Page 5 of The Court the Fae Forgot
I had no answer to that.
He and I alone seemed to be affected, a fact that wasn’t lost on the faces in the crowd. They glanced between the fae and me, then between each other, a silent question passing between them.
I didn’t have time to wonder what it was they asked, however, before another wave barreled into me. It struck me down again, this time face-first into the mud. It tore through my body, through the very fiber of my being, burning me until I begged for death.
But even that wouldn’t be granted to me.
CHAPTERTHREE
The male fae’swords echoed in my mind long after I’d become too blinded by pain to see him, let alone hear any new accusations.
He was wrong, of course. It wasn’t I who’d done something to him, it was he who’d done something to me.
I remained awake through wave after wave, each one worse than the last. I was only half aware of the arms that finally reached for me, dragging me back to my feet when at long last the crash of pain had subsided for what I prayed was the final time. Whatever the fae had done to me, it left me shaking long after the blackness at the edges of my vision had faded, leaving me squinting beneath a cloudy sky.
Any sympathy I might have drawn was stolen by the fae’s accusation, leaving me standing on wobbly feet as villagers I’d known all my life skirted by me, hurrying past without checking to see if I was alright, their faces turning away from me as if looking at me too long might infect them with the same affliction.
I looked for the fae, my own accusation on the tip of my tongue, but he was gone, too.
The coward.
Typical of the fae, to appear out of nowhere and cause havoc, only to disappear again before they had to face the consequences.
That thought made bile rise in the back of my throat as I looked around me at the quickly dispersing crowd. I sought out the faces that should have brought me comfort, but felt only relief when I saw no sign of either of my parents. The pain that had only just finished wracking my body had already begun to dull to a distant memory at the thought of facing another punishment at their hands.
My only hope was that the townsfolk who witnessed what just happened would be too afraid to speak ill of the fae, or that by the time the rumors had spread, my name was lost to the tale.
If only I was so lucky—because I did find a face watching me in the crowd, one that I recognized all too well.
Ada stared, wide-eyed and tearful, just behind me.
“Aurra …” she started, her voice shaking as she looked me over, “what did you do?”
Her words, mirroring the fae’s, struck me, stinging more than they had the right to.
I was angry at first, a knot of betrayal lodging in the back of my throat until I looked into her wide, innocent eyes, and felt it instantly soften. I kneeled down beside her and placed one hand on her shoulder to comfort her while the other dug in my pocket for the few spare coppers I’d been saving for a trip to the bakery.
These I fished out and plopped onto her plump palm, my smile—however forced—finally bringing one to her face as well.
“I’ll buy you an extra sweet if you promise to keep this between us,” I said, winking at her as her smile broadened.
“Like … a secret?”
“Exactly like that,” I said, nodding a little too emphatically.
She didn’t notice, however, already so consumed by the thought of sugar that she’d probably forgotten what our secret even was. By the time I’d straightened back up to brush away some of the mud now caking me from head to toe, she was already skirting the edge of the crowd to get a head start toward the bakery.
At least my sister’s love for sweets could buy me a little luck today.
If I was luckier still, she might not understand what it was she had witnessed, might not even know who it was that I’d shared that heated moment with. I’d never seen a fae before today, and neither had she. Maybe she wouldn’t know what he was.
Or the significance of what it was we’d shared.
I knew I didn’t. I had no idea what had passed between us, only that I hoped—however unlikely it might be—that I’d already seen the end of it.
It was a fluke.
A coincidence.
