A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford

Chapter Nineteen

With Nyx among our party,I swore the forest moved right alongside us. By the time we made camp that night, my flint quickly lighting a roaring fire with the dry leaves for kindling, we’d ventured further in those last few hours than we had the entire day before.

Like Nyx had said, not all the magic of Avarath had faded yet.

Not enough to keep the forest from reacting to its prince’s presence.

Not enough to keep from poisoning me in my sleep, either.

I felt the fae’s concern before I felt it for myself. I woke in a tangle of my own skirts, the pallet having done little to prevent the cramps that made me groan with every waking movement, or the ache that exploded in my head when I sat up. The sun had barely begun to rise, but the birds had wasted no time swooping low overhead with their morning song.

Nearly a dozen of them had found Nyx in the dim light, pecking at him gently until his eyes fluttered open and they took off to hover around him, offering him small gifts of seeds and berries. Each one of these he took with a grateful half bow, the bird in question taking off with a delighted noise—doubtlessly to seek out new offerings.

Nyx didn’t see me watching until the last of them, a hummingbird no bigger than the tip of my thumb, buzzed off in a blur of red and turquoise feathers, a final drop of honey still lingering on the tip of the prince’s tongue.

He was a picture, a window into a dream I wasn’t entirely sure I’d awakened from. Sleep pulled heavily on my eyelids, and vision, still blurred and dimmed with rapid blinking, gave everything a soft, feathered appearance.

I was jealous, in that moment, of Nyx. I fixated on the drop of golden liquid, imagined the sweetness, the stickiness—but more than that, I was jealous of what he was.

He wasn’t a monster, not in this realm. I was merely rumored to look like one of these creatures, and I’d been ostracized and hated for it. But here one of them was, an actual, living fae, and nature itself treated him like a god.

Nyx caught me staring, and before I could figure out for sure if what I saw was even real or dream, he suddenly did that part for me. It had to be a dream, because he leaned forward, grabbed me ever so gently by the shoulders, and kissed me.

His lips were soft and sweet, but nothing compared to the honey on the tongue he pressed to mingle with my own. It was hot and thick, brought fresh from whatever hive the hummingbird had been brave enough to rob.

I should’ve pulled back, should’ve grabbed whatever weapon was closest to me and used it to shove him off of me. But it was a dream, after all.

So, I didn’t.

I kissed him back. I let my tongue savor the taste of him, the feel of him.

His lips pressed harder, his tongue seeking mine out long after the honey had melted away between us. We would have stayed this way longer if it weren’t for the rustle of other bodies moving, the sounds of them stirring that roused my own consciousness back to life.

I drew back from Nyx, spluttering, eyes wide and hands flying up to clamp over my mouth. The dreamy, soft-focused quality of the air sharpened in one instant as I was dragged back to reality—and all the pain that came with it.

Our palettes had been laid together with the rest of the fae’s beds spread out around us. Weapons, drawn and ready, were laid at each one of our sides, filling the small gaps where the grass and rocks peeked out around the sparse bedding. The moment I realized I was not dreaming, but was actually kissing Nyx, the gorgeous prince of the very woods that surrounded us, I was so startled that I fell back onto one of the weapons closest to me.

It was, unfortunately, not one of the maces pawned off to me, but rather one of Tethys’ knives. They were too short to be called swords, but too long to be simple knives. They were also too sharp.

Just resting my hand on one of the blades for a second left a long gash along the back of my hand. It was far deeper than the cut that had spilled my blood at the ritual, the line of it severing a vein all too happy to spill a head-spinning amount of blood in an instant.

I sucked in a gasp of breath at the pain, which had the rest of the party leaping to their feet in an instant. Their first glance at me did them no favors, with their sleep-blind eyes catching me with blood spurting from a wound on my hand.

“Where is it?” Tethys grunted, stumbling forward on his hands and knees as he reached in his half-sleep state for the same daggers that had just cut me. “Who did this to you? Let me at ‘em.”

Nyx alone had fallen back, away from me, his shoulders shaking with a quiet laughter that made me want to grab the knife and stab him with it. Not that it would do anything. He’d start to heal by the time the dagger pulled from his flesh.

Tallulah was the one who first realized I hadn’t actually been attacked. The other fae were still fumbling for their weapons when she took a step toward me, eyes squinting up, before holding out a hand in a motion meant to make the others pause.

“It’s just a cut,” she said, blinking the last of the sleep away and straightening back up to stretch. “Though we might as well get going now.”

Caldamir came to my side anyway, crouching down beside me and grabbing my wrist hard enough that it started to staunch the flow of blood. I half expected him to lick the wound as Nyx had done yesterday, but he didn’t seem eager to taste my blood.

He leaned forward and spat on the wound twice—but nothing happened. Not right away. After a moment, the blood started to flow less quickly, and then stopped. But the wound didn’t close up, the skin knitting together as quickly as it did before. It was sluggish, painfully slow, much like the rest of me.

Caldamir was scrutinizing my face a little too closely when I looked up from the wound.

“Come on,” Tallulah said, tossing a piece of bread onto the pallet next to the two of us. “It’s just a cut.”

“It’s not the cut that concerns me.”

Within seconds, five faces peered back at me, each one more grim than the last.

“She could just be tired,” Tethys said, but even he didn’t sound very hopeful.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, speech slurring as my annoyance rose. “What’s wrong with me?”

Nyx reached into his bag and took out a mirror that must have taken up half the space inside it. He held it out to me so I could see myself, and for a moment, I was taken aback.

I’d never seen myself so clearly. I’d gotten a glimpse in a real mirror here and there, tiny things back at Lord Otto’s estate that were embedded into the few family heirlooms that remained, and then again in the dim light of the treehouse back at Nyx’s court.

But this was something else.

This wasn’t the polished metal that gave me a warped, dim reflection of myself. This was so bright, so clear, that I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t looking into some kind of portal.

But that discovery was slightly overshadowed by the fact that, though this was my first time truly seeing myself, it only took me a few seconds to see something was wrong, too.

It was the eyes.

My eyes.

All around the outside of my eyelids, tiny black lines had started to form—growing outward from the lash line like spiderwebs.

I was being poisoned from the inside out.

Maybe I wasn’t fae after all.

I should have been made happy by that fact, but I wasn’t. That was what made me the most worried of all.

Two days ago, I would’ve been appalled to learn I was fae. Now being fae was the only thing that might keep me alive.

Just long enough to get me killed.

* * *

By our fourthday in the forest, I’d found myself growing jealous of Waylan, the demon whose ability to travel on his own had probably long since carried him to a dry bed without strange creatures peering down at him through the damp foliage at night.

The dark lines around my eyes had continued to grow, spiraling out beneath the pale surface of my skin—but I wasn’t dead yet. I was tired and sore, but so was everyone else. Nyx was the only one among us who seemed to awaken refreshed and well-rested each day, but I had a feeling that had more to do with the creams and lotions he lathered over himself at the end of each day when he thought no one was looking.

Not that I was looking.

Nothing had passed between us since that first morning, since the kiss that’d drawn attention to the darkness spreading through me like poison in the first place. I’d made sure of that, placing my pallet as far away from him as I could each night when we laid down for a few precious hours of sleep.

Even less had happened between me and Tethys, not for lack of the fae’s trying.

He’d quickly gotten over his mood from the first day and had instead devoted most of his energy to trying to lure me off the path at every opportunity. I spent most of my remaining energy resisting the urge to follow him.

Not that there was much energy remaining.

I hadn’t been getting much sleep at night.

No matter where I moved, only one thing was certain, and that was that Tallulah somehow found her way to squeeze her pallet up against mine. I caught her looking at me more than all the rest, and only she didn’t so much as glance away when she got caught. If anything, she just stared harder.

It was like of all the dangers we could encounter on our journey back to court, I was the one she was worried about the most—even more so than the increasing signs that we might not be the only high fae traveling these twisting paths.

They,not we.

I wasn’t fae. Not yet.

“Two or three of them, from the looks of it. They can’t be more than a half days’ ride ahead of us now,” Tallulah said, straightening up from where she’d bent over a set of footprints pressed into the soil. “I’m no tracker, so it could be less. We need to keep our eyes peeled.”

“That’s the same thing you’ve been saying for the last two days now,” Armene said, his horse taking an uncertain step beneath him, mirroring the look of annoyance on his face.

“Yeah, well, it just means we need to pick up the pace if we want to catch them.”

Armene was more anxious to get to the Mountain Court than the rest of us. I wondered sometimes if it was because of Waylan. He hadn’t been at ease since the demon disappeared.

“But do we want to catch them?” I asked, the question drawing Tethys’ glance in my direction. Nyx had fallen to the back, Tethys’ usual place, because a couple of deer had started riding along with us. He’d taken to chatting with them in a strange tongue that disturbed the horses otherwise.

“Better than being surprised,” Tallulah answered.

I couldn’t argue with her there. She tugged the ropes she’d unceremoniously tossed to me earlier before spurring her horse forward up the path, kicking a clod of dirt up into my face in the process.

Only Tethys noticed, and I caught him covering his face with a false sneeze to try to keep me from seeing the delighted grin that flickered across it. He waited until Tallulah had ridden up ahead and out of earshot before his own horse sidled up beside me.

“What’s she so afraid of?” It was everything I could do to keep my voice down. I pulled up my sleeve to prod at a dull, purple bruise on my forearm that was still healing from the first day she dropped a mace into my arms.

Tethys made a face. “You, I think.”

“What?”

“Oh, please, don’t try to tell me you haven’t noticed,” he said, tilting back his head. “You’re a lot of things, but you’re no idiot.”

“Noticed …” I trailed off as I went to glare at the back of Tallulah’s head, only to see Caldamir riding right beside her. She was glued to his side during the day, his or mine—but when she rode beside me it was with a lot more suspicion.

And a much less gentle touch.

I whirled back to face Tethys. “Wait, she and Caldamir?”

“She wishes.”

I sat back a bit in my saddle, and for a moment, I watched the two of them up ahead. It was pretty clear to anyone looking on that Caldamir didn’t feel the same way. I felt sorry for Tallulah, or would have, if she hadn’t worked so hard to treat me like a criminal these last few days. I had no doubt in my mind that if Caldamir hadn’t strictly ordered her to keep me alive, she would’ve already found a way to make sure I wandered off into the forest not to return.

“Well … well she doesn’t have to worry about that from me,” I said, finally forcing myself to look away. Now staring at them felt invasive, like I was watching something I hadn’t been invited to see.

“Doesn’t she, now?” Tethys sat back on his horse, eyeing me with the kind of look that made me squirm beneath the weight of it. “And here I was starting to think maybe she wasn’t the only one who should be worried.”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, you can put it out of your mind.”

“Can I now? That’d be a lot easier if you’d so much as looked at me in the last five nights. Is that typical of you humans, to use a male once and ignore him ever after?”

“I’m not ignoring you,” I said, keeping my voice low for a very different reason this time. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied, you know, between being your prisoner and trying not to die.”

“Ah well, none of that stopped us before.”

“Besides,” I continued, “it’s not like we’ve had a moment alone.”

“And?”

“And what?” I asked, finally glancing over at him.

“All I’m saying is that I don’t think the others would have such a problem with you and me coupling again. It wouldn’t be the first time some of them would’ve had to choose to close their ears or join in.”

I swore my mule understood for a moment, because he nearly tripped and threw me—his shock matching my own.

“What are you suggesting?” I hissed at Tethys, embarrassment making my skin grow hot.

“Oh, don’t suddenly go shy on me now. I saw you on Midsommar. You didn’t want to leave that orgy, either.”

My skin flamed hotter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, forcing myself to sit up straighter. I nodded ahead at the horses winding further and further on up the path. “We should hurry up. We’re falling behind.”

“Actually …” Tethys said, slowing a little to look over our shoulders. “It isn’t us who’s fallen behind. Whatever happened to Nyx?”

The words had barely left his mouth when a cry rang out behind us. Not just a cry, a scream.

It was Nyx.

The sound of his screeches now sent all the horses bolting several paces. The only creature that stood still was my own trusty mule—and only because the scream had made him halt altogether, nearly throwing me over his shoulder once more in the process.

For one pivotal moment, I forgot the only true task set to me—stay alive.

Of course my mule obeyed me for once, turning at the slightest nudge on the reins and bolting off back down the path where Nyx had long since disappeared behind us. To my back, there was the sound of crashing footsteps and hooves as the other riders struggled to get their horses back on the path after me.

I expected to turn the first corner of the path and see Nyx screaming about being hand-fed by a butterfly or something, but there was no sign of him. There was, however, the very last flash of a deer leaping into the bushes off the path.

So, of course, I followed it.

As soon as the mule had crashed its way through the thick line of underbrush, the deer was already plunging into another. I followed it this way through several lines of trees, each time making sure to check over my shoulder to keep track of where the road was.

Until I didn’t.

Until I saw a flash of something red, of long curly locks and a terrified face—and I dug my heels into the mule a little too hard, and this time, he’d had enough.

This time when his hooves skidded to a stop, he did it so suddenly that I wasn’t able to catch myself. He stood still at the edge of a patch of brambles while I flew over it.

I was lucky, really, that I didn’t land directly in the middle of it. The spines of the brambles were long and wicked, their hooks reaching out to me with hungry knife-like edges. I landed instead on the other side of what turned out to be a wall of hedges surrounding me and Nyx by three sides.

Because he was there, on the other side, his horse now missing as well.

He lay in the middle of the brambles, a stunned expression on his face that should’ve been on mine as well. I struggled not to freeze at the sight of him, my instincts both begging me to draw closer to him when at the same time those instincts were telling me to run.

Though run from what … I didn’t know.

All I knew, as I reached for Nyx’s hand, is that we’d made a terrible mistake.

We hadn’t stumbled this far into the forest.

We’d been led here.