“Not yet, anyway. I’d very much like to see you live a comfortable life one day,” he said, stepping up to the corner of an alley. He peeked around it, guiding me out onto the main street as we followed the shadows of Melian and her men in the distance. He walked at my back as I crossed the open space, hugging the shadows outside the circles of torchlight. I drew my dagger from its sheath and clutched it in my hand, taking comfort in the small blade that drew less attention than a sword would have.
Every set of eyes that fell on me from the windows of the homes lining the street felt like they would sound the alarm, like they would turn us in out of fear they might suffer the consequences of our freedom. We ducked into another narrow cross street, leaving me to breathe a sigh of relief at being less exposed.
“Are we going to talk about what you’re keeping from me?” Caelum whispered, his voice hushed as he walked at my back. I inhaled raggedly, the chilly air filling my lungs as I didn’t dare to look back at him.
“I’m not keeping anything from you,” I said, as I glanced toward a darkened corner of the alley and felt the sweet relief of nothing staring back at me.
We came to the mouth of the crossroad, Caelum pressing his spine into the wall at his back as he chanced a glance out into another main road. He raised two fingers, signaling me to hurry across the cobblestone roadway and into the alley on the opposite side. Once there, I waited, watching as Caelum ducked low and hurried to catch up behind me.
“If you aren’t keeping anything from me, then why do you sometimes act as if you’ve seen a ghost when you look at me, my star? Did I somehow become your enemy in the last two days?” he asked, walking at my side as we traveled down the darkened pathway between the main streets.
“Why would you be my enemy, Caelum? We’re on the same side.”
“Are we?” he asked, staring at me as I searched for any sign of Melian and the others. “The only side I’m on is the one that keeps you safe and mine. Beyond that, I couldn’t care less what happens to this world, no matter what you think that says about me.”
“You don’t care at all about saving the other Marked?” I asked, stopping in my tracks. I understood wanting me to stay safe, but to not care at all was brutal.
“I only care about you,” he reiterated. “I only came on this mission because I knew you would want me to. These people matter to you, so I’ll do my part. But I only do it out of loyalty to you, Little One. Not the Resistance.”
“They’re like us. How can you not want to help them?” I asked, forcing my feet to keep moving, because staying in one place would be too risky.
“Do you think us being like them would stop them from throwing us to the Mist Guard if it meant saving their own skins? Loyalty isn’t worth having if it doesn’t extend both ways,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me as if he could feel the way my thoughts had wandered since the cave beast. As if he could feel me pulling away from him, questioning him.
“Does that go for honesty as well?” I asked, swallowing past my nerves to act as he grabbed me by the front of the throat. He pressed me into the wall, letting the stone surface catch me.
I reached up, pressing the pointy end of my dagger to his throat as he grinned down at me. “That depends. There are some truths a person may not be ready to hear. Some omissions or lies are told for your protection. That goes for many things, my star,” he said, leaning into the sharp point until it broke the skin and a thin trail of blood dripped down his neck. “Like trust, but your tendency to put your knife to my throat would have me believe you do not trust me. Am I to understand I shouldn’t trust you in return?”
“How did you kill the cave beast, Caelum?” I asked, clinging to the event that had brought all the questions to my mind.
“Would you have rather I died?” he asked, his voice pained.
“Of course not! I just want to understand how. What is your Viniculum’s power that you could reduce the creature to nothing?”
“I see Melian has been talking again,” he sighed, shaking his head and seeming not to care about the way my blade scratched his skin. “I should’ve known she was the cause of your distance.”
“Is it not true?”
“It’s true. Our Viniculum is the same,” he said, touching a hand to the top of the white and black swirling lines on my neck. “That means we have the same magic flowing through us. I am not capable of anything that you aren’t, Little One.”
“My magic turned a man to snow,” I argued, snorting a laugh. “Not into a puddle of flesh and bone.”
“White is for the Winter Court.” He trailed a finger over the white line on his own neck, drawing my attention to the swirling line as it seemed to glow lightly in response to his touch. “Black is for the Shadow Court. It means our Fae have a parent from each Court, with both types of magic flowing through them. You seem to have a tendency toward the Winter side of your Viniculum, but I stray toward the Shadows and they control the most violent kinds of magic. So yes, Little One, I reduced a cave beast to a pile of flesh and bone, because he threatened you.”
I hadn’t thought the Viniculum worked like that, but even with it threatening me, Caelum had also needed to fight for his life.
It made enough sense to push back the worst of my questions, but something still remained, pressing at me though I couldn’t name it.
I dropped my forehead to his chest, the press of his hand still at the front of my throat reminding me of how much everything had shifted in such a short time. Pulling my dagger away from his throat, I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t let them turn you against me. They don’t do it for your benefit, but theirs. I will always have your best interest at heart, Estrella,” he said, releasing my throat in favor of cupping the back of my head.
“Why?”
“Because I love you. Because I will always love you. It is as simple as that.”
“As touching as this moment is, I feel the need to point out how inconceivably impossible that will be,” a male said, stepping into the mouth of the alleyway.
His face was angular, free from blemish, and his eyes glowed amber in the night. His body was thinner than I’d expected after studying the drawings of the Gods, but there was no question what he was when the pointed tips of his ears showed in the torchlight.
Fae.
34
We’d known the Mist Guard had a presence in Tradesholde, but I’d never guessed the Fae might be lurking in the shadows themselves, undetected by the guards trained to kill them with their iron weapons.
Caelum shoved me behind himself, drawing a sword from the scabbard on his back, but the Fae’s attention stayed rooted on me, as if Caelum was inconsequential to him, despite the Mark on his neck that was the exact same as mine.
“The rumors are true, then. He does have a human mate,” the Fae said to me, his voice sympathetic as he took the first step toward us. “I don’t imagine the Queen of Air and Darkness will be very happy when I deliver you.”
I swallowed, trying not to think of the implications of that statement. What did the Queen of Air and Darkness have to do with me? My Mark seemed to tingle with awareness, humming against my skin as if it could feel the threat in the Fae male’s words.