Page 2 of A Sword of Ice
The stench of musk, wood, and burning herbs assaulted her nostrils as she stepped out into the hall, closing her door behind her. She caught sight of one of her neighbors crouching against his front door, legs splayed out on the floor, a joint with dried hallucinogen herbs between his fingers, the tip burning.
“Hey, Rey.” Iona tilted her head up in a nod.
“Afternoon, pretty thing.” His accent curled with each puff of smoke, lazy and unfeeling. It was the cadence of the Unseelie, altered over time, but recognizable to Iona just the same. It was the pitch in his tone, the way every word danced from his tongue to a wild beat.
“It’s morning, Rey.”
“Hmm. Is it?” His head thunked against his unstable door.
She wasn’t surprised he didn’t know what day it was, since he’d been in that same exact position the previous night.
The Unseelie Fae was clad in tattered, drab clothing, square patches barely hanging on by meager threads. His jacket was thrown haphazardly over his shoulders that smelt stale like the very smoke he inhaled. Long hair tied behind his head, greasy strands touching his cheeks.
His back was hunched slightly to accommodate his paper-thin wings; they trailed against the ground like a thin, old carpet. Moth-like in appearance, they sported holes and tears, revealing thin bone and tendon underneath.
“On your way to work?” he asked. His voice was gravely, like crunching rocks beneath shoes, and the sound matched his lazy disposition.
“Unfortunately.”
He pulled the joint away from his mouth and smirked. His parchment-colored skin looked paler than usual, shadows marring his eyelids, dark eyes bloodshot. “Tell Petey I said hi.”
Iona scoffed at the sarcasm in his voice. “Tell Belinda I said hi.”
Her retort had him snorting and pressing the joint back to his lips, taking in a drag. “She kicked me out last night. Won’t open the fuckin’ door.” He thunked his head against it again. “I got nowhere else to be.”
She had the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair, but she curled her nails into her palms instead. “Hope she doesn’t leave you out here too long. Take care, Rey. And good luck.”
He didn’t reply, but he acknowledged her words with a flick of ashes against the floor.
Her teeth ground together, and she forced herself to turn away. Dumbass was going to catch the entire building on fire one day with his carelessness. A part of her relished in the idea of watching this shit-stain burn. The more logical, less bitter part realized how stupid that was. Regardless of how she felt, this was her home now. Like it was home to others.
Burning the place to the ground would definitelynotbe such a good idea.
Her booted feet hit the stairs leisurely, stepping out to the cold, iron clad streets.
She could feel its poison in the air, but the snow overpowered it. She was so used to the iron by now that she was sure she would die at the age of three hundred, instead of living the long lifespan she was meant to.
Some Fae could live up to be five thousand years old. Her father had been eight-hundred. Her mother nine-hundred and fifty-two. But longer lifespans had been before the fall of Tir na Faie. Before they’d been forced to the human lands, where the iron in the air branded death into their lungs.
Iona remembered those first few months. She’d coughed blood at least twice every week until her system grew used to the poison.
It was the way of things.
Mithridatism, it was called. Named after an ancient, human king, it was the act of slowly ingesting non-lethal amounts of poison to accustom the body. Yet it did not make the Fae immune. If anything, it only killed them slowly. An already dying race suffering with iron and ashwood in their bodies. As if they hadn’t suffered enough already. As if theyweren’tsuffering enough already.
Iona felt good just to be alive, but sometimes she wondered if others felt that way or if she was just too optimistic that things could still change.
She’d lived through dark times in Porir and had witnessed those who suffered even darker circumstances. She’d lived every day to watch the lights diminish from their eyes. They may have been alive, but they were still Porir’s dirty little secrets, trading sex and slivers of their souls to survive another day.
That’s what it was. Survival, not life.
And yet, despite all the darkness in the world, Iona still believed in Mana and in the hope that someday, she would live again.
They wouldalllive again.
2
Porir City Zoo
