Page 13 of The Court the Fae Forgot
I had plenty of ideas that would inspire even the most ironclad of stomachs to twist worse than mine did, my insides knotting up until they threatened to become my outsides. If I hadn’t already faced a seemingly never-ending series of ordeals, each one worse than the last as the day progressed, I surely would have already succumbed. As it was, my body was too tired to properly react.
Still, I had no desire to rush into this next ordeal.
I let my footsteps slow as I approached the carriage, my eyes combing over the intricate gild work. The details on the carriage itself bordered on art, the slender wooden planks that curved around the exterior were like hardened silk sheets. It was by no means the work of a human. Only glamour, the magic that the fae possessed, could create something like this.
The work was so detailed that even in the dark, the gold adorning the sides of the carriage glinted like many-faceted gems. The fae horses at its head eyed me, noticing my shadow looming as I drew near. Their black coats shone in the moonlight, looking immaculately groomed. Our simple cart and field horse couldn’t compare to these two beauties.
Aside from their larger size, and the obvious near-ethereal level of equine beauty, they weren’t all that different from human horses. It wasn’t long before the suspicion drained from their stares and they nickered a greeting, shifting slightly as their hooves dug into the ground to leave small curved shapes in the dirt.
I had the very distinct sense that they wanted me to reach out and stroke their sides, but as tempted as I was, I didn’t dare. An image resurfaced in my mind of another set of teeth, those belonging to the dark fae in the forest, and any desire to draw near to another fae-creature drained from my body.
The beautiful carriage was beyond out of place in front of our beaten-down property. Two very different sides to a coin. The moonlit river that ran along the mill cut into the ground behind the cottage, serving to complete the picture, uniting both humans and fae together.
Together, here, now.
Somehow, our two worlds had collided yet again.
There was no avoiding it, not unless I chose this moment to flee as I’d imagined so many times before. Despite that brief moment back in the forest, with the hooks of the Wildness sinking into me as it urged me to abandon all reason and go to it, I knew better.
Some things I had no choice but to face.
Even if I’d decided to run from my parents, from my human life, I doubted there would be any running from the fae.
I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the fury I was surely about to face.
The moment I opened the door, however, a new wave of shock rushed through me. Whatever I was preparing for, it wasn’t this.
A thousand different scenarios had begun to form in the darkness behind my eyelids, but none of them were … this.
First of all, there were no swords drawn. There were no harsh whispers or threats passing between the fae and my parents. The scene that met me was positively domestic, friendly, even. My father leaned across the table, elbows planted firmly as he gestured animatedly to the beautiful fae from the marketplace, his face not nearly as red as it usually was after a long day at market.
Second, the fae that I spotted lounging at the table not fit for a human, let alone a creature like him, wasnotthe fae from the village.
It was a new fae.
A stranger.
In one day, I’d gone from never having met a fae in my life, to now having metthree.
I stood unmoving in the doorway, taking in the scene laid out before me as if I was unable, or unwilling to cross the threshold and break the spell that had clearly taken hold. Any courage I’d mustered to face the scene before me faded so quickly, I likely would have slipped back into the night and taken my chances with the Wildness if the fae at the table didn’t choose at that moment to glance over his shoulder. His eyes immediately met mine beneath the short curls that fell across his forehead.
Our eyes only met for a second before he turned back to my father, but it was enough to steal the remaining breath from my lungs. Any chance of that breath returning was hindered by the sight of how his tunic pulled tight across the muscles of his back, the shape of him so perfectly sculpted that it was visible even beneath the silk. His posture was far more relaxed than the fae from the market, far more friendly than the fae from the forest. It lent an air to him that made the instincts in me want to relax.
It took every fiber of my being to fight it, though admittedly, it was a battle I was quickly losing.
Even having only caught one glance at his face, I was already disarmed.
It wasn’t human nature to distrust such a perfect specimen of a male, human or fae.
My brief moment of rapture was broken the moment my father spotted me. His own face fell as he made a deep guttural sound in the back of his throat that had my mother sweeping out of her place behind him to block my view of the fae.
She quickly ushered me upstairs, forcing me to take them two at a time. The steps creaked loudly with each step, yelling in protest to our quick movements. Pushing me into the loft Ada and I shared, she quickly returned with a basket of laundry that had finished drying during our market outing and placed it down before me, her message clear.
Her movements, however, were not as transparent. There was a nervous shift in her gaze, her hands constantly twitching, as if looking for something to hold onto that wasn’t there. She only stilled when she saw me looking, her lips pursing in displeasure.
“I don’t want to see either one of you again, do you understand? Not until … not until …”
Her gaze flickered behind her, her hands once again wringing anxiously at her middle.
