Page 85 of Seized to Sacrifice
Her brow furrowed as she thought and then she nodded. ‘You were a prisoner of the Horde,’ she said. ‘A fae that they kept as a pet.’ She looked away. ‘They did something to you … besides torture. I mean.’
Rye nodded. ‘I was chained in the dark. They stole my magick, kept me just alive enough to keep making more. Everyday my jailers would come, take from me, indulge their angers … and other things. And then you came to me,’ he said. ‘You appeared in the darkness. You were glowing. I remember you walking towards me. A radiant being. I thought I’d died and reached the fae afterlife, but my chains melted away. You took me to a place of light. I don't even know where it was.’
‘The place Gaila created for the fae,’ she whispered. ‘The Underhill. She took you to the Underhill.’
‘The Underhill,’ he said with a nod. ‘We stayed there for a long time. I was broken in body and mind … and spirit. You put me back together again.’ Rye clenched his jaw. ‘And I repaid you with years of hatred. I never even tried to find you. I never even tried to escape this realm to get back to you, to find out what had happened.’
She didn't say anything for a while and when she did, he wanted to go to her. But he couldn't. Things were different now.
‘I loved you,’ she said, ‘but it felt different than it does now, as if there was so much more to it than what I can feel now.’
Rye nodded. ‘Your human mind can only understand so much without the rest of your memories and your power. We'll find a way,’ he promised her. ‘We’ll find a way to save us all.’
She lay back, looking at the ceiling of the tent and then glanced at him.
‘I hope so,’ she said, but her voice sounded hollow.
Rye fought the rising panic. She was distancing herself and withdrawing from him.Them. Whether it was because their destructions were imminent, or it was simply the pain of what they'd done, he didn't know, but he couldn’t let this happen.
They needed to go to Kitore.
He needed to speak to the witch, those fae.
And they needed to go now,beforethe passes opened.
CHAPTER11
ELLE
Rye left her alone and she was glad. She could feel herself pulling away. She didn’t want to. She was still drawn to them, but she couldn't help but feel betrayed now that she knew the truth about why Gaila had done what she’d done.
It was an odd sensation to have memories that weren’t really her own. She didn’t feel like the woman whose life she knew so intimately. Gaila seemed more like a sister, or a close friend and Elle cared about her thus.
She heard someone at the front of their tent ringing the chimes that were hung there. She sat up in the bed and quickly ran her hands through her hair to put it into some semblance of order.
‘Come in,’ she called, making sure that there was a knife close by just in case. She snorted softly. Already she’d learned that from Nyx. Perhaps she wouldn’t always feel so weak and helpless as she did at the moment.
The woman who entered was dressed in Brothers’ blacks with long, dark hair in a simple plait down her back. She gave Elle a warm smile. This was the woman from the Commander’s tent, she realized.
‘I’m Maeve,’ she said, ‘another Fourth who lives in the Camp.’
Elle gave her a hesitant smile, wondering what the woman wanted.
‘Lily, the Commander’s Fourth, asked me to come. She wondered if you’d like to see more of the Camp and dine with us today.’
Elle bit her lip. She’d told her Brothers that she wouldn't leave the tent but surely no harm could come to her if she said yes. She’d seen Maeve in Quin's tent, which surely meant that Quin trusted Maeve and Rye the others trusted Quin. It would be nice to get out of this tent for a bit. No matter how luxurious it was, it was little more than a room she was confined to as she had been in Nyx’s chamber at their keep.
She gave Maeve a smile and nodded.
‘I've been on my own for far too long,’ she said, the honesty of that statement being lost on Maeve, she thought wryly. ‘It'll be nice to have some company. When?’
‘Now’s as good a time as any,’ Maeve said brightly, linking her arm with Elle’s.
Elle couldn't help but grin at her infectious merriment. The woman had seemed quite severe when she'd first seen her in the Commander’s tent, though with an impish side to be sure considering how she’d spoken to Quin, a man others here seemed to revere as almost more than a man. Maeve was full of jests and quick smiles that Elle found endearing.
‘How long have you been a Fourth?’ Elle asked her as they left the tent and began to walk through the Camp.
‘My story’s an odd one,’ she said, ‘I was taken from my home by the Camp as spoils after a raid.’
