Page 118 of The Forbidden Fae King

My great-granddaughter breaks my reprieve as she slips into my room with a bowl of steaming hot soup. Shea feeds me, as she talks about balls and suitors and the latest fashions. She looks so much like my late wife. The words slip over me and away, but I nod anyway, basking in the warmth of her presence and joy.

My friends visit one last time, now in their middle years, and I know they look upon me with pity. My life may have been cut short, being spent almost entirely disconnected from the raw power of my realm, but it was rich with love and experience.

Fionola gave me everything I ever needed.

The power of the living memory scroll ends abruptly. I jolt back into my body, with tears running down my face, and grief for that beautiful life that came to its completion so long ago. I take steadying breaths, and firmly remind myself that I am Keira, not Elrond.

He was my ancestor, and he left his personal journal for those who came after him. A wave of sickening disgust rolls through me that his story was not only forgotten by my family line, but utterly twisted.

I was raised to believe a cruel fae overlord once ruled my territory and stole human lands for himself. The truth couldn’t have been further from that. The crimes we believed of the fae were not systematic, and that makes a difference.

I collect another living memory scroll and place my hands over it. I slide straight into another person’s consciousness.

This body is smaller than mine, a human female, but within it I brim with earthly power. The brown robes of my druid’s coat swish around me as I stand on a hilltop, viewing the market sprawled out below. It is in thesandhills to the north of the kingdom; a three day walk from even the closest village. Despite its remoteness at the edge of the barrens, there are half a dozen buyers lined up.

This meat market is enough to churn my stomach and raise bile within my throat.

Both high and low fae are held in cages of iron that are exposed to the harsh sun and the sand devils that kick up and pelt their near naked forms. Most are huddled up, their bony limbs wrapped around their center, dirty and sunburnt.

Right before the prisoners’ eyes, fae are plucked out of cages and butchered for meat, their screams and whimpers turning my blood cold. The buyers walk straight up to those live prisoners and select which piece of fresh meat they want, sometimes only purchasing a limb and leaving the maimed fae to live.

There are market stalls all around them, selling cured meat strips, bones, viscera and pelts. The fear and agony of the fae here is palpable, with wails and moans ringing out, alongside the rough voice running an auction at the far side.

My stomach rolls at what I witness, and I vomit straight into the sand.

I spent months searching for this intel and weeks traveling here. This realm may be the one I descend from, but it is not my home. I am ashamed of these people. My king of the Summer Court sent me on this mission to get proof of the human’s black market trade and bring it straight to the human king to help with the petition to stop these crimes against fae. And so I left my druid city of the fae realm.

Beneath my feet, a caravan of multiple wagons arrives. A dozen knights spew from them and form two rows. They all wear the royal colors and crest. My heart seizes as the king himself and one of his princes step out of a carriage and walk along the aisles of the market. They are offered sizzled fae meat on skewers and eat them as they browse.

It is commonly believed here that magic imbued meat is at its strongest when eaten fresh, and the king is clearly taking no chances. He has no magic of his own, but I suspect that is about to change. I watch from my perch with horror, as his retainers purchase large quantities of fae meat and load it into the wagons.

There will be no help from the humans against trafficking of their fae citizens.

Horror at the realization washes over me. It is time that I get down there and see what I was sent here to report on.

I take wobbly steps down from the sand dune, slipping and sliding until I pull myself together and steel my nerves. I walk down the packed sand streets of the market, the blood pumping so loudly within my ears I can hardly hear the vendors calling out to me. Not one of them suspects I am anything other than a customer, because it is almost impossible to find this place without the right contacts.

The tang of blood is so strong it fills my nose. I can taste the bitter, metallic residue of it.

I pass cages of weeping fae broken down to little more than animals. It shatters my heart as they scurry away from me as I pass, as though I am yet another abuser. I want to yell out to them that I am trying to save them, their kind. I want to wrap my arms around them until they feel safe again. To clean the blood and grime from their skin and feed them, but my hands are tied.

All I can do is witness and witness and witness, so I can document these memories as evidence. It doesn’t matter how my passive actions cleave my soul in two. That I have lost all faith in my own race.

When I reach the pavilion at the end of the market, and duck my head between the folds of silk, I am greeted with the image of the king and prince seated before a banquet of various kinds of grilled meats. There is more food before them than either can eat and so much of it will go to waste.

The monstrosity of it all is too much. The sheer cruelty. My head spins with revolution and it takes all of my willpower not to vomit again. A danger twists and twists in my chest.

I turn, rush down the aisles and leave.

The memory ends and I drag in a long, ragged breath into my tightening throat. I heave again and again, my entire chest shuddering, but I can’t get enough air. My awareness is back in the wood-paneled study, but all I can see is that market and those caged, suffering fae.

A sob escapes my lips, then my cries come hard and fast until I hold my head in my hands.

Suddenly Aldrin is right before me, prying my arms down, his eyes level with mine and swirling with concern. He is all I see, and he kisses me hard on the lips, my shocked body to his and lifting me from my seat in the embrace.

That warmth. His distinctive earthy scent. Those lips. It all brings me back to the moment. Aldrin gently deposits me back into my seat and drags over another chair, sitting right next to me. He stares into my face for a long moment, wiping away my tears with his thumb, then hovers his hand over the scroll to glimpse it.

He recoils as though it struck him.

---