Page 30 of Shade of Ruin

The talk may be normal, but the participants aren’t. “That drakeling was feeding on the wards Darian and Lee put up,” a brownie says as he hangs from a tree by his hairy toes. He puffs on a long root-shaped pipe, and watching him makes me a little dizzy as I listen. He’s three feet tall, with more wrinkles than most grandfathers. “You mark my words, there will be other creatures that come and do the same. We’re the only magical thing between here and Draenyth. Won’t be long before we become a feeding ground unless we can protect those wards.”

A female Fae with long black hair that seems to be constantly wet wearing a nearly sheer white dress replies, “It wasn’t always like that. There used to be many fonts of magic. But then…” When she speaks, I see the razor-sharp teeth hidden behind her blood-colored lips. Her voice is a whisper that makes it hard toturn away from her, yet I can hear it perfectly fine even amidst all the conversation and the roaring fire.

She glances at Cole, who is sitting on a bench, just like he has every night since Blackgrove, staring into the fire. Unlike the other nights, he’s not ignoring everything around him, though. When Lee or Darian say something to him, he answers without looking away.

His lips curl into a smile. Without a fight. They’re making him smile just by talking to him, which is so bizarre to me. I didn’t know that it was possible. Maybe he really does have friends.

Everyone gives me little glances out of the corner of their eye, but no one seems to want to acknowledge me. I’m not sure whether that’s because they want to eat me and don’t want Cole to know that, or if it’s because they don’t want to accept that Cole brought me here.

I’m used to that, though. Being a Wyrdling isn’t any more acceptable in a Fae village than it is in a human one. So I pick at the bark on a stick in front of me, pretending not to notice the fact that I’m both being ignored and being stared at.

Darian leans in close to Cole, and he whispers so low that I have to strain to hear it. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

Cole whips his head toward Darian, and the look he gives him tells him to be quiet. It’s obvious that he was talking about me, but what did it mean? More secrets. No doubt about that.

I huff and shake my head, frustration welling up inside me. I run my thumb over the marks on my wrist and wish that I could talk to the Shade. There are too many secrets, and it feels like every time Cole reveals one, there’s a new one to replace it that makes me rethink whether being around him is the best decision.

The only reason I haven’t walked away is the same reason that I worry about walking away from him in this village. The same reason I followed him to begin with. Without Cole’s protection,it would be too easy for something to kill me, and I hate that feeling. I spent my life being the strong one. The one that everyone else feared at least a little.

I yearn to be confident again, to be strong enough to protect not only me, but also my family. The stick in my hand reminds me of the sticks that Cole and I trained with on our trip to this village.

I haven’t trained today. Not with sticks or with magic, and maybe that’s exactly what I need. A way to burn off some of the frustration inside me. I glance at Cole for a moment, but he’s staring into the fire again. His friends are doing the same thing while the rest of the village chatters away.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” I say, directing the words at Cole. He immediately looks away from the fire toward me. The flames in his eyes are just as intense as the one in the center of all these people, but he doesn’t say a word. I turn and walk away.

The whole time, my nerves are going crazy. What will he do? Is he angry? Interested? Is he just trying to keep an eye on me? Is he worried that someone in this village that he created is going to attack me?

Or is this just how he is when he’s around all these people? The Prince of Flames. He’s not just a High Fae. He’s royalty, and his father is the person who attacked my mother’s House.

I take step after step into the darkness of the village. Hidden from the world by trees and wards, it’s a place that has been forgotten. I know I should be afraid, but this place feels so similar to Blackgrove. Forgotten. Unimportant. A simple place where no one wants me.

And all around me are the forests that feel like home.

When I’m barely out of sight of the last of the little cottages, I climb a tall oak tree, finding my way to the top by feel. One handhold at a time, I feel the bark bite into my skin. The anxietyand overwhelmed feelings seem to roll off of me in waves as I go back to a world that makes sense.

When I’m laying against a branch at the top of the oak tree, thirty feet above the ground, I feel like I can breathe again. The silent darkness that surrounds me is a soft and loving embrace. No different from when I was eight and my father disappeared.

I can’t think of another moment in my life where I’d needed the solitude of the trees as much as I did then. The memory of him is always so crystal clear in my mind. He was the kindest person I’ve ever known. He loved without ever expecting anything in return. Even years after she abandoned him, he felt nothing but love for my mother. I know it’s a strange thought, but one of the reasons I loved him so much was because of how much he loved me and my mother. The rest of the world looks at me like there’s something wrong with me. Not my father. Sandor Arden didn’t care what the rest of the world thought, and I still love him for that.

He is the best human I’ve ever known. Everyone thinks he’s dead, but I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t really believe it. He wasn’t some fool from Blackgrove. He was strong and smart and… and I would know if he had died. I wouldn’t feel like I do; like he’s missing.

I remember the nights after he didn’t come home. I’d hidden in the trees for almost three days straight, and Vesta didn’t get onto me at all. She would have been able to find me easily since she was the one who’d taught me to hide in the trees. There’s no way she’d have had any problems finding an eight-year-old Wyrdling.

She’d let the forest comfort me because she was not capable of it. I never understood why she couldn’t, but I think it’s because she was Fae. Like Cole, except nothing we did ever made her smile like fighting makes Cole smile. Where Cole has to controlhis emotions, I don’t know if Vesta was capable of them. She’d always seemed so confused by them.

While I trusted Vesta more than anyone else in the world, I didn’t love her. That feeling was reserved only for my father… and for Hazel.

I close my eyes and try to think about… well, everything. Except that as soon as I close my eyes, I feel the branch under me shift, and my eyes open instantly.

Standing on the other side of the branch is Cole, just like he was when he woke me up after finding me tracking him. This time, though, he’s smiling. “You know you shouldn’t have left the fire, don’t you?” he asks.

“Why not? Are the village people going to eat me? You can’t tell me you didn’t notice them licking their lips when they looked at me.”

Now that I know what to look for, I catch glimpses of the pixie wings buzzing nearly transparently from his back. “No, they won’t try to eat you.” He says it softly. “But they do think you’re the rudest guest they’ve ever had.”

Then I see the hesitation in his expression. He’s trying to keep the smile on his face, but it slips. And he slips at the same time. The most physically skilled person I’ve ever met nearly falls off a branch I could walk on without any trouble. The smile snaps into place again, and he rights himself.

He’s forcing an emotion, and that emotion has to do with a smile. His wings require a smile? Like shadows require desire?

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