Page 58 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

I’d thought we were the entirety of the Wild Hunt.

I’d been wrong.

We marched toward the Hollow Mountains, our group forming a single line as we navigated the narrow paths through the trees. The carts jostled from side to side all too often, the underbrush and leaves on the forest floor disguising the tree roots and stones that made for a rough journey.

I knew the moment we stopped at the cave entrance that something was wrong. The stillness of the air around us made it impossible to suspect otherwise. “Come on, Little One,” Caldris said, dismounting behind me. He helped me down as I stared at the opening, swallowing down my discomfort of all that was to come.

These people knew me. They would recognize me and with my association with Caldris at my side, they would quickly realize that he and Caelum were one and the same. This was the moment when I faced the reckoning for my own ignorance. The people in the carts hated me even though they didn’t know I’d been the one to stand up for the Fae at my side.

These people would despise me, and I deserved it. I’d had the opportunity to kill him, and I hadn’t been able to do it.

“I don’t want to go in there,” I said, shaking my head as Caldris reached out to take my hand. Night was beginning to fall all over again, the air cooling around us. The daylight hours grew shorter and shorter with every day that passed, costing us valuable time on our journey.

“It's a warm place to sleep for the night. A place that can offer us all baths and comfort in the middle of our journey. You know we cannot miss that opportunity when it presents itself,” he said, but his eyes were soft with the sadness he knew I felt.

“Don’t you want a group to go in and fight first at least?” I asked, watching as they were unloaded from the carts and led into the caves. Their eyes were wide, their expressions tormented as they made their way into the dark caverns. “I can’t imagine you want to put the Fae Marked at risk if they decide to fight, and surely you have to be aware that theywillfight.”

“Holt sent a regiment ahead of us. As soon as he received word from me that you knew my secret, he sent a team to infiltrate the tunnels. We couldn’t risk the people here realizing they’d been compromised, and I didn’t know how long they would go without word from Melian before they grew wary,” he admitted, and a shock rolled through me.

He was always planning ahead, maneuvering for every possibility as if his life depended on it. I guessed when it came to the possibility of finding Mab’s daughter, it very well might. Holt emerged from the cave, connecting eyes with Caldris and nodding in reassurance. A few of the riders stayed behind to tend to the horses, seeing to their needs and positioning them in the canopy of the trees for the night. The rest of the members of the Wild Hunt strode into the entrance to the caves, Adelphia and her group following behind them. They moved slowly, studying the cave entrance and taking in the exterior.

Perhaps if they didn’t make it to Alfheimr, they would return here.

“Everything’s clear?” Caldris asked, looking over my shoulder to speak to the other man. I turned in place, maneuvering so that I could watch the interaction fully.

Some part of me hoped the books hadn’t been endangered. That they were safe, despite the battle that must have raged. I turned my eyes to the forest floor, noticing the disturbed snow where fresh packed dirt had been laid upon the ground.

“How many?” I asked, turning my blistering stare to Holt.

He held my gaze, lifting his chin in a way that told me he knew exactly what I meant. Still he played the fool, pretending as if he didn’t. “How many what?”

I stepped away from Caldris, making my way to the upturned dirt and crouching low. I touched a hand to the burial place, lifting the loose grains into my hand as my shackles clanked. The ground should have been frozen, should have been more difficult to bury people within it.

But that didn’t seem to stop the Wild Hunt from hiding the casualties of their cause.

“How many did you bury?” I asked, and a hush swept over the forest.

“Only what was necessary to gain access to the Fae Marked within the tunnels, and to gain enough advantage to be able to rest here for the night,your highness,” Holt said with a sneer. “We do not kill without purpose. We are to bring the Marked and Mab’s daughter back to Alfheimr. That is all.”

“And what if Mab’s daughter is within one of these graves?” I asked, turning to look at Caldris. “How can you kill in the very community where you are searching for a person you have never seen?”

“They did what was necessary,” Holt said, defending the choices his riders had made in his absence.

“They did what was easy,” I corrected, standing from my crouch. I moved closer to Holt, stopping directly in front of him and staring up into his ethereal face as he glared down at me. “If you want the humans to stop hating the Fae, this is not the way. This has to stop.”

“Unfortunately for you, I only take orders from one female,” Holt said, his lips peeling back from his teeth to form a cruel, twisted smile. “And you are not the Queen of the Shadow Court.”

I tilted my head to the side, that hollow inside of me filling with ire. It roiled near to the surface, waiting to be called upon as the cold of stone filled my fingertips. They trembled, tingling with the nearness of death. “If Mab is defeated, who inherits the throne?” I asked him, keeping my voice measured. As if I was genuinely curious. In my reading of the tomes the Resistance had gathered, I knew enough to know the Faerie Courts were to be passed down from ruler to first heir if the Kings and Queens who ruled over them were to pass.

“There are technically two heirs to the Shadow Court,” Holt said, evading the statement as best he could. He knew the trap he’d walked into.

“Yes, the daughter who could very well lie buried in these graves thanks to your riders’ foolishness, and my mate. Tell me, if he is to be King of the Shadow Court, what would that make me, Hunstman?” He stared down at me, animosity in his features.

I didn’t know what had happened after the moments in Black Water when I’d summoned the darkness to my fingers, but something in Holt had shifted, turning away from the slightly friendly and amusing male he’d been previously and embracing the fact that we seemed destined to be enemies.

Whatever he suspected I was, I swore he saw it dancing in my eyes as he swallowed and clenched his teeth. “The Queen of the Shadow Court,” he said begrudgingly, looking over my shoulder to where Caldris watched the exchange. He didn’t move to intervene, allowing me my moment.

I couldn’t be certain what had come over me; not when I still resented the idea of being royalty. But sometimes, in the quiet moments when nobody was watching, part of me craved the moment when the world would see what I could be. Something insidious, lurking inside of me and waiting for the right moment to strike.

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