A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 29

I woke to the thud of feet upon the ground. The sound tore me from my light slumber, unnerving me. Sitting up, mind heavy and body grasped in panic, I combed the dark woods for what could have caused it. That was when I felt intense eyes upon me, a trail of discomforting prickles spreading across my face.

A figure peeled itself away from the dark outline of trees ahead of me. I scorned myself for falling asleep in the first place.

“Duncan?” I called, ice already spreading beneath my palms across the moss-covered floor.

“In such a short period of time you already have another man’s name filling your mouth,” the shadow-figure replied, voice gruff as though he spoke through blunt knives embedded within his throat. “What has he got that I cannot give you, little bird?”

It wasn’t Duncan who spoke.

Before the man stepped into the faded, silver moonlight, I threw my hands forward, commanding the ice to follow. It crackled, a wave of deep, ominous blue as it tore across the ground towards him.

Towards Erix.

He did the impossible, pouncing into the air as though he weighed no more than a feather. Two strange-shaped limbs exploded from either side of him, keeping him afloat for a moment, before gently falling back to the ground on light toes.

“Can we not just talk?”

My magic retracted as my mind made sense of what I saw. Perhaps this was a bad dream, the impossible blend of reality and fiction. “You died.”

“No,” Erix replied. “I did not – unfortunately.”

I couldn’t believe it. This had to be a nightmare, except one haunting the waking hours. Relief and fear blended into one within me, so seamlessly that I couldn’t discern one from the other.

“Step into the light,” I commanded, slowly pushing myself to standing for a better view. “Let me see you.”

“It is best I stay here,” he snapped, voice sounding as though three people spoke at once. Erix took a breath, those strange limbs flexing back down to his sides as they folded in on him. “I want to know something first, before you see me.”

“You’re in no position to be asking questions.”

“Please, little bird–”

“Don’t call me that.”

I studied to the outline of Erix’s hands as he flexed them at his sides. His fingers seemed longer – sharper. I blinked, wishing the vision was wrong.

“Do you remember when you told me what you fear the most? How is it you can stay alone, in the dark, with your Hunter so far away? There would have been a time when you could not have slept without a candle being lit by your side. Now look at you.”

A chill wind danced between my hands, tugging my dark hair away from my face and wrapping around me protectively; magic spilled from my skin. “I’ve learned that monsters are not unique to dark places, but all places. Why would I fear the dark when what is revealed in the light is far more frightening?”

“Is that so?” Erix said, voice rough as stone against stone.

“Step into the light and let me prove it.” I had to see him, to know what caused his body’s outline to be different, his voice to sharpen and mutate. Whatever stood in the shadows before me was not Erix, at least not the one I had known.

“I am in need of something from you.”

“Then you’re sorely mistaken,” I shouted. “Your needs are not important anymore. Everything you do is for Doran. I will be the first to remind you of that.”

“Listen to me, little bird ,” he snapped, a guttural growl of frustration building within him. “Please.”

“My name is Robin!” I stormed across the ground, closing the space between us as my cold wind spread its freezing embrace around me. A prickle of tears stung my eyes, from both sadness and desperation. “Even that name shouldn’t dare cross your lips after what you have done to me.”

His response stopped me dead in my tracks. “I know.”

I gained closer. Erix stepped back, his pleading becoming frantic. He raised his hands before him, as if that could keep me away. “ Please , just wait.”

I was steps away from seeing the truth that hid in the shadows. This close I could see torn bits of material flapping as my cold winds reached him. Whatever Erix wore was ripped, hanging off his frame in tatters.

“Who do I speak with?” I asked, breathing laboured.

“Me. I’m… fighting it – fighting him.”

His words didn’t make sense.

“Doran, go on, Erix, tell me what he wants you to do with me.”

“I feel nothing but agony,” Erix replied, voice tortured with sadness. “Yes, I can sense my father, but his voice is quieter than it has been before. A whisper that is easier to ignore at most times. These moments don’t last long, so please, I beg that you hear me out before you do what it is you require.”

I shouldn’t have believed him. Now was the time to act and deal with Erix as I first believed I had. But that small kindling of hope that the person before me was in fact the Erix I had known made me hesitate.

“You are expecting me to believe that he does not command you now?” I asked, nails cutting half-moons into my palms. “I find it hard to see the benefit in letting you roam freely.”

Erix’s outline shifted. He raised a contorted hand and pressed it to the side of his face. “I’m changing. I have changed.”

“Step forward, Erix. I won’t ask again.”

This time Erix did, slowly moving from the shadows of the forest until he was bathed in the silvered light of the moon.

My breathing faltered. Gasping, I tried to claw back some air which the horror before me had stolen.

Erix had indeed changed. His limbs were longer, fingers ending in sharp, bloodied points. His skin no longer held the colour of life but was washed out and grey like a corpse. Wings hung limp at his sides, one larger than the other by a noticeable amount. As his outline had suggested, his clothes hung from him in tatters, as though the impossible growth had overwhelmed him in such quick and surprising power. But it was his face that shocked me most, hardly a whisper of what it had been before. Cheekbones stood out, pushing through skin to the point of breaking. His mouth was full of jagged teeth, overlapping lips I had known as well as my own.

And his eyes, once as silver as the blade he carried proudly, far brighter than any jewel those with coin could afford, were no more. Pits of pure darkness surrounded by some softness, as though there was some humanity left amongst his monstrous appearance.

As I studied him something clicked within my mind. A truth of what stood before me.

Not Erix. Not a berserker.

“Gryvern,” I spluttered, voice faint beneath the rushing winter winds. Seeing the truth before me pieced together the horrifying puzzle that had presented itself days ago.

“Yes, Robin. Gryvern.”

“That’s what happens to Doran’s children, isn’t it? Why he can control the creatures to do as he wishes? Because they are simply his children doing anything to please their sire.”

Erix bowed his head in confirmation, wings twitching irritably. “Metamorphosis, from one monster to another. The Berserker was a name given to the creatures by Doran’s court. The name he gave them was gryvern.”

It made sense, more than anything else in that moment. The gryvern I’d killed outside of Ayvbury, some had the small points of half-human ears and others the points of the full-bloodied fey. They were Doran’s creations, what happened when a berserker followed the silent control of their sire and mutated.

“I can’t believe this,” I muttered, taking steps back.

Couldn’t believe that he was alive, that he was really the monster he’d once protected me from.

“My father is a man with greedy tastes. And look where it led him. Now you can understand why Tarron was so precious to him. The perfect boy – not afflicted by this disease that Doran passed to the rest of his offspring because of his mother. Elinor Oakstorm… healed him. That was her power. The rest of Doran’s offspring were not so fortunate, but why would he stop? The more his seed spread, the further his control would. Humans, fey, it does not matter to him.”

“Why are you telling me this?” My chest ached as I looked upon him; all hope for the Erix I had wished to return was gone. Although his mind, right now, seemed his own, his body was not. Erix stood on the precipice, looking into the abyss at the pending monster he was going to become.

“So you know all you need to finish him,” he said.

The winds picked up as I willed them, air thick with frozen ice that made each breath hard and full of prickling discomfort.

Erix lifted hands, pointed nails clawing at the air between us as if he longed to reach for me. “I understand I am not in the best of positions of putting forward requests to you. Not after wha – what I have done. But there is something I feel you deserve as much as what I need.”

I stood, unblinking, as I waited for Erix to reveal what caused him such torment. “Nothing you can do or say would relieve the pain you have already caused me.”

Erix looked up at me with those dark eyes filled with desperation. I searched them for some spark of silver, something to tell me that it truly was him, free from Doran’s control, speaking with me.

“I want you to kill me, to finish the job you started.” Erix shattered my reality with his request. “Save me from being used by him. These moments of peace, moments of reprieve from Doran’s control will not last long, and even now I can sense him trying to claw back into my mind. I don’t want more blood on my hands, blood I am not aware I am spilling.”

Erix begged, talon-like fingers clasping one another in a signal of prayer. I could sense his legs quivering as though he was moments from falling to his knees. And I shared in that moment of weakness, my own body numbing as his request settled over me.

“Don’t ask that of me, Erix.” Hot tears stung my eyes; my magic retreating like a scorned dog. “How dare you come here and say such things. Do you think you’re in any position to ask me even the simplest request, let alone that?”

Erix took a single step forward, and I retreated two. I could see the discomfort my repulsion caused him. “Little bird…”

“Stay away from me, Erix,” I shouted, cringing as my voice echoed between us.

“You are disgusted by me. Yet I remember not long ago when you would look at me how you do the Hunter. You have no problem doing as he desires when he asks.”

I scowled, forehead pinching into countless lines. “You’ve been watching us.”

It was not a question, but a statement, one he didn’t deny.

“Not by choice.”

A sour taste filled my mouth. I hardly cared to know what Erix had seen and what he had not because the idea of him watching no matter the action churned my stomach. “Regardless of who controls you, I look into your eyes and see the man who took my… my father from me.”

“Hate me then,” he replied, voice low. “In fact, punish me. Kill me. I deserve it, you know I do. Robin, you have to.”

He tried to trick me into a corner, force me to feel anger for him to ensure that his command for me would be complete.

But I couldn’t do it.

“Gone are the days I’m manipulated by puppets of tormented men. No matter what you become, no matter what you do, what you are, I will not be made to take a life. Especially not yours. That, Erix Oakstorm, is your punishment.”

He staggered back as the slamming of his full true name crashed over him.

Erix dropped to his knees, hands pawing at the ground as he wailed. “I would never have done it by choice. You do not understand what it is like having the mind of Doran within your own. I watch, from a dark room, as he manipulates my body to cause you pain. I would never have done that out of choice. You must believe me.”

His wings jolted at his sides, moonlight washing out the little colour of life he had from his greying skin.

“I do believe you, but my answer stays the same.” I choked back a sob, trying to control my emotions was harder than my magic. “You left me that night. If you hadn’t, then perhaps we wouldn’t be in this place discussing such matters. I hate you for what you have been made to do, but you are right. I can’t kill you – I won’t.”

“But you must.” Erix bellowed. “If you leave me, I will become a gryvern. That fate is worse than anything.”

“I will save you,” I said, chest aching. “I’m going to save everyone from Doran’s poison.”

I longed for nothing more than to flee, turn my back on the creature before me and forget him forever. In truth, I felt the memory of Erix slipping as this new version of himself stood before me.

“If you do not end this then Doran will gain his eternal control and you know what will become of me. I will be used to hunt you down until you are forced to take my life. Save yourself the time. Please, do it. For yourself if not for me.”

“Get up!” The cry tore out of me. If my hands were not shaking so violently, I would have gripped my chest as a twisting agony filled it. “Turn your back and leave me.”

“I promised I would never leave you.” His reply was as urgent as my own words.

“You broke that promise many days ago and there is nothing that will fix it again. Go. Don’t come back searching for death because you will not find it from me.”

A deep growl rumbled from the pits of Erix’s mutated body. He threw his head back, wings spreading wide when an inhuman scream of pure brokenness tore from his throat. His boiling desperation devoured the night; the sound was so haunting, it ripped at my skin, making the very night shiver in response as though it recoiled from him.

I’d never forget it.

I stood there, body trembling and rooted to the spot as I listened to his endless cry. I spoke only when Erix finally caved in on himself, forehead pressed to the ground, silent and exhausted. “I’m sorry I cannot offer you the relief you desire. I’m sorry this ended the way it did. And more than anything, I’m sorry I gave up on you.”

My teeth ground together in response to the tearing sound of clawed hands scratching through the dirt. Erix’s back heaved, as though his laboured breaths did nothing to satisfy his body.

“Then this is where it ends for us,” he finally spoke, voice rough as jagged stone. When he looked up, dark, muddy tears coursed down his gaunt cheeks. They dripped to the frost-tainted ground and hissed. He winced as though his entire being was gripped in physical agony. “You are right, little bird, I do not deserve your aid. Not after what I have done to you. But know, from this day forward, my actions are not mine and will never be. As I leave you, I need you to know that the person you have known is no more. Never forget how sorry I am. Because even when this monster takes over, I will not allow myself to forget. I could never forget you, but I do wish for you to forget me.”

I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. No matter with how much pity and discomfort I looked upon Erix, I cried with grief, feeling as though yet another person had been taken from me. Killed. By Doran all the same; even if Erix’s heart still beat as he left me, it was no longer to the tune of his own soul.

“Do not remember me as the man who tore your life in two, but the person who would have given his life to see you thrive.”

Words failed me as my chest was racked with deep sobs. I could hardly catch a breath as I watched Erix stand, his dark tears drying upon his ashen skin. He held my gaze, blinked, and for a moment I saw the warmth of his golden eyes as though they shone through the shadows of Doran’s hate.

“Thank you,” I called as he turned from me. He paused, face still to the side for me to see the stretched points of his ears flicker in recognition of my voice. “Thank you for holding my hand whilst I discovered myself.”

It was the least I could say to him.

Erix smiled, serrated teeth flashing in his brief grin. It was disturbing and beautiful.

I waited for him to reply, but instead Erix turned his back on me again, and walked away. His stretched leather wings dragging across the ground behind him. And with each step he took, I knew that I would never see even a flicker of the Erix I’d known again.

Standing alone in the clearing of the forest, night bathing the world in shadows, I remembered why I had travelled such a way from Wychwood. All concern or doubt about my end goal evaporated.

Killing Doran was a necessity, one I desired more than anything after learning several ugly truths. He’d die slowly for what he’d done. It was time to make him pay for his latest sin.

For the destruction of the man I cared so much for, for using the best part of my new life as a weapon against me.

For Erix.