Read Hollow by Caroline Peckham Chapter 22 – I’d thought my human would wake sooner than this, but she was still unconscious. After an hour of walking with her in my arms – and fighting the forest no-handed to forge a path – my patience shattered and I tore a couple of vines from a tree and tethered her to my back. Her head rested on my shoulder, her breaths brushing my neck, assuring me she hadn’t passed from this world.
I’d pulled out the broken glass that had struck me in the back when the conservatory had been destroyed, but they would heal soon enough. The pain of her body pressing to the lacerations was far preferable to battling the forest without a blade. So with my sword in hand and her pack in the other, I made quicker work of putting distance between us and the castle. The Dragon had made such a commotion that anyone nearby would have immediately come to investigate, and I’d decided the best course of action was to disappear hastily. I preferred to remain anonymous a while longer and the knowledge that Ferris had the Dragon was not going to pass to anyone else while I could help it.
A root caught my ankle and I went stumbling forward with a curse. I could have sworn the forest was full of wrath today, making my journey far more difficult than it should have been. My arms were covered in scratches while Ferris was somehow entirely untouched by the brambles I was carving my way through.
I had seen the way the forest bowed to her, and now the Dragon itself had marked her with silver hair. I was no fool. There was more to this human than there appeared to be. I’d seen it in her eyes when I’d first met her, and the forest had only offered more evidence since. It made me all the more curious as to why she had come here at all. What could a creature such as her desire between these cursed boughs? What was worth risking her fragile life for?
To add to the discomfort of my journey, the storm hadn’t relented since leaving the castle and the rain was only growing heavier. I could barely see my hand before my face as I took a muddy animal track down a steep bank, nearly tripping straight into a rocky chasm. I leapt over it instead, scrabbling up the hill beyond it through waterlogged dirt and a thick mass of thorn bushes. The forest was laughing, striking at me with all it had while I gritted my teeth and never gave in.
At the top of the hill, I found mercy in the shape of a cave and hurried into it, pushing my sodden hair out of my eyes with a growl of frustration.
The forest would be able to claim us here if we stayed the night, of that I was damn sure. But the day was wearing thin and I couldn’t keep moving endlessly without a plan. It was getting us nowhere.
Ferris murmured a wordless sound in my ear and I released a breath of relief. My human was waking up.
I untethered her from my back and she stumbled into me as her feet hit the floor, my hands moving to her waist to steady her. Her palm pressed to my chest as she looked up at me, confusion marring her brow.
“What happened?”
“What didn’t happen?” I grunted.
“Hendrix,” she insisted, touching her temple as if pain thumped there. My mood turned even more sour.
“Your summoning skills need some work,” I gritted out, taking hold of the back of her neck and tilting her head back further so I could examine her. The irises of her violet eyes were full-blown and she looked far too pale. “Can you see straight?”
“Tell me what happened after the Dragon destroyed the castle,” she insisted.
“Any nausea?”
“Hendrix,” she bit at me again, and I sighed, releasing her. She was clearly well enough.
“Your Dragon collided with you and you’ve been passed out ever since. And as our little refuge is now shattered into a thousand pieces, I’ve been searching for another one.”
She looked around at the tiny cave we were standing in and wrinkled her nose in assessment of it. “And this is what you found?”
I glared at her in answer to that. “Obviously we will not be able to sleep here.”
“How late is it?” she asked, disconcerted.
I gestured to the pouring rain which veiled all glimmers of sunlight. “You tell me.”
“Haven’t you been keeping track of time?”
“Forgive me, princess, I was too busy hauling your ass through the forest – a forest which did not want me taking you anywhere it seemed.”
“Well which direction have we journeyed in?”
“Southeast,” I offered, knowing that much.
She glanced at the thorny marks lining my arms, then huffed a sigh, taking her pack from me and dropping down to sit on the floor and rifle through it.
“You’re going to consult a book, aren’t you?” I guessed dryly just as she produced the diary she’d found in the castle. “Wonderful.”
“It led us to the Dragon. Who are you to question it?” She arched a brow at me, and I was forced to admit that she had me there.
I dropped down beside her and waited while she began reading, the only sound between us the thundering rain. She began to shiver, goosebumps marking her arms and her silver hair sticking to her shoulders. I shifted closer, offering her the warmth of my body, and she didn’t move away when my arm slid around her and clamped tight. But she did glance up at me with those big eyes, the shimmer of them pushing a lump into my throat before she went back to reading.
A lock of her silver hair brushed my shoulder and I lifted it to examine it, noting the pearlescent quality of the silken strands and wondering what it meant. She tugged it out of my grip, gave me a hard look, then went back to her diary again. I couldn’t win with her. She always seemed halfway between despising me and liking me, oscillating from one to the other as unpredictably as the wind.
Despite the glare she’d given me, she leaned even closer, and I was surprised at how eagerly she took the heat my body offered. It had been a long time since I’d been touched like this. She no longer recoiled from me like she once had, and I couldn’t deny how familiar I was becoming with her company. Or how much I enjoyed it.
But how quickly this familiarity would shatter once she discovered the truth. So I had a mind to keep it for as long as possible, for her ignorance was my gift.
“She mentions a mill a few times,” Ferris murmured at last, and I glanced over at her, nose close to the page and concentration pinching her brow. “From comparing the description to the map she’s drawn… I think it must be to the south. If we can find a narrow stream and follow it downhill, it should take us right to it.”
I listened for a stream, but there was no whisper of it beyond the torrential rain.
“Lead the way then, trail-finder,” I taunted, gesturing to the stormy forest, and Ferris cut me a look for my dry tone.
“Scared of a little rain?” She got to her feet, tucking the diary into her pack and shouldering it.
I didn’t get up. “The rain dampens our senses. We can no longer hear an enemy approach, nor smell a fire on the wind, nor see very far beyond the veil of water – this is especially true for you, human. It is the perfect way for the forest to disorientate us so I, for one, am staying here until it passes.”
“Then you’ll be here when night falls. Besides, you possess the spirit of the Bear, so maybe it can lead us to the stream. It might even deal with this rain for us.” Her eyes glinted with the idea as it struck her.
Damn. That was too smart of a thought for me to have a sharp comeback to it. I wanted to refute it, but she was right. Why hadn’t I come up with it myself?
“Of course. I thought of that already,” I lied in an offhanded drawl, feeling her gaze burning against my face as I turned to glare out at the forest.
“Bullshit.”
“I still believe it’s not worth the risk of travelling in a thunderstorm of the forest’s creation. It is likely a trap.”
“Better a trap we can work to avoid than remaining here to die at dusk,” she quipped. “Release the Bear and let’s at least attempt to survive. I’m not planning on dying today. I don’t have nearly as many years under my belt as you do, grandpa.”
I rose to my feet, anger raking through my veins. “Who do you think you’re giving orders to?”
She didn’t back down under my scrutiny but I noticed her shoulders tensing beneath the weight of my stare. I could so easily make her fear me. I could make her eyes light up with terror with one simple truth from my lips, and it was so fucking tempting to share it at last. But I took a breath instead, forcing myself to focus on what was really important right now. I had to put my pride aside. But it was a weighty task.
I said nothing as I summoned the Bear, calling it from the amulet in a swirl of water. It landed beyond the cave, the rain splashing against its liquid form and becoming one with the spirit. What a thing to behold this spirit was. Water embodied in animal form, yet its teeth looked razor sharp, and its might was beyond words.
“Lead us to the nearest stream,” I commanded.
“Can you part this storm for us too?” Ferris added, and the Bear looked to her with intrigue.
“It will not obey anyone except-” The words fell dead on my lips as the rain parted like curtains, creating a dry passage between two raging downpours. The Bear turned and began leading us onward and Ferris took the lead with a smile dancing on her lips.
I scowled at her back as I followed, irritation flashing through me at her smugness. How did this mortal creature wield so much power in this forest? It bent to her will in ways I could not begin to fathom.
Her manner of being right about things was starting to get deep under my skin too. That, combined with her unfounded confidence, her tireless persistence, and her inner strength was, well… infuriating. It captivated my mind when she was around and perhaps even more so when she was not. I chewed over it when I tried to sleep and it only caused me more wakefulness. She was quickly becoming the scourge of my thoughts, and I desperately wished to make her kneel to me.
I was an outcast prince for a reason, a Fae who had struck fear in the hearts of my own people. But this girl, this human, walked through this forest with the air of a being far more powerful than she could ever hope to be alone. But with that Dragon… well, if she learned of its gifts and worked it to her will then I’d be hard-pressed to stop her. It was clearly resisting her command though, the way it had destroyed the castle in an attempt to kill us was proof enough of that.
I was playing a risky game by encouraging her to learn how to wield it, because there was no guarantee she wouldn’t turn on me once she did.
If the boon was to be mine, I had to try harder with her and truly win her onto my side. The truth was, I needed her. For more reasons than just the Dragon – though the spirit’s aid would make it all the more likely that we would survive this cursed place and make it to the Great Elm.
From that diary to the bowing of the forest at her feet, Ferris Creed was a gift between these trees that had been granted to me and I could not squander it. Why a beast such as I had been offered her was beyond my understanding but far be it from me to deny it.
For a moment, screams echoed in mind and the past brushed by all too close, death crooning in my ears like a songbird. There had been so much blood the day I’d been outcast from Rivenspire. Every day since had been walked with the taint of it upon my skin and I’d come to embody it after so many years.
After I’d parted from my home, I’d fed on the harvest of my bad deeds. I’d become the monster they named me. And I planned to hunt down every last one of the Coterie for what they had caused, carve them out of their gilded towers and force them to face me Fae to Fae in the end. If Islasees really was here in the forest, then he would be the next to die for all he had done. And with a Dragon on my side along with the spirits I had already earned myself, how could I lose?
Perhaps Ferris really was the answer to all my woes.
“Your hair rather suits you like that,” I commented, the brightness of it catching my gaze again. “Your beauty was obvious before, but that strength you possess wasn’t. I see it more clearly now. The glimmer of magic upon you was all it took to unveil it.”
She cast a withering look at me over her shoulder and I regretted voicing my thoughts.
“Don’t play nice guy with me, Hendrix. I know the truth of you.”
My jaw flexed. “You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered grimly.
She turned to face the path again, deciding not to answer me, and I swiftly moved to her side, my arm brushing hers.
“If you want to talk, then tell me more about this supposed key to the labyrinth,” she demanded.
Feisty thing. If only she knew how lethal the fire she played with truly was.
“Ah, the key,” I mused. “Well if I told you too much, you wouldn’t need me anymore and I expect you’d run away with your pretty Dragon. I can’t be having that, lightwing. I’m growing far too fond of keeping you.”
“It’s me that’s keeping you now, Hendrix.” She offered me a rogue smile and my mood simmered into something roiling and dark.
“I am no one’s prisoner,” I growled, thinking of the past. The clinking of chains, the ripe scent of blood in the air. There were ways a Fae could be tortured that no human could survive. I had known the taste of many torments. I didn’t plan on ever returning to the feast.
“You’ve been someone’s before.” Her eyes narrowed, reading the truth in my expression.
“Yes. I was tortured once… years after I was outcast. I was taken by a Fae who held a long-lasting grudge against me – a male who had caused me all manner of torment in the past. And I believe that male is here in this forest. Islasees Bellatorn.” The trees shivered around me as if they feared that name – and so they should.
“Who is he?”
“He’s the Lord Protector. Leader of Queen Sorshana’s army and King Arthrun’s before her. His soldiers are broken in like horses to obey his every command. They’re ruthless, mindless Fae that are brutally efficient in every sense. One word spoken against the queen and you will find yourself at their mercy – she is a fierce creature who took the throne and refused to relinquish it after Arthrun’s death. Islasees has always been the royals’ loyal hunting dog, willing to do their dirty work without ever questioning orders. He revels in it too. He’s never happier than when he’s making someone scream.”
“Sounds like a delight.” Ferris wrapped her arms around herself as if she could feel the chill of him in the air. “So, he captured you? You must have really angered the royals. What did you do?”
“What didn’t I do?” I said with dry humour, but she didn’t smile. She stepped away from me, warier than ever. That was no surprise, but I was surprised by how much I didn’t like her parting from me. I couldn’t remember how many years it had been since I’d kept a companion who didn’t know the depths of my depravity.
She remained silent and I figured I had to give her something of the truth.
“I rebelled, I suppose. Some knowledge came to light about the royals and their lap dogs that I didn’t care for.”
“What knowledge? What did you do?”
There was that question again. What did I do… well, that was a twisted tale if ever one was told. She didn’t need to know the whole truth. But perhaps I could share a part of it. She hated the Fae after all. We weren’t so different in that respect. And some broken piece of me wanted her to know me better. The real me.
“I stood up to them. I punished them, at first in small ways. Acts of anger, you might call it. But that anger didn’t lessen as time went on. It festered. The more I learned, the more riddled with hate I became. You see… there are a group of Fae in our realm who have been around so long that they established the foundations of Fae society. And there is one thing which Fae that old have in common, Ferris.”
She met my gaze at her name, hanging on my next words.
“They are bored. I know this, because I am one of them. Or at least, I was. Time eats you from the inside out until you’re left…”
“Empty.”
I smiled grimly, nodding in confirmation. “People like them, like me I suppose, we do things. Bad things. Because when all the good wears thin, there is only bad left to explore.”
“What kind of bad things?” Her voice was a whisper now, like she feared the answer I would give. And so she should.
I crept closer to her on the path and her feet slowed to a halt, the Bear ahead of us stopping too and waiting for us to follow again. She backed up against the sheet of rain behind her as I prowled closer.
“A lot of them got a taste for killing. Humans, at first.”
She cringed.
“Then Fae,” I continued. “A long time ago, they marked themselves as other. Called themselves the Coterie – an inner circle of Fae who command power. The requirements to be accepted into the fold is to be born into one of the seven great families and to reach the ripe age of two hundred and fifty. Most of their blood is royal – ‘superior’ as they call it.” I sneered. “The rest of the Fae bowed to their power. And slowly, piece by piece, the Coterie took more and more from them. Riches, land, rights.”
“I thought Rivenspire was a haven.”
“That’s a lie,” I bit out, heat bursting through my veins.
“Says the outcast,” she retorted, raising her chin.
“I was cast out for turning on them, for taking a stand against their heinous acts.”
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like you broke the law too many times and they got rid of you for it.”
I bared my teeth at her. “You have no idea what they’re really like.”
“Oh, I can guess. Trust me, I’m not sticking up for them. I may not have met many Fae but the ones I have are arrogant creatures who think nothing of those they see as beneath them. It’s no surprise you all turned on each other. But if you think I’m going to feel sorry for you because your kingdom of monsters cast you out, then think again.”
I shook my head at her. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Then what do you want? Because your sob story isn’t flying with me. You allude to their terrible crimes, but what of yours? We all choose our path. You’re an outcast because you’re no better than them. It sounds like you might be worse.”
A serpent coiled around the inside of my throat, no words able to get past it. Because what could I say to that? She was right. There was no hiding it even when I tried to paint a picture of the merciless Fae kingdom I had turned on, she saw me for what I was. I was no rebellious hero. I’d done things that would make her skin crawl. And sooner or later, she would discover that truth and I would lose her once and for all.
