Of Fairytales and Magic by Emma Hamm
Chapter 21
Eldridge set her down on her feet in the Stronghold, though he kept his attention on the hand she held close to her heart. Freya couldn’t let go of it. Every time she released pressure on her wrist, the wound started spurting blood rather than the slow trickle.
It was a second heartbeat that her body wouldn’t shut up about. She could feel it thundering, slamming, pounding repeatedly. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it.
Of course, that all made sense. She had cut off her finger, after all.
The skittering sound of claws crashed through the Stronghold and Arrow veered into the room. “I smell blood!” he shouted, eyes wide with panic. “What happened?”
“The Horned God happened,” Eldridge snarled in response. “I don’t even know if I can stop the bleeding on this one.”
Stop the bleeding? Oh right. She had drifted off into her mind for a bit there, and Freya had forgotten what had happened. Was this what shock felt like? She’d seen a young woman succumb to shock before. The woman had been bitten in the face by a dog. A neighboring creature who had likely been attacked by a slathering beast from the wood. The dog had always been kind before it bit the strange woman on its land.
“Freya?” Fingers snapped in front of her vision. “I need you to stay with us until we finish bandaging your hand, my love.”
Right. She’d cut off her finger.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about those words? She damn well knew what had happened. The throbbing pulse where her finger had once been would never let her forget what had happened.
Arrow nudged Eldridge’s thigh with his muzzle, then shoved hard with two paws against his thigh. “Move. I know what to do. I can stop the bleeding.”
He could?
Brows furrowed, she sank down onto her knees in front of the goblin dog. “You can? I thought you knew little magic.”
“Goblin magic differs from whatever shadowy things you and the king do,” he grumbled. Standing on his hind legs, he sort of looked like a person through her blurry vision.
He reached for her with his hands outstretched. No, not hands. Paws. His paws cupped her hands, and the blood soaked through the fine white fur of his paws. “My dear,” he muttered. “What did that horrible god make you do?”
“He wanted a sacrifice of something important to me,” she whispered. “So I gave him the only thing that humans use to pledge themselves to each other. I... I gave him the finger.”
Staring down at it, she belatedly remembered putting the ring in her pocket. As Arrow muttered over her hand, turning it this way and that, she withdrew the gorgeous ring with her free hand.
Tears in her eyes, she looked up at Eldridge and choked out, “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, no. No, my love.” Eldridge sank onto his knees as well, taking the ring from her hand and closing his fingers around it in a fist. “I don’t need you to wear a ring on your finger for everyone to know you’re mine. You are all that matters to me. You know that.”
“I do.” She thought she did, at least. But what would she do now? A ring was the best way to prove her loyalty to this man, and she didn’t know how else to do so. She’d so willingly given it up because she couldn’t have given up the child.
The child. She had a baby inside her. She was supposed to be marrying a Goblin King. And all through this entire ordeal she was trying to keep magic inside her that could make her immortal.
What had her life become?
And she was cold. So damned cold.
Shock, she realized. This was definitely a shock and she should be worried about it. Freya should be able to feel her fingers and her toes. The pain should keep her awake but... Well she didn’t feel it anymore.
“There,” Arrow muttered. “That ought to do.”
Freya looked down at her finger and realized the bleeding had stopped. He’d somehow healed her hand so that it looked as though the wound had happened a month ago. Just a nub remained. Even the ragged edges of the wound weren’t quite so harsh.
“Ah,” she said, her voice shaking. “That was quick.”
“I do try to be fast.” Arrow put his paw over her hand, hiding the sight from Freya’s eyes. “You shouldn’t look at it yet, though. Losing a piece of yourself is difficult at the best of times. Let alone with everything else happening.”
The shivers shook her entire body. They wobbled through her shoulders and into her spine until she couldn’t control them at all. She shouldn’t feel like this anymore, right? The wound was done. It had been healed, and it wasn’t even visible right now.
Eldridge hissed out a long breath, then drew her into his arms. “Come here, sweetheart. You’re all right. You’re here with us.”
“Am I going to be all right, though?” she asked through chattering teeth. “I didn’t think it would be like this. The faerie realm has always been difficult, but it has never taken parts of me. It’s never asked for sacrifices like this.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead and sighed. “The Autumn Court is different. The faeries here are not kind, nor do they have any desire to follow in the path of others.”
“The Autumn Court I know was always kind to me. I remembered this place as a blanket of fiery leaves and tiny goblin children who stole food from each other across a table made from ten different trees.” Her mind wandered through the memories with fondness, though they had dulled since being here. “I remember a hallway full of paintings whose eyes followed me as I walked down their illustrious halls. I thought that was the court I would take over.”
Eldridge ran his fingers through her hair. “When will you learn none of the courts are just one thing? The Spring Court looked beautiful when you first saw it, but then you realized half the court was underground and dying. The Winter Court was frozen entirely, its people long past dead. The Summer Court suffered from a poison deep within. Here, it’s a different kind of darkness, I agree. But we are the ones who uphold the old ways so the others can make their own mistakes.”
“Perhaps the old ways should die,” she whispered.
“If only that were possible.” He wrapped his arms firmly around her shoulders and squeezed her. “If only I could take this pain from you. I wish I could.”
So did she. And that was a horrible thing to think.
Freya snuggled deeper in the warmth of his embrace and tried not to think too hard about what had happened. She was safe, for now, and she could drift into the dreaming realm as an escape. At least for a little while. There was still one more test. One more god to defeat and she could only imagine how horrible and nightmarish the last would be.
Even in her dreams, she saw the skull with red eyes staring back at her. She saw the cavernous mouth opening as Death called for her soul. It wanted to feast upon her, as all the other monsters did in this realm.
Freya woke from the nightmare, frozen in place and holding her breath. Even in her sleep, her body had learned not to let anyone know that she was aware. And in this case, it was the right thing to do.
Murmuring voices whispered near her. She kept her eyes shut for a little while, listening to the sound of familiar people talking in hushed tones. Her hands curled on warm furs, and she realized that Eldridge must have moved her back to the safety of his nest. Far away from those figures that wanted to harm her.
Warm candlelight glowed beyond her closed eyelids. Carefully, so slowly she didn’t even exhale, Freya tilted her head to the side and opened her eyes into tiny slits. No one would even know she was watching them. She hoped.
Three figures sat around a fire they had built inside the building. A little dog who wrung his paws and had his tail tucked between his legs. Eldridge, whose skin turned golden in the light of the fire. And a third figure who had once had horns atop her head.
Lark. What was Lark doing here?
“You know this was an impossible quest to send her on,” Eldridge snarled, his voice deep with anger. “There were other ways to reach the same end. If she dies, this is on you.”
“I know you will believe that until the end of time,” Lark replied.
“I still don’t understand why you would even consider this path.” He shoved a stick into the fire, perhaps a little too aggressively. “Of all the mad quests you could send her on, you had to make her take your place.”
“I already explained myself to you, Eldridge. You know there was no other way for her to become immortal, and I wouldn’t see you end up alone. Again.” She looked down at her empty hands, then back to the Goblin King. “And perhaps it was a little selfish. I couldn’t keep catering to them any longer. I couldn’t stand them, or the goblins, or the entire realm. I needed a break.”
Arrow bristled, the hackles at the back of his neck raising. “You wanted a break, so you sent an innocent girl to her death?”
“She’s not going to die.” Lark shivered, then rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “She’s stronger than either of you give her credit for. And she already had magic. Her father gifted her that from his time here in the realms. Changelings. Who would have thought he could absorb magic like that?”
Absorb magic? What had her father done?
Freya almost feigned waking, but Eldridge spoke, and she stilled her restless limbs.
“He no more stole magic than I asked to become a god.” Eldridge wiped his palms on his pant legs as though they were sweaty. “Which I’m quite certain she heard the Horned God say to me.”
“You’re not a god,” Lark replied with a scoff. “They tried to make you one because they liked the number four. But they didn’t. There were Goblin Kings before you and there will be after you. All they did was give you enough power to rival them, and then they regretted it when you refused to become their puppet.”
“Like the others,” he murmured.
“Like the others.” Lark sighed again, and her head tilted to the side just slightly. Enough that Freya knew the old Autumn Thief was aware that Freya watched them.
“I can’t step in,” Eldridge said, his voice cascading through the room. “I have to let her win this on her own, but do you know how hard this has been? I watched him cut off her finger, and I almost killed him. I almost killed a god for her. Our world would run red with blood if I’d done that. I have to trust her, and yet even now I want to watch my magic skin him alive.”
Should Freya say something? Should she turn and stretch, or perhaps cough? The old Autumn Thief was obviously aware of what was happening, and yet... Freya didn’t want to interrupt. Not when Lark lifted a finger to her lips and indicated for Freya to stay quiet.
What was she up to now?
“Eldridge, I need you to listen to me. Freya has said it many times, and now I will, too. She can do this. You know that. I know that. Not a single fiber of my being worries that she won’t survive these trials. She’ll impress the old gods the same as I did. As you did.”
Eldridge looked up from the flames, and the sorrow in his eyes nearly wrecked Freya. “But will she be the same person in the end?”
So that was what he worried about the most. That Freya wouldn’t be the woman he loved.
Honestly, Freya feared the same thing. After so much pain and heartbreak, would she be the same person? She curled her fingers into fists, noting the missing finger that should have moved as well.
Maybe she’d be someone else, but she would still love him. No experience could change how much she loved him with every breath she took.
Lark reached across the fire and took Eldridge’s hand. “Of course she’s going to be different. She’s going to be one of us. A faerie. She will have fought through every court and every god that remains in this realm. She will become a woman made of fire and brimstone and ash, because that is what our court is made of. My King, you will love her all the same. Every love changes. Every person changes. You couldn’t expect her to remain stagnant the rest of her life.”
He stared into Lark’s eyes, and Freya watched the tension ease from his shoulders. “I loved her when she was the mortal woman who crashed into my kingdom, threatening me to find her sister.”
“And you love her now. The daughter of a changeling and a woman who had dedicated her life to understanding the fae.” Lark released his hands and leaned back, legs crossed and firelight dancing over her face. “She’s quite formidable. Even I was frightened of her when I first met her.”
“All those years ago?”
“Years? My dear man. That was a few months ago, at best, a year. You’ve been traveling so much the passage of time has escaped you.”
“Perhaps,” Eldridge replied with a chuckle. “But every moment of that passage is precious to me. I never thought I’d find someone like her. And a mortal, at that.”
Lark looked over her shoulder once again, and Freya saw a sparkle of mischief in her eye. Perhaps the old Autumn Thief wanted the new to see how much her man loved her. Without having to fear that Eldridge knew she was listening.
Either way, she was grateful for this moment of respite.
“How so?” Lark asked, returning her attention to her old friend. “She’s a mortal, Eldridge. You’ll have to work rather hard to convince me that you’re captivated by her mortality.”
“I’m fae.” He seemed to struggle to find the words, brows drawn down in concentration and hands waving in the air. “I’ve seen hundreds of years pass by and nothing changes. The world follows itself in cycles. Repeating mistakes and souls over and over again. But her? She stepped out of the circle and started a new path. I’ve probably seen it before but watching her do that lit a fire in me.”
Arrow snorted. “A fire? You never were a poet, Eldridge.”
“No, I never claimed to be.” He leaned forward and a dark swath of his hair obscured his eyes. “But I don’t think I’ve ever really loved anything before her. I’ve said the words. I’ve whispered them in the ears of a hundred lovers, and I went through the actions. But I didn’t love them. I didn’t even know love could feel like this.”
The other two faeries were hanging on his every word now. Even Arrow leaned forward as if the next thing Eldridge said were the words of a prophecy. “What is it like, then?”
He opened his hand and stared down at his spread fingers. “Like the worst day with her would still be the best of my life. And the best day with her would show me what nirvana tastes like.”
Freya closed her eyes and let the words settle deep into her soul.
Oh, how she loved him.
