When the Woods Go Silent (Haret Chronicles: Dark Fae #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

K IER

Stepping off the rainbow Path that connects Haret and Earth, then entering the edges of the fae lands is a mix of the familiar relief that home brings, and the chafe of responsibility that follows close behind in a one-two punch to the gut.

Aralia is the still most enchanting place I’ve ever seen, seething with powerful magic that’s already buzzing through my blood like a drug. But being home represents everything that traps me here, my hands tied with the silk ropes of scheming noble fae and my patience pricked on all sides by threats of military action and all of the pandering advisers who constantly surround my brothers and me, tripping over each other to offer the best plan of action.

Being a prince is only fun in fairy tales, not in the real fae palace in a time of war.

My steps are unhurried as I cross the vibrant fields dotted with jewel-toned flowers and approach the palace - a vast network of multi-colored trunks and branches so dense they look like a single, massive tree from this distance. I take my time, soaking in Haret’s earth magic until my blood is saturated with it, roaring in my ears. Before I’m even under the canopy of shimmering leaves, though, I see the scowling shadow of my middle brother, waiting for me like a blotch of oil spilled on a magical canvas.

“Ronan,” I say when I get close enough, not sure if I’m more annoyed that he obviously knew I was coming, or more relieved that I might not have to enter the palace itself to give my report. With a little luck, I can be back on the Path and headed toward Clearwater without even needing to speak to Brigance.

“Brigance is worse,” Ronan says instead of greeting me, and my teeth clench. Brigance is the worst, and with every day that marches us closer to full-blown war with the gobbelins, he gets even more intolerable.

“And the magic?”

Ronan shakes his head, glaring. “The same. Unstable as fuck. The longer we go without a queen, the worse it’s going to get.”

As if I haven’t been told that ten thousand times. “I fucking know, but I’m not in the mood to be the sacrificial son. Maybe Brig should just choose one of the nobility and get it over with.”

Ronan doesn’t bother to answer. None of us wants to mate with an idiot noble fae who wouldn’t even be able to get the job done. We’ve discussed the options - lack of options - so many times that he shouldn’t even bother bringing it up. None of the nobility actually have the magical strength needed to stabilize Aralia’s magic, no matter how much they pander or promise.

Our bitch mother saw to that, killing off anyone who might possibly be a threat to her rule.

She thought she’d live forever, and I swallow down the smirk that always comes with thinking of how magnificently the Qilin Queen beat her in the end. Good fucking riddance.

“Well, since you came out to meet me, I’ll just give you my report and head back,” I tell Ronan, since he’s still glaring into the distance. He flicks his eyes at me, the best I’ll get as an invitation to speak. Ass. “Clearwater is the only place of activity now. Torrence’s clan killed at least two humans while I was there. Saw them burying the bodies, and the local humans are searching. The restaurant seems quiet, but I don’t think they’re being as careful as before. We’ll have to intervene soon, unless we want them to have a true advantage with all that human blood,” I warn, and he curses viciously. I know he has a soft spot for his half-brother, although he’d rather kill Torrence than admit it to Brigance or me.

I hold up a hand to cut him off. “There’s more. The woods around that town are waking up. They spoke to me, although their language is rusty. And there’s a dreamwalker in the area. I was tracking it when the trees intervened and led me to the dreamer. The forest spirits wanted me to protect her, Ronan. A human.”

“You’re sure she’s human?” Ronan asks, his blue-black eyes boring into me. He looks the least like our mother, and she hated him for it. He grew up fiercer because of it.

“I met her myself this morning. I didn’t test her blood, but there’s nothing magical to her scent.” I don’t say the rest out loud, that her scent is intoxicating, or that I met her nearly naked in the woods.

“I should go see for myself,” Ronan says, and a flare of jealousy heats my skull. I know he’s thinking of the changeling - angling to be the one who finds her first. I grab his arm, and he shoves me away.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it,” I growl, showing my teeth. Ronan backs off, chuckling.

“Are you, little brother? We both know you’d rather be on Earth with the humans than anywhere near your own people. For all I know, you could be working with the gobbelins to tilt the balance in this cursed war.”

I don’t take the bait. My brothers know I don’t have much of a soft spot for the fae, no matter what sort of magic runs through my veins. I haven’t met a good one in a long time, and I’d much rather stay far away from this place that expects so much of me. But I’d never betray my own people like that.

“If it’s a dreamwalker, I have more experience,” he says, dogged determination in the set of his mouth, and I hate that he’s right. Ronan has always hated dreamwalkers, hunts them as often as he can. “Go report to Brigance. I’ll wait, and we can hunt it together.”

I’m silent for a long moment, surprised by the offer. Ronan and I almost never hunt together anymore, but maybe it’s a rare peace offering. I nod, knowing I won’t win anyway. Telling him about the dreamwalker was necessary, but I guessed it might end this way. With a sigh, I head past him toward the treetop palace.

“And Julianna?” Ronan calls after me.

“I scented echoes of fae and gobbelin magic intertwined, but that could also be from Torrence,” I remind him. It’s nearly impossible to track someone I haven’t seen since I was a child, of course.

“She’ll visit him eventually, snooping around for the changeling, banking on the siren song of those woods to draw the girl’s magic,” Ronan says, and a stab of anger shoots through me. That bitch shouldn’t know so many of our secrets, but she was one of the only ones who slipped through my mother’s fingers during her various purges of powerful fae. Julianna and Torrence disappeared years ago, staying hidden long enough that we thought both of them were dead.

No such fucking luck, as it turns out.

RONAN

I fucking hate dreamwalkers.

And if there’s one skulking around with gobbelins, it’s going to be that two-faced whore Julianna. My father’s bitch, before my mother used him up creating me. He had terrible taste in women, and he deserved the death he got.

But I can’t have Kier figuring out the connection, not yet. He doesn’t know Julianna is able to dreamwalk. He only recently learned she was part gobbelin, when Brigance sent him to keep an eye on Torrence and that stupid restaurant of his.

So I needed to buy myself some time to get ahead of him. If Julianna is willing to hunt a human with all of us watching her, she knows something the rest of us don’t.

And whatever it is, I can’t risk either of my brothers finding out first.

So I watch the slope of Kier’s back until he reluctantly disappears into the maze of carved, curving staircases of the palace. It will take him at least an hour, maybe two, to find Brigance, suffer through his bullshit, and then get back out here. By then, I’ll be across the Path and already into Clearwater, giving me the chance to visit this human girl and learn her secrets before Kier even leaves Aralia.

I’ll let him keep thinking he’s hunting the changeling in secret, because it keeps him busy and hopeful instead of banging around the palace like a spoiled child. I’d be shocked if he succeeded, but even then, it would be easy enough to steal her from him.

If the changeling exists, giving her fresh, bleeding heart to the Dark Mother is a much more permanent and predictable solution to the cracks in Aralia’s magic than having one of us mate her. Once the magic is fed, we’ll have the power to easily expel every gobbelin hiding in Haret, and we can forget all about the threat of war between the fae and those unevolved ice-grubbers.

Brigance and Kier like to think I’m nothing more than a war monger, thirsty for blood no matter how it’s spilled. But Ignea taught me especially well that spilling some is often the key to saving more.

And when the spilled blood is gobbelin blood, it doesn’t count at all.