Page 42 of Fae's Mate
It has been just over two weeks since his imprisonment, but already he looks awful. His skin is pale, his cheeks gaunt. Huddling against the wall in the far corner, he trembles, and a fissure cracks through my chest. I did this to him.
“Brother,” I breathe and when he looks up at me, his usually bright eyes sunken and dull, the fissure deepens.
“A month has not yet passed,” he informs me, and I notice the scratches on the wall behind him. All sixteen of them.
“I need to speak with you.” I tell him, trying to not let my guilt show in my voice. My guts churn as I behold him. I am still his High Lord, I remind myself. I cannot be lenient on him, simply because he is my brother.
“I wish to know if she is still here first.” His voice is a broken whisper.
“She is.”
He nods, his face twisting in anguish. I keep my distance from the iron bars, even from across the corridor, I can feel their dulling weight. Like the pressure in the air before a thunderstorm.
“Brother, I have a mind to end your sentence early,” his head snaps up and his gaze meets mine, desperation racing across his features. “I wish to discuss the… conditions of your release with your mate first.”
Dull eyes the same colour as mine search my face suspiciously.
“That sounds to me like a cruel trick.”
“No.” I try to will as much honesty as I can into my voice when I add, “I have no desire to trick you, but the situation is complicated.”
When his brows furrow, I continue, noticing that I am leaning far more towards candour than usual, and I know it is my mate’s doing.
“Your magic will be required to send the humans back. The longer you are down here, the longer it will take to replenish.”
“I see.” The hurt in my brother’s voice in tangible.
“For those whochooseto return,” I add, not wanting to dash my brother’s hope entirely.
“I didn’t think there would beanywho wish to stay.”
“It is too soon to tell, but I hope that some of them will.”
His frown deepens, and I realise too late that I have revealed too much.
“It surprises me to hear you say that. I assumed you would want to send them all back as soon as possible.”
I consider for a moment how much to tell him…
“I hope that at least two stay behind, your mate… and mine.”
My brother stands and walks slowly toward the iron bars, too close judging by his grimace.
“Yourmate?” he asks, and I wince at the forgotten etiquette.
I nod slowly.
“So, while I have been down here, sick with iron, deprived of my magic, withheld from my mate, you have been up there pursuing yours,” he snarls.
“It’s not like that—”
“That’s what it sounds like to me—”
“It is your fault they are here in the first place! I couldn’t let that go unpunished!”
For a moment, I think he is going to argue with me further. I know what he is thinking; that I should be grateful he found my mate, as well as his own, and I am. But he still tore eleven humans away from their lives, their families, their friends, everything they knew on a selfish whim that could have cost him his life.
Eventually, he stumbles backwards, his back slamming against the wall before he slides down it. His elbows rest on his knees and he buries his head in his hands.
