A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 34

I found Jesibel at the end of the pathway which led away from Elinor’s personal cage. She had waited for me, silently beckoning for me to follow her all without pressing questions of my conversation with the captured queen. I could see from the flickering of her gaze that she was interested in what we spoke of, but not once did she ask.

The pathway to Elinor wasn’t the only one within this cavern. Jesi guided me down another until it opened up intoa barren space that sang with dripping echoes. The walls of the cave were slick with water which dribbled and steadily flowed from unseen holes within the cave wall. Bundles of green moss spread like stains across the rocks. I even noticed the odd, small white flower that thrived in the darkness.

“Scrub yourself down, it will make you feel better.” Jesibel turned her back on me. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Thank you,” I replied, finding the words being all I could manage. After my conversation with Elinor, my mind was lost and frantic.

I didn’t waste another moment with tearing the clothes from my back and standing beneath the spring of water. It was so cold; it felt like a slap to the face, making my mind alert and my body sodden. It was displeasing for only a moment. After a while I simply stood there, letting the freezing stream envelop me like a welcoming hug.

I almost forgot about Jesi’s presence until she cleared her throat in an I-am-still-waiting kind of way.

Against my wishes, I stepped free of the spring and changed, body numb and limbs almost refusing to cooperate. My dirtied clothing had been discarded at some point, leaving me to dress in a set of mismatching clothes, a tunic and trousers that did nothing but hang off my body. Although I was thankful not to smell. Lifting my arm to my nose, I was greeted with the faint musk of age, and not dirt and blood.

After I changed, I shadowed Jesi, moving through the Below like a ghost. Deep in thought, I lost myself to the conversation I had with Elinor, my body acting of its own accord and carrying me every step of the way. Jesi allowed me the silence. It was clear she wished to break it, but I was thankful she didn’t.

“I should be thankful for something to eat, but this is disgusting,” I said, perched upon a stool beside Jesi. She had brought wooden bowls filled to the rim with a dark grey slosh of what could only be described as edible mud. I couldn’t even brave a spoonful, not as the waft of something terrible offended my nostrils when I brought the spoon to my mouth.

Jesi replied with a mouthful. “It does the job. We’re not exactly overwhelmed with choice in the Below. Trust me, in a matter of weeks you’ll salivate at the thought of this gruel.”

I could hardly watch as she stuffed another spoon into her mouth, teeth dragging the food from the utensil like a wolf ripping the skin off a lamb. Defeated, I dropped the spoon back into the bowl.

“Well,” she said, swallowing hard with furrowed brows of displeasure. “If you’re going to let it go to waste, then give it to me.”

I thrust the bowl into her hand and she snatched it greedily. As her sleeve shifted, I saw the puncture upon her arm again.

“Do you know why they’re taking fey blood?”

Jesi’s expression pinched, as though the memory was as painful as the mark on her arm looked. “There is a price to pay for staying here, no matter if it is out of our control or not. Blood. They take us, without warning, drain us until we are too weak to stand. Then we are brought back here. Sometimes the letting of blood can feel as though it is without gaps. Other times they leave you here until you start to believe they have forgotten about you. Then your name is called once again, and the cycle begins.”

“The Hand, he uses the blood to change his followers,” I said, remembering the human who had wandered into Farrador. He had displayed power that didn’t belong to him. I had yet to understand how the Hand could create such a thing but understood clearly that it came from fey blood. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But I expected more of them – more humans with access to magic.”

Which suggested whatever the Hand was doing didn’t work. Or that was what I hoped.

“Honestly, I don’t care.” Jesi’s response surprised me. “He could bleed me dry, and I would still find it impossible to locate a fuck to give him.”

“Why?” I looked to her, studying the way her brow twitched and she nibbled at the skin of her lower lip.

“I have nothing left to care for.” She shrugged, discarding the bowl by her feet, and sitting back until her head rested against the wall of the cave. “You will soon come to learn that no one is coming for us here. The ones who do only end up locked up behind the same bars. Just like you. It has been years since I was captured, shortly after Queen Julianna…” She trailed off, wincing slightly. “After your mother died and our Court was left unprotected. We had to flee, all of us. The Icethorn magic was left uncontrolled. It was destroying everything, ruining homes and tearing families apart. We thought it was safer to make for the other Courts, but some of use ventured too far South. Durmain was not welcoming. It made us easy pickings for the Hunters who seemed to wait patiently for us to step out of our protection. No one has come since. Not the Cedarfall Court, our closest allies. I don’t see them funding a rescue. We are forgotten. So why should I care for the Hand’s plans, when those his sights are focused on do not care for me?”

For a moment I wanted to disagree, but I soon realised Jesi was right. Not once had I heard of plans to save the fey taken by the Hunters, only the plans to avenge them. Perhaps it was because no one in Wychwood believed that they would still be living. Hell, even I had not thought of such a thing.

“They do care,” I replied weakly. “I know people who would raze every realm to find you if they believed there was a chance you still lived.”

I had seen Althea herself, Princess of the Cedarfall Court, lead parties of soldiers to infiltrate Hunter camps. First hand I had witnessed her fight for them.

“Then where are our saviours? I have lost count of the number of years I have been kept here. Some, like Elinor, have dwelled within this prison far longer. No one is coming, Robin. You may think they care, but they don’t. Every now and then a new bunch of prisoners will be brought here. They bring news of the outside world and with it, the lack of desire to rejoin it again. It would seem that we are safer in the Below than out in a world where the realms are on the cusp of war.”

I looked up towards the raised podium, wishing that the Twins had returned for me as they had promised. Watching and waiting stretched out time, but as it went on, I began to believe they would never return for me. I was stuck, like Jesi and Elinor and the hundreds of other fey.

“Jesi, believe me or not, I promise to get you out of here.”

Jesi laughed. It was a painful, horrible sound that did not reflect happiness or joy, but disbelief and irritation. “Many have said and promised the same. And if you look around you, I could point them out even now. They may have forgotten, but I haven’t. I won’t. Because the day I forget is the day I wish to perish entirely.”

I felt a sense of responsibility for Jesi, knowing her life was displaced due to the chaos that followed my mother’s death. When the Icethorn Court fell, so did the lives and homes of many people. Jesi, in that moment, represented them all.

There was a strange atmosphere that had followed my meeting with Elinor. I had noticed the shift in attention as soon as we had returned from the springs. From when I arrived, no more visible than a phantom, now it seemed that everyone within this cave saw me. Jesi didn’t show signs of noticing or caring, but I felt the tension as crowds of fey huddled together in whispers.

It all came to a head when a group broke apart and walked over towards where we sat. I first thought they would simply join in with our conversation until the lead fey, a bulky man with a wild beard and an equally eager gaze, clamped his hand down upon my shoulder.

Jesi was standing up in second, towering in comparison to the man, both bowls she had held protectively now spilled across the dirty ground. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

The man gestured towards me with a fist, seething from gapped teeth, “Word around is this one calls himself our king.”

I was also standing then, sensing his anger as though the emotion itself had barrelled into me. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, actually, there is,” he replied, knocking his fist into my chest so suddenly that it had me jolting back two steps.

Jesi was between me and the man, not a sense of care for the rock-hard fist that was now held before her face. “Return to whatever it was you were doing. Now is not the night for trouble, big boy.”

I felt myself redden as the entire cavern seemed to silence, listening in with tense and quiet interest. Looking towards the glinting of silver I noticed even the guards beneath the gates watched intently.

“You’re standing up for him ? Have you forgotten what happened to our homes when his family failed us? And now he wants to call himself a king whilst he has done nothing but fail us again.” He looked at me dead in the eyes. “I see no kings here.”

These men, like Jesi, were Icethorn fey. Unlike Jesibel they did not share the same midnight toned hair and moon-pale skin as I, but there was no doubt that they had come from my Court long before it was ever truly mine.

“Turn. Back,” Jesi warned, her stance preparing for more than a conversation. “It would be an awful shame if I was to embarrass you before all of your pathetic friends.”

The man chuckled, cracking his fist in his hand as though every bone sang with desire to connect with me. “Move out of our way, little girl, or you will–”

Jesi sprung forward, hand slashing out towards the lead assailant’s neck. It happened too fast to make sense of the blur of limbs. The fey man doubled over, eyes bulging as his hands instinctively grasped at his throat. Gasping, he then cocked his head back as a sickening crack sounded. Jesi attacked, not once but twice, all without allowing him to finish what he had to say. His neck was red from her first hit, but it was his nose which gushed with blood. It poured between his fingers, deep and scarlet, as he wailed like a cat whose tail had been stamped upon.

She moved like water around stone, dancing between the next two that jumped into the fight. It was over before it truly begun. Before I had a chance to react, three writhing bodies lay at my feet.

“Anyone else?” Jesibel cried, face red with fury. “Go on, give me a reason to break bones, you cowards.”

No one else stepped forward. Even the three who had greeted us with such aggression were now scuffling away, the lead man leaving a trail of his blood across the ground as he retreated.

I placed a hand upon Jesibel’s quivering shoulder. “Jesi, it’s over.”

She gave the crowd a final look, one full of warning, before she shrugged off my hand and took her seat once again. “They all forget their place. The podium of your status to ours may be levelled, but you are still an Icethorn. You are due respect, regardless of what they think.”

“Respect is earned,” I replied, still on edge by the attempted attack. “I appreciate you standing up for me, but I also understand why they see me the way they do. I’m nothing but a reminder of what was left behind and I’m here, not in the capacity they would’ve wished.”

Jesi rubbed her reddened knuckles, still physically seething from the reaction. “You are a reminder of home. Sometimes reminders are painful for some, and not for others. Your presence will have effect on those here in varying ways.”

“And how does my presence make you feel?” I questioned, catching her black eyes as though they reflected my own.

“It reminds me of–” Jesi’s voice ebbed back into silence, her stare being lost to an unimportant place on the floor between us.

I swallowed audibly, picking at the frayed material of the trousers I wore. “Of what?”

When she looked up, it was with bright eyes brimming with tears. “It reminds me of what was taken from me, and what I would do to get it back.”

The Twins returned as they promised they would, looking down upon the crowd of prisoners from their podium with blank and empty expressions. Their presence snatched the breath from my lungs.

“Robin Icethorn,” they called, silencing the crowd until I could’ve heard a pin drop upon the floor. “Step towards the gate and await your collection.”

Jesibel startled from her slumber. She’d fallen asleep a long while ago, but I didn’t have the heart to wake her. She gave me a look, one brimming with concern. We’d yet to discuss the matter of what occurred to the fey when they were collected for their payment of blood. I hadn’t asked because it wouldn’t happen to me. I was here for an audience with the Hand, confirmed by the Twins themselves. He would not require my blood. At least that was the lie I told myself over and over.

“Whatever you do, don’t fight back.” Jesi took my hand and squeezed. She was cold to the touch, a whisper of the Court she would have once lived among. There was so much I didn’t know about her but in the short time I’d spent with her, what I had gleaned was that I could trust her. She oozed conviction which made me warm up to her with ease. “The process of bloodletting is uncomfortable, but not utterly painful. It will be over before you know it.”

I forced a smile, hoping to keep my thoughts from creasing my expression. I hadn’t the heart to admit aloud that I wasn’t planning on returning here – not yet. I would speak with the Hand, petition for my release and the safety of Duncan. Then I would come, with support behind me, and free Jesi and all the fey around me.

At what price?

“Thank you for everything, Jesibel.”

“Sounds an awful lot like a goodbye,” she replied, winking with tired eyes. “Go quickly and good luck. I will see you soon.”

Luck. I needed more than that.

Jesi released me, crossing her arms before her, and watched me leave as though she was my guardian on my first day of freedom. Her entire being oozed with apprehension. As I left her, I buried a promise into my soul. If I was to succeed, I’d do everything to release the fey kept captive here. Jesibel, Elinor. All of them.

I walked towards the gates, chin raised high. The Kingsmen finally took keen notice of me from where they waited beyond the bars. The Twins watched too, not once taking their attention off me, their gaze prickling my skin. I looked up at them, holding their stare in competition.

It was a rehearsed process, I understood that as the imprisoned fey watched me as I passed, the ones closest to the exit of the prison rushed to put distance between it and them. I understood why when the gate screeched open, and the guards rushed in with unsheathed and sharp blades.

“Steady and slow,” the Kingsmen warned, urging me into a circle of them. Only when I had passed back out of the prison’s gate, and it closed securely behind us, were the swords put away.

It was all happening so quickly. Rough, gloved hands grasped my arms and moved me around as though I couldn’t do it for myself. I caught the flash of the metal leash that’d been removed from me upon my arrival, listening to the snap of the clasp as they promptly connected it back to the collar at my throat.

“I will not resist you,” I sneered, skin aching from their pinching and tugging. “There is no need to be–”

A cloth was held above my mouth and nose, silencing my appeal. The scent that followed stung at my nose, itching at my eyes. I tried to reach up and pull the hand away, but my arms didn’t seem to move. My mind grew heavy. Blinking, my vision doubled. The sounds around me seemed to stretch out as though I was disappearing further and further away from them. But in truth, I’d not moved an inch. Sluggishly, my eyes looked up towards the two figures of the Twins who still watched from their perch. Darkness crept in the corners of my vision. Still, they stood and watched.

The last thing I remembered were hands that caught me as my body gave up.

Then there was nothing but emptiness.