Happy Wednesday, folks! I'm so sorry to have left you all with that wicked as hell cliffhanger, so here's the continuation of Shion and Nezumi's epic escape from those strange, metallic birds that pursued them out of Kronos.
I'm pleased to announce that my classes for graduate school will be resuming tonight! I've been plotting out a schedule so that my writing isn't impacted the way it was last time, as I'm going to do my best to ensure that no spontaneous hiatuses occur again!
Thank you to everyone who has supported this fic! I always love hearing from you guys, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter! In addition to some explanation as to what exactly these things are, we're also going to get to see a little bit of what Nezumi's life was like when he was little!
Hope you enjoy it, everyone!
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As soon as Shion slumped over in the passenger seat, Nezumi felt it―the creeping darkness of sleep that spread through his body like wildfire.
His heart plummeted, terror cracking through him like a shock of lightning. That should have been enough of a jolt to keep the exhaustion at bay, but it didn't. Nezumi could feel it slipping through the cracks in the glass windows, seeping through the warm, iron-scented air blowing in from the car's heater.
He took his foot off the gas pedal, but didn't dare hit the brakes. The smooth road beneath him had begun to shift, tiny bumps rattling the car's wheels and scattering the headlights. Through the windshield, he could see their light stretching forward, hitting a wall of darkness that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere.
No… Not from nowhere.
His heart pounded like a drum in his ears. Nezumi's fingers tightened on the wheel as the car began to slow down. Beyond the rumbling iron of the car, he could hear the beating of their wings; the murder of strixes that had appeared in Kronos and pursued them endlessly down the road.
The strixes weren't the cause of the exhaustion. Nezumi knew enough about the beasts to know that their powers aligned only with shredding flesh from bone.
The metallic humming of their little wings echoed like a requiem in his skull. Young strixes. The metallic feathers on their little wings would solidify and turn to blades as they aged, their round heads growing sharpened horns that mimicked those of mortal owls. Their emerald green eyes gawked outward and flashed in the unending darkness surrounding the car, a cavernous dome that had spread around them on all sides.
Fuck. Nezumi struck the steering wheel as the car slowed down, the road stretching forward in a way that clearly no longer belonged to the mortal realm. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He bit his lower lip; the pain sent enough of a spike through his psyche that he hoped it would push him beyond the plague of exhaustion that flooded around him. His vision blurred at the edges, the smell of the iron that'd made him sick to his stomach beginning to dull as some unknown voice urged him to sleep.
He knew what was coming. Beneath the exhaustion, he could feel it. Something dark lumbered from the side of the car, bleeding out of the tree line. Nezumi's body burned with terror as it wandered slowly around the car.
Nezumi watched it as it stepped in front of the car's hood, far enough not to touch the iron and steel that would have burnt its skin―but all he could see was a flash of filth and a tall, thin body that rose taller than a human man.
Move, Nezumi urged. His body had begun to slump forward, his head strangely heavy. The sound of the metal wings scraping had drifted away in the darkness. We need to move.
A strix landed on the hood of the car. It cocked its tiny head, peering at him through the glass. It hopped on its tiny feet, the burning from the iron urging it to keep dancing, its luminous eyes refusing to leave his face.
Tiny plops peppered their way around the roof of the car as the strixes began to descend and slowly overtake it. Somehow, between one moment and the next, the stolen vehicle had rumbled to a stop without Nezumi's knowledge. His blurred eyes searched through the haze, desperately seeking the tall shadow that had slipped from the tree line, but he could no longer spot it.
And the whispers…
The whispers hadn't stopped.
Exhaustion bled through each inch of his body. Nezumi knew this feeling. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he fought desperately against the urge to fall asleep, thinking of Shion slumped over in the passenger seat beside him. He groped a hand wildly through the air, searching for the feel of fabric or cool skin belonging to the mortal boy.
The headlights clicked off, plunging the world into darkness just as the Bog stepped back in front of the hood.
Nezumi saw a quick flash of black wings and sharp horns―and then exhaustion plunged him into a world of shadows and nightmares. Behind his closed eyelids, images began to cycle, memories dredged up from the abyss Nezumi had plunged them into.
As something wrenched the car door open beside him, Nezumi fell head-first into his nightmare.
⁂
"Don't let it escape!" the Unseelie King commanded, spurring his nightmare onward.
The silver stag, pursued by the King and his Knights, broke from the cover of the dead trees surrounding the Unseelie Mountain and banked for the deep woods heading in the direction of the swamp.
The older Knights―Ycosa, the crimson-haired goblin, and Brazig, the ogre with the broken tusk―followed the King, sprinting hard to keep up with his nightmare. Better suited to the task of pursuing on foot, these two Knights were bereft of steeds, while the remainder of the hunting party urged a horde of them onward like an ocean of black ash.
Nezumi's tiny fingers clung to the silver mane of the nightmare colt he'd been given. He boldly streaked past the King's massive nightmare―a hostile stallion that bit everyone who came too close to him, the King being the only understandable exception―and pressed himself flat against the colt's elegant black neck.
The thin brown cloak he'd been given to wear by the arachne back in the mountain billowed behind him in the wind. He let the colt lead the way, pursuing the white stag on the King's orders. The nightmare needed no commands from Nezumi's trembling lips. It nimbly jumped a creek, a broken stone wall built by a family of dwarves the King had driven out a decade ago, and a tangle of brush filled to the brim with thorns.
The freezing autumn wind brushed over the tips of his ears. His hair had been shorn close his first night in the Unseelie Court, less than three weeks ago. Nezumi still hadn't grown accustomed to the lightness of his skull or the lack of hair tickling his neck as he looked around―not that he'd done much of that. He'd learned to keep his head down and bite his tongue against the sobs that threatened to crack his rib cage.
The Unseelie King and his nightmare disappeared behind him. Nightmares were quick as lightning bolts in their youth. As they aged, their speed transformed into iron-like strength, but even a mortal steed stood no chance against a nightmare's powerful legs. In the midnight shadows, Nezumi could barely see the Unseelie King, dressed all in black as he always was, or the horde of warriors and black stallions that pursued him.
Nezumi crouched low over the colt's neck, his freezing fingers tightening. The King had given him neither reins nor a saddle. He'd simply picked Nezumi up by the scruff of the neck, plopped him on the back of the skittish colt and purred, "Better hold on tight."
The colt streaked past them all, shrieking with its renewed freedom. Nezumi pressed his face into the cool darkness of its throat, clenching his eyes shut as the nightmare plunged into the heart of the forest after the white stag, gleaming like a star in the darkness.
I know how this ends, Nezumi thought, as if from a distance. He didn't know where the thought had come from, but anxiety sat in the pit of his stomach like a coiled serpent.
Nezumi had never ridden a horse―let alone a nightmare. The wild creature, corralled by the other Knights earlier that evening and leashed only by its internalized fear of the Unseelie King's wrath, had no love or loyalty for Nezumi. He could feel its tightened muscles beneath his legs as it plunged into the darkness of midnight, chasing down the stag.
The King and his hunting party disappeared at Nezumi's back, but he wasn't foolish enough to believe they'd lost track of him. As the distance between them expanded, he could still hear the thunder of their hooves, the wild laughter and the King's delighted shouts. His heart hammered behind his ribs like a drum, the bones threatening to crack beneath the pressure.
For a long while, Nezumi's nightmare pursued the white stag, chasing it until a deep chasm bled into view before them. The colt, sensing the drop, reared back; Nezumi's chin collided with its neck, his teeth rattling in his skull.
The stag's elegant feet tapped anxiously as it regarded the plunge into the abyss. Well below the cliff's edge sat a thick mire, its large trees and cool waters stretching out as far as they eye could see.
The frantic animal danced to the left, darting a glance over its shoulder at Nezumi. A tangle of thick briars stretched in a wall around the forest, creating a barrier between the dark forests and the deep swamps that surrounded them.
Nezumi eased himself down from the colt's back. Its heavy breath puffed in the air, a stench like decaying bodies permeating around him. Nezumi drew the cloak over his nose and took a step toward the stag.
It raised its shoulders at his approach, regarding him with its trembling brown eyes. It glanced over the nightmare's shoulder―but in the distance, the sound of trees breaking and branches snapping beneath the hooves of the hunting party made it second-guess its chance at escape. The nightmare colt huffed a breath, its sharpened teeth glinting in the moonlight.
Nezumi looked at the white stag. He saw the terror in its eyes as it realized its death was soon approaching. His fingers shook; a quick death would be better for the stag than anything the King and his horde of monsters would bestow upon it.
And yet…
And yet…
Nezumi waved his hand toward the patch of briars and hissed, "Go! Before they get here!"
The stag glanced toward the wall of briars and thorns. They curved inward, but a few moments of pain were better than the horrors of the Unseelie Court's bloodlust.
The stag leapt over Nezumi, its delicate silver hooves nearly decapitating him, and dove into the briar patch. The thorns scraped at its luminous skin, tearing tufts of its white fur from its body; still it pushed onward, wincing its way through the briars until it had broken free on the other side and hurried its way into the darkness of the forest.
Nezumi leaned his head against the colt's neck. His wings trembled in the cool autumn wind, the cloak shredded to bits from the thorns and briars. He pressed his little hand to his chest and clenched his eyes shut, his knees trembling.
Hoofbeats pounded in the distance, followed by shouts from the hunting party. Nezumi straightened his back, brushing his hair out of his face, and turned to regard the Unseelie King as he thundered into the clearing.
"It escaped, Your Majesty," he said, forcing the tremble in his voice away. He didn't offer an apology, nor did he offer an explanation.
The Unseelie King swung himself from the back of his nightmare with an audible curse. He marched to the edge, and Nezumi kept his head lowered as the King moved past him.
The King glared over the edge of the ravine, down into the blackened swamp. He spat onto the grass and twisted his heavy black boot in the dirt. "What a pity," he said, glancing at Nezumi in his dark periphery, "that our hunt proved unsuccessful."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
His cavernous eyes traveled to the nightmares and his Knights, panting and muttering amongst themselves at the loss of their kill. The King's gaze sharpened as he regarded the tree line. Nezumi's blood chilled at the prospect of what the King might have found, but whatever had arrested his attention, the King made no notion of it.
His frown hardened; even that looked impossibly beautiful on his marble-pale face. "Head back to the mountain," the King declared. "Before the sun rises."
The nightmares turned in unison, a single black lake that puddled its way into the trees. Ycosa's crimson hair glinted in the moonlight as he trudged behind them all, anxiously twitching his long fingers.
Nezumi climbed gently onto the back of the colt. His hands skimmed the beast's solid neck; it nickered beneath his touch, stamping its thin little legs and trotting toward the tree line after the hunters.
The Unseelie King marched to his own nightmare, painfully slow. His black eyes skimmed the line of trees again, but Nezumi didn't see or hear what he might have been searching for. He ducked his head, his wings pressing flat against his spine as the shredded cloak lay in tatters over them. The hoofbeats of the hunting party above hurried along, obeying their King's order without waiting for the King to sail to the front of the procession.
As they approached the mountain, its monstrous peaks jutting into the inky black sky like the teeth of some vile creature, Nezumi realized his hands were bleeding.
He turned his palms up. Four thin crescents of dark red lay across each of them, bitten by his own slender fingernails. Nausea twisted in his stomach. Nezumi hadn't bled this much his entire life. It seemed as though his first few weeks in the Unseelie Court sought to make up for lost time, depriving him of the blood he would have lost had he been born in their numbers. The nightmare colt he'd ridden had been so fast and untamed that it was a wonder Nezumi hadn't been thrown to the ground.
For the duration of the miserable ride, Nezumi was certain the nightmare would buck him loose and send him careening to the ground. His wings twitched at the thought. They were too small and weak to carry him, not yet the appropriate size to take flight, and a fall from the nightmare colt's back at the speed it sailed would have snapped his neck.
His knees knocked together as he dismounted the colt. What is the Unseelie King had seen him let the white stag flee into the briars? What if one of the other Knights had?
He smoothed his palms against the black tunic the arachne had spun for him. He hated the color. He missed the bright greens and blues of the Seelie Court, the smell of fresh apples and grass. The dank walls of the Unseelie Court reeked of blood and death, so thick and choking that it was a wonder anyone had an appetite.
The hunt itself had been horrible. The Unseelie King rarely participated in them, choosing instead to send his Knights out on such tasks, but as it was Nezumi's "first time", the King felt it necessary to tag along and "supervise". Nezumi was oddly thankful for the King's presence. Terrible as the whole ordeal had been, if the King had sent him off with just Ycosa and Brazig, he'd have returned with bruises and maybe a few missing fingers.
The King was no better when it came to physical abuse, but it seemed as if his Knights were too afraid to risk causing Nezumi physical harm in front of him. Nezumi had no idea why that could have been.
He forced back the wave of tears that desperately wanted to fall. Knights were ruthless. They did not cry or show weakness or fear.
Nezumi thought back to the Seelie Queen's green-clad Knights and their pleasant smiles and their silver fox-shaped pins. He shoved the thoughts away. Such memories were dangerous.
Servants with bruised faces and trembling hands had set out a long, fur-draped table in the throne room for the hunting party's return. It was laden with meat pies that buzzed with flies, roasted birds, rotten cheeses and fruits that Nezumi knew would explode the second he tried to bite into one. He ducked his head and made his way past the table, hoping to go unnoticed as he snuck his way back to the freezing hollow he now called home.
"Hey, brat!" a piercing voice bellowed from the other end of the throne room.
Nezumi's shoulders shot to his ears. He looked up and saw Jothil pushing her way across the hard stone floor toward him. Her snowy white hair fell in clumps around her shoulders, and her bleeding teeth flashed as she sneered down at him. "His Majesty wants to see you," she sang, a dusty sound that made Nezumi cold to the core.
Terror tightened around his chest like a corset, but Nezumi had no choice other than to obey. If he tried to make a hasty retreat to his hollow chamber, the Unseelie King would break the door down and drag him out kicking and screaming in front of the entire Court just for a laugh. Or worse, he'd send the golden-eyed Phooka to do it for him.
He nodded and hurried past her to the King's chambers; Jothil aimed a swift kick at his back as he went, but she was already deep in her cup of wine and kicked the table instead.
The Unseelie King stood in front of a tall silver mirror as Nezumi ducked into the room. There were two sniffling elves standing outside the chamber, holding swatches of cloth in their battered arms. They each glared through teary eyes as Nezumi hurried inside the King's chamber, but he tried not to give them the time. Most of the servants disliked him.
In his reflection, the Unseelie King was a radiant vision. Even terrified to the core, Nezumi could see that. All his life, in the dead of night, Nezumi had listened to the older Seelie Folk tell tales of the beast that ruled the Unseelie Court. A tall, stick-thin creature with a set of broken black wings and horns that scraped the sky as he walked. A thing so filled with vanity and jealousy that he'd gone to great lengths to rid himself of the life-saving mud his kind often caked themselves in to prevent the sun's rays from burning him to a crisp. The Unseelie King cared only for the beauty of his own reflection and the few moments of excitement he received when making an enemy bleed.
Nezumi hated that the tales were true. The first time he'd seen the Unseelie King―from a distance, as nothing more than a black column that strode into the Seelie Queen's throne room and left half a day later without a word―he'd had nightmares for weeks. He'd awoken in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, weeping into the folds of his mother's skirt as she desperately tried to comfort him. She assured him that the nightmares meant nothing, that they were the aftereffect of the King's natural abilities as a bog.
Nezumi had grown accustomed to the nightmares. Bogs were creatures made of the stuff. Their existence itself was an unnatural combination of nightmare and reality, so much so that it bled through their veins and turned their blood black as tar. Nezumi supposed it made sense that such a creature could seize the throne and hold it for so long―after all, who would want to challenge a beast that embodied terror itself?
The Unseelie King stared into his reflection. Having grown with the tales of this monster, Nezumi knew that they all began with the Unseelie King's unspeakable beauty and ended with the horror of his cruelty. Rarely did the tales speak of how easily the King could lift a creature twice his size into the air by the throat and hurl it across the length of the throne room. Rarely did the speak of how he bound his wings in iron links and welcomed the pain, striking down those who dared to step too close to him and laughing at their misery.
His hair dark sat at the nape of his neck, bound with thin clips made of bird bone and pinned to his head to keep it from flying loose during the hunt. Several thick strands wound about his horns, a shade lighter.
Spotting Nezumi in the mirror's reflection, the Unseelie King's eyes flashed. He turned, dressed in a long ash-black robe that covered him from throat to ankle, and swept something off the little marble table at his side.
The King walked up to Nezumi, a vicious smile on his face. He seized Nezumi's hand―Nezumi winced at the cold―and smoothed each of his fingers open. He then dropped something in the middle of Nezumi's hand, and the room chilled, too.
"Little trickster," the King purred.
Nezumi stared down at the tuft of white fur in his hand. Streaked with claret blood, he knew in an instant it had come from the white stag. More specifically, it'd come from the briars and thorns surrounding the bushes where the stag had disappeared at Nezumi's insistence. The King must have spotted it, smelled the blood where all the others in his hunting party had missed it.
The Unseelie King turned and sauntered back to the silver mirror. His black eyes glinted like obsidian as he regarded Nezumi's trembling reflection. "You let our prey escape."
Nezumi didn't reply.
"Answer me," the King said, though there was no compulsion or anger in his voice.
"Yes, sir."
"And why would you do such a pointless thing?"
Nezumi's shoulders shot to his ears. His fingers shuddered around the tuft of white fur, unable to release it. He wanted to dash it to the ground and sprint for the safety of his bed-chamber―but there was no such place as safety in the Unseelie Court. "I―I felt sorry for it," Nezumi said, the truth spilling over his quivering lips like sapphires. "It didn't want to die."
"Rarely does anything want to die, child." The Unseelie King smoothed a lock of his long, dark hair over his pointed ear. He traced the shape with the tip of his tattooed finger, scrutinizing the pale curve of his cheekbones in the reflection. "Even those that say they do rarely mean it."
Nezumi lowered his eyes.
"This was a chance for you to prove to the Court that you're stronger than those Seelie cowards." His tone was casual enough, but his eyes darkened as he continued to smooth his fingers over the lines of his face. He'd painted his lips black for the hunt, and the tint remained like a stain in his skin, so dark that his sharp, strong teeth looked like pearls in comparison. "You've disappointed me. This was a chance to show strength, and you gave that up for what purpose?"
Nezumi's teeth sunk into his lower lip; he tasted blood.
"You are soft when you should be cold. Forgiving when you should be cruel." The Unseelie King turned away from his reflection and moved forward. He'd already stripped himself of the thin black armor he'd adorned for the hunt―a show, for the King had no real use for armor. His wings dragged on the ground like a cloak, the bones snapped to the point of immobility.
The Unseelie King regarded Nezumi for another frozen moment before announcing, "I thought you would have learned by now, but it seems you need a reminder. Listen well, boy: mercy is another word for weakness. Let a creature escape, even once, and they'll start to doubt your ability to punish them. If I order you to slaughter a creature, regardless of who or what it might be, I expect you to obey without hesitation. Fear is the only thing that matters when it comes to ruling a Court. My subjects obey me simply because they're too afraid to do anything else."
"People obeyed the Seelie Queen because she was kind." The words exploded out of Nezumi's mouth before he could stop them. He clenched his teeth and reeled back, but the damage had been done.
To his horror, the Unseelie King's painted lips drew back in a sinister grin. "Is that so?" He looked around his bed-chamber, his elegant neck turning slowly as he stole a glance to the left and to the right, and then over Nezumi's shoulder to the closed door. "Dear me, but it seems we aren't in the Seelie Court, now, are we?"
Nezumi shook his head, his eyes bright with tears. His legs went still, trembling as the Unseelie King approached and loomed over him. Shadows fell around him like a shroud, and Nezumi's wings flattened against his spine in terror.
Nezumi didn't have the strength to speak. Tears dribbled down his cheeks. His hands trembled at his sides, too weak to lift and brush the tears away. They struck the solid stone floor around his boots, too loud in the sudden brush of silence around the Unseelie King's bed chambers.
The King clicked his tongue; it sounded like a death knell. "Oh, child," he said, jabbing Nezumi between the ribs with a long finger. "That thing in here will get you killed if you don't do something about it. And to help you practice doing so, I've prepared a special lesson especially for you, on the off chance you failed me. One that will teach you the consequences of kindness."
"Please," Nezumi choked, desperate to escape the chamber. The darkness crushed around him, smothering his breath.
"Don't beg. There's no point in it." The Unseelie King drew something from his hip. Its silver light caught in the gleam of the baubles glowing in the King's chamber. Nezumi's eyes zeroed in on the tip, sharpened and diamond-bright. "Turn around."
Nezumi turned, sniffling. His wings fluttered at the cold. He felt the Unseelie King's long fingers skim over them, delicately tracing the shape of the nub connecting to his shoulder blade. The primary feathers were soft and delicate, and they twitched at the King's touch. Nezumi's spine went rigid at the realization that the King meant to cut him.
He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the skin. It would be all right. The Unseelie King had kicked him, cut his hair, dragged him across the floor and belittled him in the front of the Court since the moment he arrived in this horrible place, but he'd never done anything Nezumi couldn't recover from. He sucked in a deep breath, preparing for the cold bite of the knife in the skin of his back.
The Unseelie King grabbed his wing instead.
The pain made Nezumi's eyes widen. His wing jerked on reflex, but the King gripped tighter. Pain crackled through Nezumi's veins like a steadily growing fire. Tears blurred his vision, stinging his cheeks as they poured down. He silently assured himself that it would be all right. The King wouldn't hurt him too badly. What was the point of calling it a lesson if Nezumi would be brutally maimed?
The knife ripping through the muscle of his wings and severing them from his back answered that question.
Kindness was repaid with cruelty.
To Be Continued...