The Infernal Crown: Of Roses and Lies

Chapter 18

Shit, shit, shit.

Phoebus's talons poked through my layers of clothing as I looked up at him in unabashed horror.

I didn't dare move, not as his lips thinned and the muscles in his jaw quivered. Not as he opened his mouth and I glimpsed canines—long, throat-tearing canines shining like silver in the moonlight.

He was going to kill me—kill me right there, and then kill Aslan. No more loopholes, no more flattery, no more mercy. He didn't care anymore. I was as good as dead.

"Please," I breathed. "Aslan—"

"Aslan?" He lifted his gaze to the gates behind me, and his growl rumbled through me as he bared his teeth. "Why don't you look again?" He released his stone grip on my arm.

I staggered back a step, whirling, sucking in a breath to tell Aslan to run, but—

But he wasn't there. And instead there stood my father, crippled but still beckoning. My father. He hadn't been there moments before, hadn't—

He rippled, as if he were nothing but water—and then he became a pale bow and a quiver of pale arrows, propped against the gates. Another ripple—and there were my brothers, huddled together, gesturing to me to come.

My knees buckled. "What is ..." I didn't finish the question. Aslan now stood there, still worried and beckoning. A flawless rendering.

"Weren't you warned to keep your wits about you?" Phoebus snapped. "That your human senses would betray you?" He stepped beyond me and let out a snarl so vicious that whatever the thing was by the gates shimmered a pale blue light and darted out as swift as a stag through the dark.

"Fool," he said to me, turning. "If you're ever going to run away, at least do it in the daytime." He stared me down, and the canines slowly retracted. The golden talons remained. "There are worse things than the Baphomet prowling these woods at night. That thing at the gates isn't one of them—and it still would have taken a good, long while devouring you."

Somehow, my mouth began working again. And of all the things to say, I blurted, "Can you blame me? My lover appears beneath my window, and you think I'm not going to run for him? Did you actually think I'd stay here forever, even if you'd taken care of my family, all for some Covenant of Peace that had nothing to do with me and allows your kind to slaughter humans as you see fit?"

He flexed his fingers as if trying to get the talons back in, but they remained out, ready to slice through flesh and bone. "What do you want, Eleena?"

"I want to go home!"

"Home to what, exactly? You'd prefer that miserable human existence to this?"

"I made a promise," I said, my breathing ragged. "To myself, a long while ago. That I'd look after my family. That I'd take care of them. All I have done, every single day, every hour, every second of my existence has been for that vow. And just because I was hunting to save my family, to put food in their bellies, I'm now forced to break it."

He stalked toward the house, and I gave him a wide berth before falling into step behind him. His claws slowly, slowly retracted. He didn't look at me as he said, "You are not breaking your vow—you are fulfilling it, and then some, by staying here. Your family is better cared for now than they were when you were there."

Those chipped, miscoloured paintings inside the cottage flashed in my vision. Perhaps they would forget who had even painted them in the first place. Insignificant—that's what all those years I'd given them would be, as insignificant as I was to these Seelie Faeries, even Unseelie ones. And that dream I'd had, of one day living with Aslan, with enough food and money and paint and charcoal ... it had been my dream—no one else's.