back. Luc had learned the fairy wasn't one for speeches to begin with, but it bothered him more than usual now. Dranian looked like a startled reindeer.

Luc could have been humiliated by the wretched face-to-face experience with his father. There was no way the North Fairy hadn't recognized who Reval Zelsor was to Luc with his scarlet fox hair and deadly eyes that mimicked his own.

Dranian seemed to realize he was staring. He finally dropped his attention to Luc's arm as if wondering if the Shadow Fairies had succeeded in trapping him. His gaze fell upon the bracelet of branches with three fresh blossoms hugging tight to Luc's wrist. The truth appeared heavy as he took that in. He looked like he might make a comment about it. But instead, he asked, "Are you colour blind?"

A slow smile found Luc's face. "Mostly."

Dranian folded his arms. His natural scowl returned. "Why did Dog-Shayne attack those fairies? He's loyal to me, not you."

Luc looked toward the kitchen where the sounds of Dog-Shayne's panting could be heard. "He's loyal to me, too," he said. Then he pulled a shoulder into a shrug. "And I fed him an enchanted thistle."

Dranian's arms tightened around himself. "You fed him a thistle?!"

"Yes. He gagged a little trying to eat it, but he got it down. Truthfully, I just wanted to see if I could make him bite you whenever I snapped my fingers. I wasn't planning to make him fight, but now that he has—"

"You've doomed my dog," Dranian stated. "He's been bound to the stability of three delicate blossoms, and now the Shadows will track him with that wristlet and kill him in three days alongside you!"

Luc scratched the back of his head and looked at something on the wall that seemed particularly interesting.

"How shall I stop that Dark Prince from killing Dog-Shayne?" Dranian asked.

Luc cast him a weak smile. "My father cannot be stopped, unfortunately. If there was a way to do it, I would have figured it out by now," he said.

"That doesn't make sense," Dranian objected. "No fairy is invulnerable. That's the Brotherhood of Assassin training for beginners . Queensbane, what is your father holding over you that forbids you from killing him and being free?" He unfolded his arms.

Luc stared at the North Fairy for a moment. Roommates or not, Dranian Evelry was still the enemy. Most hours, Luc still thought about killing him. Even though Luc had allowed the fool to see the complicated mess of his relationship with his father, Dranian could not be trusted with Luc's deepest secret—and that was something Luc knew better than to forget. "I told you. It's a long story," he deflected.

Dranian growled a huff. "Well, I have my own fairy problems now. I have a scheming brother to hunt down, and I can't leave until I know Dog-Shayne is safe. So, you're going to tell me the long story so we can deal with this, and I can leave in peace."

Luc's lip curled into a snarl. "No," he said, "I'm not."

"Don't be unreasonable, Luc," Dranian threatened. "I'll save my dog, even if I have to interrogate the answers out of you. This is not a negotiation!"

Luc laughed, the swelling on his lips pulling with the motion. "Oh dear. You're on your own then, North Fairy," he said. "Though I would have loved to see a three-legged guard dog try to interrogate a fox."

To prove his decision, Luc vanished.

Cold wind rushed against him when he appeared on the rooftop of the apartment castle. He folded his arms, his forefinger tapping against his bicep.

He stood there all night, thinking. Staring at the blossom-adorned wristlet. His death sentence. Looking out into the vast sky that stretched further than even his sharp fairy eyes could see. He wondered what was beyond those buildings and hills and gusts of wind. He wondered if he would live to see it all.

He wondered just how fast his fairy magic could take him to a distant land where no one would know his face.