Page 13 of A War of Three Kings

“Regardless. I hear Keira told you all about our people’s customs around the pilgrimage. That you forced it out of her. I wonder, did she tell you much about our great hunts?”

I stare at the old spider, giving her nothing.

Keira differs vastly from her grandmother. For the hundredth time, I wonder why she hasn’t found me. Why she doesn’t fight for me. If I could get a few minutes to talk to her, I could clear up all the hurt and betrayal between us.

I will allow Naomi to speak. It may give me some of the information I need.

“You see,” she begins, “sometimes innocent fae wander into our realm through the gaps in the barrier between worlds, especially when it gets close to the alignment. Cú Sídhe, pixies, nymphs.”

“Sometimes goblins or sprites stumble through as well,” her son offers amicably.

“It is a death sentence in these lands, whether the fae has the intelligence to know it or not.” Naomi inspects her manicured nails. “We send specialized hunting parties to track them down and kill them. It is quite the sport. The meat is roasted and served at our banquets. The festivities are so grand that even the king travels to these far reaches of the kingdom to partake. We eat fae flesh to enrich our own magic. Grind their bones to powder for potions, consume their entrails and make relics from their pelts. We do this toyourkind to steal their magic, perhaps even those from the spring realm.”

I force my fists to unclench, and it takes everything I have to stop my teeth from grinding. The black market for fae flesh has never ceased. They just lost access to us. Those horrendous practices are still deeply embedded in their culture.

The idea of pixies, sprites and nymphs being hunted, murdered and eaten churns my stomach. I can understand the killing of Cú Sídhe or some of the less intelligent goblin species that would attack humans like mindless beasts, but the others? The nymphs especially?

They would be lost and frightened in a foreign land. Those peaceful creatures would ask for help to return home, and they would beg for mercy while a horde of humans slaughtered them on a glorified hunt.

It is an atrocity. A crime humans should be held accountable for.

How hard would it be to toss those fae back through a portal, when they open them anyway for their pilgrims?

Rage boils through me, making every muscle whipcord tight, but I can’t show any of it.

“Do you know, wiseHigh Priestess, that we keep cattle from the human realm in my lands?” I mock. “Sheep, pigs and cows. We eat their flesh and use their pelts for clothing. Does this offend you?”

Edmund raises his eyebrows and the beginning of another of those damned smirks forms on his lips. “Do you know who leads these hunting parties, Aldrin? Both of my oldest daughters. They excel at it. Keira and Caitlin are our best fae hunters. They each have killed many of your kind.” He reclines in his chair. “I wonder if Keira had met you in our realm whether you would have been added to her count of fae kills. Perhaps you wouldn’t even be the first high fae she has slaughtered.”

I recoil from those words. The blood rushes from my head and I collapse back into my seat.

What is the point of fighting for each other when we were doomed from the beginning? Keira and I will always be on opposite sides of this oldest war, and it feels impossible to bridge the growing ravine between us.

I may have kept my secrets from her, but she had her own that were just as nasty. Do I know her at all?

Keira partook in the poaching of fae. I have to come to terms with that fact. I should be angry. Murderous. I should rage and curse this entire damned family to the darkest realm, but I feel empty. A complete void of a man.

The memory of her attacking that band of Cú Sídhe as she tried to escape from me floods my mind.

My heart hammers so painfully that I fear it will shatter into a million pieces. Despair rises within me, so thick and bitter I swear I can taste it. This is a betrayal, to me and to my people, and I don’t know if I will ever forgive her for it.

The image of her crying over that Living Memory Scroll of a druid visiting a black market comes to mind, and I now wonder if her tears were born of guilt rather than empathy.

Naomi and Edmund watch my reaction closely, and there is a self-satisfied quirk to the old spider’s lips. I am giving them far too much, but I am too tired to care.

“I would hear of it from Keira’s lips.” The words tear from me. “I want to speak to her.”

Edmund narrows his eyes at me. “No.”

“Why are you keeping her from me?” I snap.

Naomi clacks her nails rapidly on the desk. “Has it occurred to you, Aldrin, that she doesn’t want to see you?”

“I find that difficult to believe. Even if she hates me, she will want the closure of hearing a confession from my own lips. Keira would be horrified at the conditions you have kept us in.”

“Why does she not come to you of her own accord? She knows where to find you.” Naomi spreads her arms wide, but her son shoots her a dark look. It is a lie, and that is all I need to know. How many other lies have they told me?

Edmund pins me with a feral glare like I am an enemy he has marked for death from across a battlefield. “Things are about to get very messy, so I implore you to answer my next question with honesty, for poor Hawthorne’s sake.”

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