Page 9 of The Court the Fae Forgot
The fae had only said one thing to me, but it was the medallion that had truly spoken to me.
The words I read there meant nothing to me themselves. They were only words, after all.
It was the fact that I’d never been taught to read. I’d never seen a fae. And yet, still, the moment I saw that glittering gold inscription, I’d known instinctively what is said.
So, either I knew how to read the language of the fae.
Or I’d actually seen a fae before … and I just didn’t remember it.
CHAPTERFIVE
I couldn’t decidewhich was worse.
Reading one fae phrase was all it took to shake me to my very core, to wrap the fae’s glamour around something so deep down inside me that I knew I’d never be the same. I was marked by the fae now, I had to be. Even if I never saw the fae again, if I never sawanyfae again, it didn’t matter. They’d taken hold of me, cursed me.
Cursed me just like the deep, dark of the forests pressing in on either side of the road I walked, already growing darker by the minute.
The roads were worn, rutted deep from years of disrepair. No wonder no one complained to the fae lords responsible for their upkeep. I knew what it was now to simply look at one wrong.
I knew what it was to look into his eyes, to take one glance and know I’d never be the same again.
I kept my gaze studiously on the ground before my feet, not just to keep myself from twisting an ankle on the uneven earth or to avoid the stares from carts trundling by, the passenger’s faces leaning out to peer at me like a curiosity as they passed. I did it for my own good, to keep the prickling sensation at the back of my neck from driving me to seek out the depths of the woods that now drew on me harder than ever.
I’d have trudged on uninterrupted until I reached home, bruised and blistered as my feet might’ve been, but still untouched by those reaching shadows of the forest, if one of those carts didn’t eventually decide to drive a littletooclose. Whether it was an accident or the product of its driver becoming overly curious to get a look at the girl who’d been struck down by the fae, I’d never know. By the time I saw the driver’s face it was already twisted in horror, his leering grin shaken off as the cart rumbled into one of the deep grooves I’d been carefully picking over all afternoon.
The cart lurched to the side, the groaning of the massive wheels drowned out only by the dissatisfied whinnies of the horses as they were jerked along with it. Squeals broke out from the back of the cart and hands reached to steady themselves as the vehicle tipped dangerously to the side.
For one horrible moment, I remained frozen in place, standing like I had in the presence of the fae as I waited for the cart to crush me. I didn’t even have time for my life to properly flash before my eyes—only for a strange, serene sort of acceptance to wash over me.
This was it.
A fitting end, if I was being honest with myself, which you should be when you’re about to die a horrible death by mangling.
At the last second, however, the driver of the cart managed to wrangle the reigns so that it lurched ever so slightly to the side. It didn’t miss me entirely, but instead of being flattened, I was merely knocked off the road. I was sent crashing to the ground for a second time in one day, more insulted than injured.
By the time I’d lifted myself up from where I landed face-first in the dirt and gravel, it was already careening around a bend in the road, only offering me a split-second glance at the faces watching me from the back.
They’d seen me, but they didn’t so much as slow.
This was what it was to be cursed by the fae, to be marked as untouchable, unsavable, unworthy of even the most basic human decency.
Defeat clouded my mind as I struggled to get back to my feet, only to discover I hadn’t made it out of the encounter as unscathed as I first thought. Throbbing pain radiated from my foot, sending a wave of nausea through me as I attempted to shift my weight onto it.
I swore, digging my hands into the sparse grass at the side of the road. Dirt and grime pressed beneath my nails until the pain there was enough to distract me from my now useless foot.
I managed to pull myself up onto a stump left rotting off the side of the road, where at least I wouldn’t be run over properly this time while waiting for my own parents to eventually catch up. Maybe even my own father would take pity on me now, the injury sending shooting pain up my shin surely enough of a punishment—a sort of penance already paid.
It could be hours, now, waiting, without even the dull pattern of wagon tracks to pass the time.
There was nothing to do but face the forest.
I tilted my face up to scan the branches overhead, the sinking sun casting my face in a few welcome golden rays. The heat had already begun to fade, the dark branches providing a shade that, now that I was sitting still, sent the smallest shiver down my spine.
I shifted on the creaking stump, only to groan out a second swear as my eyes alit on a small glitter of gold laying on the edge of the road.
My ribbon.
It was still attached to the purse of coins, in some small stroke of luck, but it wasn’t supposed to be here, with me.
