Page 8 of A Deception of Courts

For the first time since ordering the ale, I gripped it and brought it to my lips. Over the lip-worn rim of the tankard, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Starving, I felt my desperate want for the keys constrict like a serpent deep in my stomach.

I needed them, and I’d do anything to get them in my hands.

Peter swung the keys around as though they were a trophy. A sign of dominance that he was a Hunter and everyone around him was lesser than. My heart gave a leap of hope that the surrounding humans viewed Peter with equal disgust. Then I remembered it was because of his state and persona and likely nothing to do with the fact he hunted, captured and killed fey for simply existing.

I itched to throw myself at him. Take the keys from his hand and leave. Or take his hand with them, for it would stop him from doing whatever he contemplated when he glanced toward the barmaid as she passed.

But I waited. Patiently, as I had every day since returning to Lockinge. My end goal was more important than rushing, and I had prepared far too long to waste this moment and ruin it.

Peter left the tavern after his sixth tankard of ale. His sloppy feet stumbled over one another as he moved onto the street. Like a shadow, I followed. He was singing when I stepped up behind him, close enough to taste the sweat that oozed from his hunched, round form. He awkwardly fumbled over his words. In his drunken state he could hardly pronounce the lyrics clearly. He would never have known I was there. Peter didn’t stop his slurred song until my blade pressed to his throat. It was impossible to discern if he gargled from the shock of the dagger slipping across his neck or if that was an ale-induced hiccup.

Peter Torr bled out into the night, unable to sing or scream as I tore away the hoop of keys he held defiantly on to. His wide eyes had stayed open as gargling sounds erupted from the dark slice across his throat. Blood-slick hands grasped at the gash as though he could pinch it together to still the bleeding.

His efforts were wasted; the damage was done.

Peter watched me as I sauntered toward Duncan, who had lingered in the shadows of the tavern’s back alley. I felt no remorse as I lifted my red-stained fingers to display the keys to him. There was no praise waiting for me in that alleyway. Not that I required any.

Now, three nights later, as I swiftly threw out my hands toward another Hunter who ran at me with his sword held high, I discovered the guilt. It had been hiding this entire time.

It had buried itself in my gut like a barbed knife. If I reached for it to pull it free, I would have suffered more pain and discomfort. So, instead, I pushed the guilt deeper and deeper with every life I took. But the weight of the keys in my breast pocket helped dampen the feeling, if only slightly.

It’s for a greater cause, I reminded myself.

Wild, frigid wind conjured around me and burst forward with a gesture of a hand. It ripped across the ground, encouraging jagged shards of ice to race and burst up from the cobbled streets. The Hunter wasn’t prepared as my ice devoured his feet and lower legs. It was so sudden his bones snapped through his skin as his momentum was ruined.

My attacker folded in on himself, dropping his sword, which skirted to a stop beneath my boot.

“You will only be remembered for being on the wrong side of history,” I said, breath fogging beyond my lips. Then I blew out, forcing as much breath as I could muster to cover the Hunter’s face until his skin hardened and lungs turned to shards of cold stone.

Two down, countless more to go.

Althea was a tempest of fire. Her flames hissed like snakes as they met the skin of those foolish enough to choose her as their victim. In contrast to the cold surrounding my body like a shield, I recognised Althea’s power pressing against me with demanding force.

I winced against her heat, as bright as a dying star. A vortex of boiling flames that danced to her bidding. They took the Hunters and left them as husks of blistered skin and charred bone.

Althea truly was an unstoppable force. The wicked smile that glowed across her face told stories of just how desperate she had been to do this. Like a bird finally released from an iron cage, she was free to unleash her magic and send a message to those who opposed her.

My distraction in the raging inferno meant a Hunter got too close to me. A blast of air sliced the side of my face as she swept a blade down toward me. I side-stepped, gasping at the sudden presence. I slipped across the ice-slick ground and lost my footing. If I hadn’t, the blade would have found itself buried in the soft skin where my neck met my shoulder.

Duncan must’ve heard my sharp intake of breath. Such a small sound beneath the thundering of death and chaos, but he heard it, because he was on me in seconds, parting from the darkness with his long sword swinging with precise aim.

Unlike the Hunter, Duncan didn’t miss his target.

Her head tumbled from her shoulders, dark blood spurting skyward from severed veins. There was so much blood. It spilled and flowed as though Duncan had opened a river and let it flood across her corpse. She stood, animated, before crumpling to the ground where her body joined the others that had fallen to our attack.

“Did she hurt you?” he asked, jade eyes wide with terror. I felt them search every inch of me for a sign that the Hunter had touched me.

I shook my head, unable to form words, as Duncan’s frantic worry mutated into a wild fury. My stomach jolted just watching him as his mind sped through the different circumstances in which those last moments could have ended.

“Good,” Duncan exhaled, face pale. Then I noticed the droplets of blood that trailed down his face like rain. There was no knowing if it was his or that of the woman he had felled. “Stay together now. I don’t want you straying too far from me again.”

I raised my chin, ice crackling around my fingers and tracing my wrist like the bracelet that Duncan wore to keep his new power contained. “It was a moment of distraction. Not weakness. Let the bodies behind me be the proof that I do not need someone to fight for me.”

“I fight for you because I care that you live, not because I don’t think you are capable.”

Another Hunter had appeared like a phantom beyond Duncan’s shoulder. He had not noticed, succumbing to the same distraction that had almost cost me my life. Before the blood-covered dagger could plunge into his back, I threw myself into Duncan’s unexpecting arms, shot my hand out over his shoulder and took the Hunter by the chin.

“He,” I hissed through gritted teeth, “is mine.”

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