A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 41

“Elinor,” I said softly, unable to stand the torturous silence a moment longer. I’d clambered across the narrow boat and took a seat by her side. There was nothing comfortable about the journey, not with the pool of saltwater in the belly of the boat, soaking through our clothes and injecting the cold deep into our skin. My stomach thrashed with the continuous rocking, and it took all my restraint not to lean overboard and vomit.

“I’m here if you need to speak about what has happened. If not, we can sit here in silence if that helps,” I murmured to Elinor. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

The sky was stained with blush pinks and oranges. Our boat raced towards dawn, Duncan and Kayne pumping the oars through the ocean’s surface with a furious desperation to put as much distance as possible between Lockinge and us.

No one had uttered much of a word since Elinor was pulled into the boat all those hours ago, other than Seraphine who had answered Duncan’s question about our destination with a short, “Anywhere but here.”

Elinor looked away from the expanse of blue, where the brightening sky touched the ocean’s edge at such a distance it was unclear where one started and the other ended. She was pale, azure eyes heavy, framed with shadows and skin pulled taut. In the blush hues of dawn, it was impossible to ignore the look of pure, draining exhaustion that aged her tremendously.

“It had to be done. Doran’s death has played over in my mind for many years and if it had not happened then you would not have gotten away from him,” Elinor muttered, lips cracked and sore. “But the feeling that is left within me is not one I expected. The relief I thought I would feel has not yet reached me. I keep waiting for it, but that place within me is still as empty as it was before I did it.”

“I should have been the one to do it,” I replied, guilt curling within me. “You have suffered enough.”

“There is little point in dwelling on what could have been. I have learned that lesson the hard way.”

Elinor had spent years punishing herself with the ideas of what if. What if she had never left the Oakstorm Court? What if it had been later? By a day, a week. Would she not have ended up in Aldrick’s ownership if she had just delayed her action?

“What does it mean for the Oakstorm Court?” I asked. Tarron was dead, Doran following swiftly to whatever hellscape claimed their kind.

“Oakstorm is still my home. By marriage, it belongs to me, unless others wish to petition against it, I am its queen by law.”

“And do you want it?” I asked. “To be the Queen of a Court you longed to run from?”

She smiled, a small fluttering tug of her lips. “I believe I do. Oakstorm is mine, even though it was poisoned when Doran claimed me for his own. I never believed a time would come that his presence was no longer a threat in my life. My actions pain me, but knowing he cannot harm another is the promise I have given to the world. Doran hurt far too many people. One life for the rest is justified, I believe that.”

Her hand grasped mine where it lay upon my knee. Elinor’s fingers were strong, no more than bones and rough skin, but they were not weak, not as she squeezed and held on tight.

“You are finally free,” I said, tongue catching the taste of dried salt across my lips. “From Lockinge – from Doran. The path ahead of you is yours to take, to decide which direction you wish to go in.”

“But not from Aldrick,” Duncan’s deep voice sounded from behind us. “This is merely the beginning of something terrible, I know it.”

Seraphine cleared her throat, lowering her feet from the edge of the boat. Unlike Kayne and Duncan, she had done little but study the far-off shoreline that we rowed beside. “You are not wrong, Hunter.”

“Please,” Duncan gasped as though a bolt struck his chest. “Don’t call me that.”

Elinor nodded simply in agreement.

Kayne’s voice rose from the side of the boat, his gaze fixed on the Asp at the helm “How long have you infiltrated the Hand’s ranks? You must have seen what was coming. And yet you did not stab a knife through his back and stop this all from happening when you had the chance.”

“There has been many a chance for me to kill Aldrick, but never has a price been put upon his head. The Children of the Asp have a code,” Seraphine explained. “A conduct we follow that stops us from taking life into our hands and snuffing it out when we want to or not. Until a bounty is put out, we do not act. We watch. We wait. We learn.”

“None of this needed to happen if you broke your fucking rules and killed the old fool long ago,” Duncan said, spitting each word.

Seraphine huffed, part laugh and part refusal to truly take in Duncan’s anger. “Up until recently, the Hand has not been much of a threat. Yes, I have heard him whisper of Duwar, as we all have. But seeing the creature within the reflection tonight is the first time I truly believed what he has been saying is real.”

“And what of the fey that have been captured? All those innocents being kept and bled like cattle?” I said, jaw tense from gritting my teeth. “Did you not believe that was wrong enough to intervene? I have met your kind before and am aware of the conscience you lack. Knowing that you have simply watched–”

“I am the wrong person to question,” Seraphine sneered, cheeks flushing with colour. “My sister and I have not simply stood by and watched. Aldrick is a powerful fey as you each have witnessed. He can enter minds, read them and bend the person to his will. We had to comply, poisoning ourselves with Mariflora to keep our minds our own. If Aldrick had even caught the scent of mine and my sister’s origin, then we would not have gleaned the information we have. You would not be here, with me, sailing far from the very man we speak of. And my sister…” She choked on her words for a moment, clearly struggling with keeping her voice level. “My sister is dead because of our cause. Do not think for a moment you are the only ones who have lost something this night.”

I blinked and saw the lifeless body of Seraphine’s sister.

“What you know, what you have seen, would be imperative to bringing Aldrick down before that thing is released into the world.” All eyes snapped to Elinor as she spoke. “I know of your guild and understand that you act if the price is high enough. Is that what you have been waiting for? The right bid for the information you’ve obtained?”

Seraphine leaned forward, two elbows resting upon her knees as her hands held her face up. “For half a coin I would spill my soul if it meant stopping what Aldrick has planned to achieve. Before, our involvement was business, now it is personal.”

Just a glance at Kayne and I could still see that he wrestled with the truth he’d uncovered tonight. Like Duncan, Kayne had given his life to the promise of Duwar. For him to learn that his god was in fact a demon that had been locked away for a reason must have been tearing him to pieces.

“What next then?” I asked. The question was not for any sole person, and each in our small, strange company would likely have answered it differently.

While I waited for someone to speak up, I thought about what I wanted to come next. There was nothing more in this world that I wished for than to crawl into Duncan’s arms and feel his body against mine, to let my mind release my worries and think only of him. His touch. His distraction.

“We could keep rowing,” Kayne spoke finally, eyes lost to something unimportant on the floor of the boat. “Stop when this realm and the responsibilities within it are long forgotten.”

Seraphine replied, knocking the tracker’s knee with her fist. “Trust me, there are realms beyond this that are far more terrifying than the darkest corners of your deepest secrets. My sponsor has requested Robin’s return, alive and well. After I complete this task of returning you then we can contemplate what comes next.”

“Sleep,” Elinor added, forcing a smile. “In a feather-stuffed bed so large that I could not reach the edges if I wished.”

“And a hard drink,” Kayne listed quickly, looking to Duncan who patted him upon his shoulder in a form of silent communication between them.

“Peace and time,” I added, speaking the first things that came to me. And a plan, to free the fey in the Below. I wouldn’t give up on them like the realms had.

“Two things, Robin? How greedy,” Seraphine said, brow peaked in jest. “And what about you, Hunter? Do you wish to be normal again? Because I am afraid that I have seen others who Aldrick had changed and there is no coming back.”

Her comment brought down the mood instantly. Duncan raised a finger to the iron cuff around his neck and tugged down on it.

“No,” Duncan said finally. “What comes next is revenge. Only when Aldrick is killed will I sleep soundly, or even enjoy a drink and live in a state of peace. Until the threat has been dealt with, those luxuries will be yours to claim.”

Duncan was right, there was work to do. Every moment of every day counted towards stopping Aldrick, and wasting time allowed him to create his army of powered humans.

I’d glimpsed a god, something I would’ve believed impossible before that fateful night when I was sold off to Hunters. Before now the Gods were nothing than names in stories. Now, I had come to quickly realise they were real, and that was frightening.

“Pick up your oars,” Seraphine said suddenly, standing up and looking out towards the stretch of sands that we had drifted closer to. She had seen something. We all looked, following her stare, to the patch of flat landscape and the smudge of dark outlines standing upon it.

People, standing in the distance, waiting for us.

My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.

“About time,” Seraphine said, jumping into action. “Come on, both of you. Row. It is time we get out of these waters. I have always hated it out here.”

Kayne sprang into action, but Duncan held back. I could see his distrust. “If you want my help reaching the land then you will tell us who is expecting us. Or I push you overboard and leave you to the creatures that dwell in the dark beneath us.”

Seraphine scowled, both hands resting upon her hips as she broadened out her stance. “Put emotion into your threats and it might make it more believable next time.”

I ignored their argument, no matter how relevant it was. Raising a hand to my brow, it was easier to see. There was a handful of people, four, maybe five, standing among sand dunes, watching us as we watched them.

“We haven’t got time for this, Hunter .”

“Duncan,” he snapped. “That’s my name, use it, give it a try. Although Robin will tell you, it’s a mouth full.”

One of the figures broke from the group in the distance. I watched as they ran towards the shoreline, arms waving above their head.

“Give me your fucking oar,” Seraphine snarled, throwing herself across the boat at Duncan. “I will do it myself.”

“Stop this,” Elinor scolded, her tone motherly and harsh. “Enough, all of you, before–”

I didn’t hear the rest, not as the breeze carried a sound towards me. At first, I thought it was just the whistle of the wind as it skipped across the choppy waters. Then it grew clearer.

“ Robin .”

“Quiet,” I said.

I heard it again, although barely, beneath the arguing in the boat. “ Robin .”

“Shut up,” I snapped, this time louder.

“ Robin !”

The boat and its occupants silenced. Seraphine and Duncan had stopped their argument, and I could see them both in my peripheral vision as they looked towards me. But I paid them no mind, not as the figure in the distance stopped waving arms and instead unleashed an explosion of bright ruby flames into the sky from her hands. Tongues of fire turned to clouds of dark-grey smoke that billowed far into the cloudless expanse.

Tears of relief filled my eyes. As sure as I knew my own self, I knew who waited for us upon the shore. Seraphine’s sponsor. The person who had placed the bounty for my return with the Children of the Asp.

Althea Cedarfall.