Page 36 of The Court the Fae Forgot
It was Shiel who rightfully answered.
“What other option do you have?”
I looked at their three faces again, all so sincere, ready to defend me without being fully certain of my identity. When I looked past them, I saw my father dabbing his hand at his temple. He touched gingerly at his wounds with no concern for the ones he gave me. My mother stood by his side, looking ready to use him as a shield if the fae men were to attack again.
These people, these strangers I’d once considered my parents, had hardly treated me as a daughter. In fact, the animals here had received better treatment than me.
I could tell Finch was itching to be moving, his hands half reaching toward me already, as if he wanted to throw me over his shoulder and whisk me away from this place already.
But then my gaze fell on Ada. My beautiful sister.
Blood or not, she was still my sister. She always would be, to me. No matter what changed, no matter who—or what—I turned out to be, that would never change.
Once again, I was reminded of how much my fate was intertwined with hers.
It was always her. Always Ada I protected.
I’d nearly forgotten, for a moment, what all of this had really been about. The glamoured blanket had only done so much to keep me here, to keep me in my place. My love for her had done the rest.
I could leave right now with these fae and I would never look back, never regret it, even if I turned out to be just another human girl they abandoned in two days’ time once they’d discovered their mistake. I could live with that, if it weren’t for her.
But now, as I look on at the sorry excuse for a family I’d been given in this life, I knew whatever I’d been holding onto, whatever fate I’d been trying to protect for her, it was gone. I’d been prepared to face a life with Rayner to give her a better one. Surely this was a better alternative. It offered me more of a chance than I’d ever been offered before.
Even if Shiel and the others were not to be trusted, even if they turned out to be the very ones my mother had left me here to protect me from, I had to take that chance.
I took one last, lingering look around the cottage I’d called my home my entire life. I found that no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find it in myself to miss it. Instead, I memorized it for another reason.
I memorized every corner where I was beaten. I memorized every chair where I was scolded and shamed. I memorized every pot and kettle that was used to burn my skin to teach me a lesson, and every switch and belt that had left a mark on my skin for some imagined transgression.
I memorized the things that would drive me forward, the things that I would need to remember when times got hard—because that was certain. These fae had come to rescue me, sure, but I was under no illusion of what the future held for me. The future held for me the same things that the past had. Hardship. Misery. Distress. That was my lot in life.
I’d long since come to terms with that.
But nothing, none of that could compare to what I’d already been subjected to. And I would remember that, so that, no matter how hard this new future treated me, I would never look back at this time with anything other than the contempt that it deserved.
Except, of course, in one regard.
“Fine,” I said, squaring my still smarting shoulders. “I’ll go with you, but on one condition.”
“Name it,” Shiel said, his stubborn face waiting for my order.
“Ada comes with us.”
A chorus of shouts erupted around me. My mother clutched at my sister so tight, I was worried she might suffocate her. My father had even started stepping forward, his one good hand trying—and failing—to ball up into a fist at his side.
“No, Aurra,” Shiel said, softly, drawing my gaze back to him. “I’m sorry, but it’ll be too dangerous. A human like her won’t likely survive where we’re going, what we have to do. Is that really something you’re willing to risk for her?”
I closed my eyes as a deep new wound opened up inside of me.
He was right, of course. It was selfish of me to want to take her, to even suggest it, however good my intentions. This was a risk I had to take, alone.
“No,” I said, at long last. “It isn’t.”
“No Aurra,” Ada cried out as soon as I said the words. She finally broke free of my parents and ran headlong between the fae to throw her arms around me. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered into my stomach as she grasped my shoulders, pulling the fabric into bunches held tightly in her hands. When I said nothing, she reached up to grab my face, turning my head away from the fae to look at her. “Don’t go,” she whispered again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, willing the tears quickly gathering in my eyes not to spill over as I looked back at her, “but I can’t stay here. Not now, not anymore.”
As much as it pained me, I shook Ada free of me and looked back up at Shiel.
