Page 165 of Hidden Kingdoms

It had all been for her, but she couldn’t see me like this; I could neverlether see me like this.

This part of my existence, branded into my soul, was something I had come to accept—to enjoy even—but it wasn’t something I could expect her to. So, I watched.

I watched as she picked her way carefully through the crowd, arms held tight around a black jacket I hadn’t seen before and headed towards one of the main fires. Saw her sit on one of the logs that had been placed before it, eyes boring into the embers.

Leaves rustled at my side at the exact moment she swung her head towards me, eyes landing on this hidden spot.

“It’s unlike you to miss out on a party, Prince.” A deep voice carried to me on a whisper of wind as he pushed through the trees, making less noise than should be possible for a Fae of his size. It was then I noticed the tendrils of hair floating around Elodie’s face.

“I thought tonight I’d have a quiet night in.” Marcellus huffed out a single laugh, eyes dragging to my sodden clothes. He couldn’t see the dark stains, but I knew he could smell it, just as any of the beasts that prowled these woods could.

“And how did that quiet night go?” His huge arms crossed over his chest as he turned back to the clearing and the party beyond.

It was shit. I have no answers, yet again.

“It was inconsequential.”

Risking another glance his way, his eyes had hardened into chips of ice, sharp and ready to slice into whatever was unfortunate enough to have garnered his ire. Marcellus’ eyes were focused on a light-haired soldier—one of Alouette’s unit, I was sure—as he handed Elodie a blanket that she gratefully accepted. Draping it around herself and tucking it tight close despite the fire she was so close to.

Fuck, of course she would be freezing out here.

Energy pulsed beside me in a menacing wave that sent alarm bells pinging through my brain, alerting me that danger was near. I’d felt it enough to realise that—thankfully right now—it wasn’t directed at me.

There was something different about Marcellus that I could never quite put my finger on. Like fuck was I going to ask him about it, though.

Instead, I went for, “Why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“You could, but I asked first.”

Marcellus didn’t reply, his eyes trained on the same spot mine were. They were his soldiers over there after all; maybe he had been on his way to join them and sensed me. But what if he had been pulled here as I had? I didn’t want to think too much into what that would mean.

“I’m here for her.” His voice rumbled over me, and that told me all I needed to know.

With my Fae ears, I could hear the tale the Story Teller was weaving, the makings of our world. How we were blessed with the goddesses that created us all.

Was this a story she had been told before? One that was now just a wisp of a memory trapped behind the block that had been placed on her. Before she had been trapped in another realm with no clue of who she had been born to be.

The memories that had been plaguing my mind recently,as recent as an hour ago, pulled at me, and I began to draw a conclusion that made the shadows in my blood shudder.

I had the answer, a solution. I knew someone who could help her.

I just had to take that step.

Dread clawed at my insides with talons as sharp as the ones that had often been scraped across my body, I rubbed at the unbroken skin on my arms at the memory. I was always put backtogether, or learned how to put myself back together was more like it. The scars from that time sinking into my bones, my soul, instead of marking my now tattooed skin.

There was little point dwelling on the memories when my eyes were open, since they would torment my sleep just as viciously regardless.

If I went there, I might not come back. I would be the price for the help she needed.

By their own accord, my fingers slipped to the blade of my dagger. Its wicked point a promise I wanted to press into, feel my skin peel apart, but I held back.

Shadows flooded beneath my skin, their presence there intending to soothe, to realign the aching in my soul at the decision I would need to make.

If Marcellus sensed the direction my thoughts had turned, he didn’t let on. Instead, we both stood there, hidden. Our eyes trained on the magik that was Elodie as if neither of us could bear to look away.

And as she stood with Alouette, she turned once again. Not towards us, but to the trail she had emerged from earlier. At words spoken from her friend, those eyes that grew brighter every day she was here, settled of the strain she had been holding onto, and she turned away. Taking a long drink from the flask offered to her, the blanket fell to the ground, and with a stray wind blowing through the waves of her hair, she headed into the crowd of bodies.

---