Page 17 of Owned By the Fae
It's wrapped in an inky cloak that drips with black ichor yet doesn’t make a mess in the bottom of my craft. It sits across from me, and though I’m unable to see past its hood, I know it’s staring at me.
‘Do you know what I am?’ it asks in my voice.
I gape. ‘You’re the Harbinger? The darkness I was given.’
‘Yes,’ it says simply.
‘Is this real?’
It gives some semblance of a shrug. ‘As real as a dream can be,’ it murmurs.
‘What do you want from me?’ I ask.
It regards me silently. ‘To speak to you. To help you,’ it says after a moment.
‘You never have before.’ I let out a sigh. ‘When did you decide this?’
‘Recently.’
I snort. ‘You’re a bit late. Don’t you know where we are?’
‘Varrik’s dungeon. I remember it.’
‘Then you know that my …ourliving through this for a second time is unlikely,’ I say, looking away from it. ‘Neither of us will see the sun again.’
It looks away as well as if trying to sort something out in its own mind.
‘How are you speaking to me?’ I ask. ‘Why haven’t you before?’
‘At the beginning, I didn’t know your words,’ it states plainly. ‘Then, there were seven years in the dark. I could watch through your eyes and listen with your ears, but that was all. You couldn’t hear me no matter how hard I tried, but I learned things. Now that we’re back here, I’m subdued by this conjure that’s upon us, but I’m stronger in other ways.’
I lean back a little and gesture to the lake. ‘This place … This is where you came from?’
It looks around. ‘It’s possible. If you don’t know this place, then I must have summoned it. But I can’t recall much from before Varrik. I think I was taken from somewhere. Perhaps from here.’
‘You were stolen? By Varrik?’
It stares down at the lake. ‘I was given to fae. Some humans as well. All of them died until he got to you. You were different.’
‘How?’ I ask.
‘How is one rainstorm different from another? All I know is you didn't die like the rest. I was able to find a place inside of you to reside in. A place none of the others had.’ It shifts in the boat, seeming uncomfortable. ‘The truth is that I need you to survive now. I don’t think there’s any going back to where I came from ... and you need me as well.’
My lip curls in anger. All these years of trying to control the killer in me, of being wracked by guilt and fear, and it wants to befriends?
‘I don’t need you! All you want is to destroy,’ I spit. ‘You don’t care about me!’
‘If I don’t care, then why did I save you from the pain of that torture?’ it snarls back angrily, the first emotion I’ve seen from it.
‘I … don’t know.’
‘I didn’t have to, you know. I could have let you endure it. It wouldn’t have killed you.’
‘Well, then why didn’t you?’ I snarl back. ‘I kept you in the dark for seven years. You said so yourself. Why spare me?’
‘Because I care for you!’ It growls back, hitting its black hand hard on the side of the boat.
My eyes widen.
