Faces were carved into the surface, ethereal beings with slightly pointed ears and harsh planes in their bone structures. I’d heard that their features were sharper, their characteristics more defined. I couldn’t be sure how much of that was emphasized by the stone work and how much was true to their appearance.
The only Fae I’d seen had been transparent, but the members of the Wild Hunt were a breed all of their own within Alfheimr. My fingers ran over the thin lips of a man whose features seemed particularly jagged, his hair surrounded by snowflakes. “According to the legends, these are the faces of the Old Gods,” Caelum said, stepping up behind me. I hadn’t even realized that I had turned to the rock face, my hands shifting from the man’s mouth to the woman at his side. Her hair somehow seemed lighter than the others at her side, as if her presence had been imbued into the rock. “Twyla, The Goddess of the Moon,” Caelum said, his hands shifting up to my waist. He dragged my hand with his along the fabric of my dress and then behind me, to the small of my back. The awkward angle of my arm gave me pause, the tips of his fingers pressing into my spine and the swell of my backside as he leaned in until his breath tickled my cheek. “It’s said she is the Queen of the Winter Court.”
“How do you know so much about the Fae? Your father’s library?” I whispered, shuffling to the side. Caelum followed me seamlessly, his body mirroring mine to the point that we seemed to move in synchronization. I touched the Goddess next to Twyla, my fingers sinking into the harsh lines of her beautiful face. Her eyes had been painted, the rock itself glimmering as dark as night with specks of lightness within.
Long hair fell to her shoulders, the color lost to the rocks as if the carver hadn’t put as much essence into her likeness as they had Twyla’s.
“My father believed that, in order to fight them, we would have to know them. When the rest of the realm sought to destroy the knowledge of our enemies, he collected it. Studied it. He taught me about them,” he answered, his lips brushing against my skin as he spoke. His words from earlier in the day, the taunt that he knew I would welcome him into my body one day, sat heavy in my mind.
It couldn’t happen, and yet there was no mistaking the goosebumps that rose along my skin where he touched me.
“Who is she?” I asked, clearing my throat, determined to focus on the subject at hand. His father’s teachings interested me far more than I cared to admit, out of habit. Curiosity about the Fae was condemned, my interest in the Veil enough to have me hanged if I hadn’t had the protection of a Lord.
To know about the creatures hunting us, could anything ever be more useful than that?
“The Queen of Air and Darkness,” he said, something in his voice compelling me to glance over my shoulder at him. “Mab is the Queen of the Court of Shadows.” His face was stern, set into harsh lines as he stared at the likeness of the breathtaking female.
“She’s beautiful,” I said, my heart sinking at his study of her. Menace lingered in the sharp lines of her face, seeming to stare out at me through her dark eyes.
“According to the books,” he said, shuffling me to the side, to the next of the Old Gods. The sun continued to set behind us, casting an eerie glow over the rock face as we passed by the male at Mab’s side. “She’s the greatest evil the world has ever known.”
“I thought that was the Fae in general,” I teased, smiling up at him and trying to lighten his mood. His grip on me had hardened, not painful in the slightest but more rigid, as if he couldn’t stand to release me.
He smiled down at me softly, turning his attention back to the next God as we sidestepped. “I imagine the Fae are much like people. Some are good, some are bad, and most are just trying to survive. I don’t believe an entire species can be evil. Do you?” he asked, the words softly spoken in my ear.
There was a challenge in his voice, a threat to everything he knew I’d been taught. The Fae were the greatest evil to walk the earth, condemning those that were Marked to a life of imprisonment within the realm of the Fae.
There was no freedom in captivity, no choice in the life they offered.
“You said your father thought the best way to fight our enemies was to know about them. If you don’t believe they’re evil, then why—”
“I believe some of them are evil. The things in the books about Mab would give a grown man nightmares. So long as evil is as powerful as she’s rumored to be, then light can never truly reign in their realm. There can never be any hope for peace between our races.”
“You think there could be peace without her?” I asked, the idea rattling around in my head as my eyes landed on the God in front of me. The eyes carved from stone felt like they watched me, his unforgiving stare looking down at me, as if the carvers had wanted to use it to intimidate those who walked this path.
“I think the alternative is another war where we destroy each other. I have to hope there’s a solution for peace.” I had to as well, since the last of the witches had given their lives to create the Veil. We wouldn’t be so lucky a second time.
His cheek touched mine, his chest pressing into my back as he leaned forward. His hand released mine finally, his arms wrapping around me to circle my stomach as if he could sense the sudden chill that had swept over me. “Eerie, isn’t he?” he asked, rubbing his stubbled cheek against mine. “The God of the Dead has always been the one to scare people away from this place.”
Everything inside me froze. Even though I hadn’t learned much of the Fae, the Old Gods were whispered about here and there. The God of the Dead more than any of the others.
The stone God staring back at me was the one who had leveled an entire city during The Great Wars, the one who’d killed more humans than any record could track. He was the harbinger of death, the sole Fae who could reanimate the corpses of our loved ones to use against us. If anything could be deemed the most vile of this world, I doubted it was Mab.
It was him.
Caelum sensed my unease, slowly gliding his hands on my stomach until only one arm remained wrapped around my hip. He pulled me into his side, and in the wake of the chill that had swept over me staring at the God of the Dead, I allowed the touch to warm me as he guided me up the walkway and away from the faces in the wall.
We ascended the stone path in silence, my heart heavy with confliction about Caelum’s words. Part of me wanted so badly to believe the creatures hunting us weren’t all bad, and there could be peace and an end to the miserable fate of being Fae Marked.
Were humans so perfect, if they were determined to slaughter us all because of a Mark on our neck that we had no control over? The answer wasn’t the one I wished for.