Page 99 of A Kingdom of Lies

I looked up towards the raised podium, wishing that the Twins had returned for me as they had promised. Watching and waiting stretched out time, but as it went on, I began to believe they would never return for me. I was stuck, like Jesi and Elinor and the hundreds of other fey.

“Jesi, believe me or not, I promise to get you out of here.”

Jesi laughed. It was a painful, horrible sound that did not reflect happiness or joy, but disbelief and irritation. “Many have said and promised the same. And if you look around you, I could point them out even now. They may have forgotten, but I haven’t. I won’t. Because the day I forget is the day I wish to perish entirely.”

I felt a sense of responsibility for Jesi, knowing her life was displaced due to the chaos that followed my mother’s death. When the Icethorn Court fell, so did the lives and homes of many people. Jesi, in that moment, represented them all.

There was a strange atmosphere that had followed my meeting with Elinor. I had noticed the shift in attention as soon as we had returned from the springs. From when I arrived, no more visible than a phantom, now it seemed that everyone within this cave saw me. Jesi didn’t show signs of noticing or caring, but I felt the tension as crowds of fey huddled together in whispers.

It all came to a head when a group broke apart and walked over towards where we sat. I first thought they would simply join in with our conversation until the lead fey, a bulky man with a wild beard and an equally eager gaze, clamped his hand down upon my shoulder.

Jesi was standing up in second, towering in comparison to the man, both bowls she had held protectively now spilled across the dirty ground. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

The man gestured towards me with a fist, seething from gapped teeth, “Word around is this one calls himself our king.”

I was also standing then, sensing his anger as though the emotion itself had barrelled into me. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes, actually, there is,” he replied, knocking his fist into my chest so suddenly that it had me jolting back two steps.

Jesi was between me and the man, not a sense of care for the rock-hard fist that was now held before her face. “Return to whatever it was you were doing. Now is not the night for trouble, big boy.”

I felt myself redden as the entire cavern seemed to silence, listening in with tense and quiet interest. Looking towards the glinting of silver I noticed even the guards beneath the gates watched intently.

“You’re standing up forhim? Have you forgotten what happened to our homes when his family failed us? And now he wants to call himself a king whilst he has done nothing but fail us again.” He looked at me dead in the eyes. “I see no kings here.”

These men, like Jesi, were Icethorn fey. Unlike Jesibel they did not share the same midnight toned hair and moon-pale skin as I, but there was no doubt that they had come from my Court long before it was ever truly mine.

“Turn. Back,” Jesi warned, her stance preparing for more than a conversation. “It would be an awful shame if I was to embarrass you before all of your pathetic friends.”

The man chuckled, cracking his fist in his hand as though every bone sang with desire to connect with me. “Move out of our way, little girl, or you will–”

Jesi sprung forward, hand slashing out towards the lead assailant’s neck. It happened too fast to make sense of the blur of limbs. The fey man doubled over, eyes bulging as his hands instinctively grasped at his throat. Gasping, he then cocked his head back as a sickening crack sounded. Jesi attacked, not once but twice, all without allowing him to finish what he had to say. His neck was red from her first hit, but it was his nose which gushed with blood. It poured between his fingers, deep and scarlet, as he wailed like a cat whose tail had been stamped upon.

She moved like water around stone, dancing between the next two that jumped into the fight. It was over before it truly begun. Before I had a chance to react, three writhing bodies lay at my feet.

“Anyone else?” Jesibel cried, face red with fury. “Go on, give me a reason to break bones, you cowards.”

No one else stepped forward. Even the three who had greeted us with such aggression were now scuffling away, the lead man leaving a trail of his blood across the ground as he retreated.

I placed a hand upon Jesibel’s quivering shoulder. “Jesi, it’s over.”

She gave the crowd a final look, one full of warning, before she shrugged off my hand and took her seat once again. “They all forget their place. The podium of your status to ours may be levelled, but you are still an Icethorn. You are due respect, regardless of what they think.”

“Respect is earned,” I replied, still on edge by the attempted attack. “I appreciate you standing up for me, but I also understand why they see me the way they do. I’m nothing but a reminder of what was left behind and I’m here, not in the capacity they would’ve wished.”

Jesi rubbed her reddened knuckles, still physically seething from the reaction. “You are a reminder of home. Sometimes reminders are painful for some, and not for others. Your presence will have effect on those here in varying ways.”

“And how does my presence make you feel?” I questioned, catching her black eyes as though they reflected my own.

“It reminds me of–” Jesi’s voice ebbed back into silence, her stare being lost to an unimportant place on the floor between us.

I swallowed audibly, picking at the frayed material of the trousers I wore. “Of what?”

When she looked up, it was with bright eyes brimming with tears. “It reminds me of what was taken from me, and what I would do to get it back.”

The Twins returned as they promised they would, looking down upon the crowd of prisoners from their podium with blank and empty expressions. Their presence snatched the breath from my lungs.

“Robin Icethorn,” they called, silencing the crowd until I could’ve heard a pin drop upon the floor. “Step towards the gate and await your collection.”

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