A Sacrifice of Names

Chapter 31

Sudden silence grasped everything surrounding Earie, Brenhin's body laying on the floor in front of her, unmoved. The few shadows that had clung to him slowly started to fade and so did the ones shrouding the figures surrounding her, revealing three men and one woman, all fae. But one of them she recognised through the tears quickly clouding her vision. In front of the other three stood Maerin and wicked was the grin plastered across his lips.

Mere seconds passed before that silence was broken, a horrifying scream erupting from Earie's sore throat. Death was so extremely close but none of the fae guarding her and Brenhin's body seemed to care much for its forbidding presence.

Out of instinct, she wanted to reach out, but numbness had taken over her fingers, the weight of the shackles no longer felt around her wrists.

"What... did y-" the words died on her tongue, her raspy voice lacking the strength she had shown Brenhin mere moments ago. Mearin lifted a finger, head nonchalantly cocked to the side.

"Oh, it was about time someone silenced that traitor."

Traitor, something sank in her stomach upon hearing that word.

"You were there right in front of him the entire time," he continued with a snicker in his voice. "Do you honestly expect us to believe he had not figured it out before you were taken here?" Maerin sank down in front of Earie, curling a lock of her auburn hair around his finger, completely ignoring Brenhin's figure behind him, drops of his blood slowly mixing with the dirt on the floor.

"He spend far too much time in the Shadow Court with that fool Firas. It made him soft, blind..."

Earie watched him through heavy-lidded eyes, barely processing what he was telling her. Brenhin was dying, that much she knew if his body hadn't given up on him yet. The spy, the traitor. Muriel had trusted him, Prince Firas had put his trust in him.

Why?

"Oh don't look so conflicted, lass. We don't need him when we have you." Not only did he laugh, but the same sound reverberated around her as the other three spectators stepped forward. "You did well not giving him your name, but you would be wise not to keep your mouth shut now. It would not end too well for you, or your two friends."

"Are... are they alive?" Earie managed to ask, her voice crooked.

"In a way," Maerin repeated what Brenhin had told her earlier with a cold shrug of his shoulders. "And it is up to you whether they make it out of here alive, or not."

Everything for a name. It was a strange thought that something so insignificant could hold so much power. What would happen once they would find out she was not the person they were looking for, that her blood was ordinarily human? Maybe she would no longer know what was happening to her, a welcoming mercy. Keely and Innogen, on the other hand, would hear, see, and feel everything that would come for them.

She had given them false hope, realising that no matter what she would do they would pay the price of her endless lies.

"The other mortal women were far more eager to talk." Lifting her chin slightly Earie saw that the woman had joined them, her skin perhaps even more translucent than Maerin's, her eyes slowly losing their, what must once have been, green hue.

"She will talk, one way or another," one of the men said and Earie could feel her heart sink, watching him demonstratively sharpening the knife in his hand. Mearin yanked her head back upon catching her staring, forcing a gasp from her lips.

"She will," he agreed. "After all, it is just a name, isn't it?"

"Let... them go first," Earie muttered. Keely and Innogen's freedom would come first, they did not deserve to meet the same fate as Brenhin.