Feyrith may have decided that I wasn't to leave Henmar without his permission, but that didn't stop Dain from taking me out into the woods surrounding Aena Dorei as often as possible.
"I'm geas bound," he reminded me when he saw my look of surprise.
"I assumed the change in situation would have negated your debt," I said casually.
He smirked as he led me under the tall trees and away from the court. Leaves still fell artificially around us, definitely glamoured to add that extra element of magical to the woods despite the season.
We walked that day, both in our armoured leathers, our swords strapped to our waists. I didn't know if his plan was to train or if Dain just liked to be ready for anything in this foreign territory. If there was one thing I'd learnt about fae, it was that anyone could become a threat at any time and, as a people, they were fully ready for that. Oh sure, they'd band together against humanity at the slightest provocation, but they would also turn on each other under their justice if required.
That day, we'd wandered into a section where the trees were thicker than usual. There was more dense underbrush between the trunks, separated by winding paths rather than open spaces. I'd looked up a map in the library at Aena Dorei and I was pretty sure we were to the southeast, lower than where we had previously entered and exited Henmar on either journey.
Suddenly, Dain put a hand out, his arm across my stomach, telling me to stop. I did, wondering what he had seen or sensed. Eventually, I found it.
There was a girl through the trees. I frowned as I saw her... Because I could tell she was human. Though, how did I know she was human? I looked to her ears and saw they were indeed rounded. But it was a confirmation of what I already knew, not the way I knew.
I knew she was human and there was...something not right about her. I vaguely recognised whatever it was that wasn't right, but I wasn't sure in what way. I couldn't place how I knew that either.
"What?" Dain asked me, looking me over carefully.
"She's human." It came out more question than statement as I was still puzzling over how I knew so surely.
He nodded. "She is."
"Why is she in the Henmar wood?" I asked.
I thought for a moment that maybe she was the sport and there were other sidhe hiding elsewhere waiting to play, but Dain seemed to have other ideas.
Dain's eyes were trained on her and, if looks could kill, she'd be very dead. "Humans often think it's amusing to sneak into fae territory and...torture innocents."
I bit my lip as I looked her over. "It's not like fae don't do the same thing," I pointed out.
He didn't disagree with my point; that fae found it amusing to torture humans. But he did say, "I have never met a wholly innocent human."
"You clearly don't meet a lot of babies, then," I said flippantly.
"I am a high born dark fae assassin. Of course, I don't. My duties are significantly more arduous than infants," he answered, still watching the human girl. "Seven years ago, I met my youngest mortal."
I looked at him in surprise. "Me?"
He inclined his head. "You."
"I was eleven."
"Were you?" He seemed surprised by that.
"How old did you think I was?"
He shrugged. "It wasn't relevant how old you were."
"I just had something you needed?" I said, sarcasm heavy in my voice.
"You seem to always have something I need, Yana. Seven years ago, it was the necklace to return to Stouze. Now, it is...something...else..." he said slowly and absently, as though distracted.
I followed his gaze and saw the girl had stopped. There was a little dog sitting in the middle of the ground in front of her, its head cocked to the side as it looked her over. It held no fear, just keen interest. But it was no true dog. It was some fae-kind, probably simply in the form of a dog. I was sure I'd met its kind before, but I didn't know by looking at it what it was. Then it darted forward as though to play.
For a moment, I thought the human was going to play with it. But then I realised the smile that played at her lips was ugly and unpleasant. She pulled a rope from her pocket and whipped it around the little dog's neck. The dog changed shapes as though in reaction to its fear. Fear I could taste.
Cat.
Dog.
Child.
Rabbit.
Dog.
Child.
Dog.
Dain stiffened as the girl tied the creature – it must have been a puca – down and proceeded to reveal a short blade from her skirts. A metallic tang hit me, and I finally realised that was the thing wrong about her. It tasted and smelled like blood. Iron! She had an iron blade, and she was about to use it on the puca.
How many months had it been since I'd been around iron? How much had I changed since then? Because iron had never affected me so significantly before. Never had I been able to detect it from such a distance. Never had it given me a creeping, crawling feeling along my arms. It had made me itchy when directly against my skin, but never this. It seemed Feyrith was right; my fae heritage was definitely getting stronger.
"What is she–?" I started but then my words were cut off by a scream that chilled me to my very bones and made rage thunder through me.
It was the puca's mournful cry of pain and terror as the human girl tortured it.
Shadows descended upon the wood, swooping out of the sky and rushing through both Dain and I towards the girl and her prey. I felt our critters in that shadow, crashing towards her like a raging sea wave, and it wasn't just the creature's fear on the air anymore. The human's fear was palpable.
Good.
As the human was distracted by the shadow's denizens, I ran to the puca, my immediate attention on freeing it. I fell to its side and undid the ropes binding it. My vision among the shadows was far better than it had ever been. Dain stormed through those shadows after me and grabbed the human girl by the back of her shirt and yanked her to standing. I could feel the fury emanating from him and I knew my own was mingling with it as I looked down at the poor puca covered in free-flowing cuts.
It whimpered pitifully and my heart twisted. I felt the shadows and wind picking up around us. Like we were the very centre of a wild, destructive storm. I didn't know what Dain was doing with the human, and I didn't care. Rage and sympathy fuelled me. How dare she come in here and hurt this puca? This creature who had just wanted to play with her. Who had risked trusting her.
Darkness swirled and writhed in that abyss deep inside me. It demanded to be set free. I could feel my control of it wavering. I couldn't keep it in. It would take its freedom – its destruction and retribution – even if it had to end me to do it.
I lay my hand over the puca gently and I felt the pulse of its life. It was gentler than the big, steady pulse of the Darkrealm. I wondered if that was because it was injured or because my connection to the Darkrealm was supposed to be stronger. But I could give plants life, I could wield shadow – nowhere near expertly yet – and I would be damned if I couldn't save this poor thing. It wasn't its fault that the human had come into its home and hurt it.
I closed my eyes, feeling the elements whipping around me faster and harder. Whatever Dain was doing to the mortal, he was even more pissed off than I was. This time, I couldn't blame him. She deserved to hurt for what she had done.
The darkness thrashed in me. I took a deep breath and it stilled. It concentrated. Like it suddenly realised my hand was on the fae-kind and it realised what I wanted to do. I could feel the power like a palpable thing, surging through my heart, down my arm, into my hand and spreading tingling warmth into the fae. Its heart beat more steadily. As I watched its injuries heal, the storm around us quieted. The shadows still hovered, but they raged less. I could feel their attention fixated behind me, as though that's where Dain and the human were.
The fae-kind blinked and looked up at me.
Dain crouched beside me, and I looked at him. There was something so soft and warm and bright in his eyes before he turned them to the puca and ran his hand over its head. The dog-shaped fae-kind nuzzled into his hand.
"Gratitude," it said, it's voice bright and clear.
"Unnecessary, cousin," Dain told it. "Deserved."
The puca looked at me carefully and I saw a keen intelligence in its eyes. "You are no mere fae," it said, cocking its head.
I swallowed. "I'm a bastard."
"You are vengeance," it said cryptically before bounding away into the undergrowth.
"Vengeance indeed. It seems your power is even more tied to your emotions than a full-blooded fae."
I turned to Dain, confusion written all over my face. He smirked.
"This power, Yana? That was all you." His eyes shone, and it was all shit-stirring. "I have so much better control over myself." He looked me over almost thoughtfully. "Still, it got the job done."
"Not quite," I heard myself say and Dain's eyes flashed with wicked glee. "What about the human?"
"What about the human, Yana?" Dain asked seductively.
I stood to look at her and he stood with me, his body unfolding so it embraced mine. I felt hatred running through me and I was sure Dain could feel it. I felt him press a dagger into my hand. Dimly, I registered it must have been the girl's as my hand tingled.
Dain's lips brushed my ear as he sensually whispered, "Go on, Yana. Kill her. She wants it. Look at her."
And I did look at her, kneeling before me like I was a goddess, a blank smile on her face. Dain had glamoured her within an inch of her life. A life, thanks to that glamour, she would be more than happy to give up. A shiver tickled up my spine. How many times could he have done this to me? How many times could he have me at his utter mercy? A dazed blank slate at his feet who wouldn't fight back, wouldn't deny him as one of the only acts of defiance left to her, who would bow and scrape and thank him for ending it.
And yet he never had.
He had forced me to dance, to wear what he wanted me to wear, to acquiesce to his will when he wanted me to do the simplest of things and refused.
But he had never turned me into this. I remembered him saying this sort of mental intrusion was almost impossible. Almost. Not completely. And even if he hadn't been able to wipe my mind, he could have made my body behave like it was gone. He hadn't done that either.
He had tickled the geas command with an encouragement – nothing more – to join him in his deadly hobbies. But he'd never made me. I knew, his sport in this was in getting me to do it of my own free will. Of corrupting me. Of making me ever so less human. Whether for good reason or not.
And still, I wanted to do it.
I wanted to kill this now soulless, mindless human.
I wanted to know what it felt like.
I wanted to see if I, too, could feel the joy and satisfaction he got when he ended a life. When he meted out justice for a wrongdoing.
It was perverse and I didn't want to think about why I wanted that. I didn't want to think about the implications, or what that made me now.
I just wanted...something. Curiosity burned in me.
So why not this one?
Dain would kill her if I didn't, he always did, so she was dead either way. Her death would add to the weight on my conscience whether I killed her or Dain did. By my hand, I could tell myself she suffered less, that denying Dain the pleasure of doing it himself would make her death somehow better, that by killing for my people's justice – for the puca's justice – would appease Feyrith's obsession with my loyalties.
I couldn't look into the face of that human, even if she wasn't innocent by any law I concerned myself with now, but I could look at Dain's. I moved behind her and locked my eyes with his. As he studied me in amusement, I spun the knife in my hand and took hold of her head, tipping it to the side just a little. Dain's eyebrow rose and the corner of his lips pre-emptively rose in glee.
Taking a deep breath, I quickly drew the blade across her throat, trying not to baulk at the resistance of her skin. Her mind may have been under fae thrall, but her body was still trying to keep her alive as best as it knew how.
I didn't take my eyes off Dain as she moaned, almost in pleasure, but it gurgled horribly before she slumped to the ground at my feet.
But Dain's face. His eyes, his aura. It was all predatory and all focussed on me. He was pleased with me. He was delighted – more so than I'd ever seen him – that I had finally fallen. As though we shared something now, as though there was some sort of common ground between us, like the gulf wasn't quite so big anymore.
At that thought, something flickered deep in me. It wasn't bright or hot. It didn't spark. It was dark and writhed in shadows, but it threatened to fill me up with something I liked, something I wanted. And I saw the same thing flickering in Dain's eyes as he searched my face, almost like he was waiting for me to make the first move or say the first word.
I didn't have one.
I couldn't.
There were no words for this.
I merely stepped over the now lifeless human and threw myself into his arms. He caught me, eagerly. Wrapping his arms around me tightly as my legs clamped around his waist. Our lips crashed together in a fierce force. My fingers sliding into his hair as his hands gripped my hips so tightly that it almost hurt.
I wanted it to hurt more.
"Perhaps you're not so human, after all?" he purred against my lips.
But something glowed in me at the pride in his voice, at the pleasure, and I felt it. The power. The power of life and death. The meting out of justice and judgement. It swarmed my body and I felt as though I had a glimpse into his mind, how it worked, what made him who he was.
There was a small part of me, what remained of my humanity after so long with these fae, who hated both Dain and me. It was the part that growled, "Shut your dirty mouth," at him as I dug my nails into his shoulders.
He groaned against me, the rumble of it warming my chest. "What would you rather I do with it, Yana?" he asked between hot, desperate kisses.
*
We left the human's body in the wood when we headed back to Aena Dorei.
"What's the difference?" I asked him and he looked at me in question. "You saved my life and now I'm geas bound to you. We saved the puca's life and there's no geas."
"It will repay the debt if and when it can," he said by way of answer.
"But it's not the same."
Dain shook his head. "No. It's not."
"Why not?"
He sighed, his eyes slipping to me sidelong as we walked. "Sidhe have a duty to protect all fae-kind. It is a geas in and of itself in many ways, one crafted upon us by the Goddess herself. Thus, saving that puca was merely doing our duty. Me saving you from the Febren was not. Likewise, saving the life of a comrade in battle is duty, no geas would be borne."
"Our duty..." I said slowly, testing it out.
"While diluted and not as strictly bound to fae law as me for example, the fae blood in you is still obligated by the powers that govern us. You did not have to save that puca, but you did."
"I didn't have to kill that human, either," I muttered.
His hand slipped into mine and he stopped walking, forcing me to stop and face him. "You served justice, Yana. For both of them. A puca may be meddlesome at times, but it is one of the kindliest of our kin. In other lands, other times, they called their ilk Seelie folk. I will not argue that many fae pose a danger to humans simply by their existence and their nature, but a puca is not one of them. No trick played by a puca deserved such ill treatment at the hands of such a fleeting, selfish creature."
He often talked about my passion. He made no secret of the fact that said passion was one of the big things that drew him to me. Though, I wasn't sure I could see it in myself the way he did. But this here, this was his passion. I could see the drive to truly protect in him. Regardless of his reputation. No matter how much enjoyment he got from death. His whole being shook with the force of his perceived justice, of the reality of the world in which he lived and ruled.
I stepped closer to him, my free hand reaching up to cup his cheek as I looked into those deep, dark pools. His hair was falling over his right eye again, still untidied after our time in the wood. There was something vulnerable about him in that moment. Like he was letting me into a piece of him he'd previously held from me. I chewed my lip as I tried to work out whether I wanted to know what feeling that elicited in me.
I didn't think I wanted to know what it was, but I wasn't shoving it away either. The feeling could just hover at the fringes of my consciousness and just let me try to understand and maybe even accept this world that was now, whether I wanted it or not, mine as well.
"I'm not sure she deserved death," I told him honestly. "But I'm also not sure she didn't."
The fingers of his still free hand teased my waist, coaxing me closer to him. He leant his forehead to mine, his eyes closed as he rubbed his face against mine. "My uncle should be pleased with your progress."
*
Yeah, except, when we returned to his court, I wasn't sure he was all that pleased after all.
"A Vodreylian who saves," Feyrith said as he looked me over, and I had the distinct impression he wasn't applauding me but rather was more wary about me now.
"I am no Vodreylian," I reminded him, wondering why Feyrith was so clearly unnerved when Dain had said it was the obligation of all sidhe to protect all fae.
Feyrith's eyes narrowed as they searched me, like he could see the power I'd used and knew just how much it really did not belong to Vodreylia. "No. I suppose you are something else, Yana Halfborn. But the Túatha rid this world of Thivrah long before Vodreylia was even a glint in your lord's eye–"
"Dain is not my lord," I said. There was no tug of a lie.
Feyrith was definitely not pleased about that. "You expect me to believe you are no threat to the Túatha when you walk this world refusing to kneel to any of its rulers?"
"I'd have thought the last person you wanted me kneeling to would be the lord of the Darkrealm. You wouldn't want us getting too cosy now, would you? That could risk a coup."
Feyrith's eyes blazed. Amusement at my defiance. "If you refuse to kneel before Dain, you will need to kneel before someone."
"Is Dain really a choice?" I asked, drawing myself up. While I would rather not kneel to Dain under any circumstance, this felt like one of those things I had to do to survive. One of those things that would go a long way to proving to Feyrith that I wasn't a moment away from rebelling. "Or will you 'allow' me to choose only to then punish us both for that choice?"
Feyrith finally looked somewhat impressed with me. "If I believed you would actually kneel to Dain, swear some fealty to him in more than simply what is obligated by your...bonding," The question hung for a heartbeat, as though he was hoping someone would explain the very nature of that bonding. "Then I would gladly drop the question of your loyalties." He paused more pointedly. "For now."
I gritted my teeth. "And exactly what is owed for my fealty, Feyrith?" I asked, meeting his surprise that I'd used his name with a 'what are you going to do about it?' smirk.
"By the laws of the Túatha, you will be deemed Vodreylian. Governed by your lord, who answers to his king, who answers to his High King. The Vodreylians will be your tuath, your people, and as such you will follow all their laws. And mine."
"And the Darkrealm?" I asked. "Am I still forbidden from returning?"
He inclined his head. "For now, you will remain a...guest of Henmar regardless of which tuath you...choose to claim." Not that it was really a choice, was it?
Because, it seemed like yet another way to cage me. To trap me. There was no way this wasn't a trap, a test. Whatever I picked now would be held against me. Maybe not right away, but at some point. But I was going to have to do it, wasn't I?
I took a deep breath, somehow knowing that Dain wasn't going to hold it against me. Not really. Not when he seemed so concerned about me doing everything I could to survive. He would know that's all this was. "Then I kneel before Dain of the Shaden, Lord of the Darkrealm," I told Feyrith and watched, with pleasure, the surprise flicker across his features.