Page 42 of Royal Hunt
Alarm raced through me. “It’s not your fault! Blame Trenton and the others. Blame the fae.” I fought through the exhaustion in my bones, reaching out to cup his cheeks and pull him down to me.
“Never blame yourself. You’ve done more for them than they deserve.”
He buried his face against my neck, inhaling my scent deeply. If I wasn’t so tired, I might have winced. It wasn’t like any of us likely smelled like roses. For a moment we stayed like that, him clutching me to his chest like one of us was dying. I was only mostly sure it wasn’t me.
“You coming? Or napping?”
Viana’s voice cut through the night air, and Ellis jerked like we’d been caught with our pants down. Again.
The warmth of his body left me and he helped me the rest of the way over to the heirs. It was amazing how quiet it was without the roaring crowds. How ordinary.
Were they sent away until the next bout of entertainment?
“How many did we lose?” I asked instead, ready to throw myself into anything in a desperate bid to distract myself from the pounding in my head.
Ellis sighed.
“We started with fifty, as you know. During the game, fifteen humans died. That is on top of the twenty four who died during the supply battle. We managed to kill twelve fae, overall. Pari killed six, I think.”
I tried to do the sums in my head, but it hurt too much. I glanced at him for help.
“That leaves us with eleven on our side, and thirty-eight on theirs,” he finished.
“That’s not encouraging,” I scoffed, glancing across the boundary line at our adversaries. The fae were camped out on the far end of their side, huddled tightly around a fire. I frowned.
“What’s up with them? I thought they’d be more ... jubilant? Even if they technically lost, they still killed more of us.”
Ellis guided me toward a small fire, where the heirs were wrapping wounds and cleaning weapons. They glanced up wearily when they saw me, nodding. Nessian got to me first.
“Thank you for staying with my sisters. For helping them.”
I blushed under his praise, not deserving any of it. Viana even clapped me on the back, grinning. “Not bad for a country bumpkin, eh?”
Ellis pointed mutely at a fur next to the fire, and I fell gracelessly down, wincing as my muscles protested the movement. “Here. You look like you need it.” One of the triplets handed me a thick chunk of bread. I tore into it greedily, only pausing to thank him once I’d finished it.
“Thanks, uh …”
“Matthias.” He grinned at me, winking. He pointed to his belt, which was a distinctive silver. I nodded in understanding, then swallowed heavily.
“Well, the Guardian is here, so can we finally begin?” whined another one of the triplets. It had to be Maven. He didn’t have the scar on his jaw, and the other one had just said he was Matthias. Mixen wore a red tunic, and Maven a brown one. I resolved to keep it all straight.
“What did you call me?” I shot back, my eyes narrowing.
“It’s a joke, Eve,” Ellis muttered. “Since you saved Pari, and you’re still the only human really helping us. It’s a silly inside joke we’ve had since childhood.”
Pari threw an apple at me, and I missed it. Damn, everything hurt.
As we all settled down around the dim fire, Gregory approached with a few of the guards. His face was hard. “They didn’t do it right, did they?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently Pari did. She turned towards him. “I assume you mean the dead humans? Correct. If they truly intended to switch sides, then they needed to first call a point of order. Once they declare their new allegiances properly, the fae wouldn’t have been able to kill them.”
I scoffed, feeling mean-spirited and short-tempered with so much pain coursing through my body. “Well, we don’t know the rules, do we? How is that fair?”
Pari gave me a look like I was dense. “It’s not supposed to be fair. Why would you think that?”
Gregory’s lips thinned, grief and anger palpable in the air around him. “Speaking of fair, what’s your game? You think you can just switch sides and we’ll welcome you? All fae are the same: liars and tricksters, even to their own kind!”
Rage broke over Pari’s face, followed quickly by pity. “You really don’t know anything, do you?” she sneered.
