Page 68 of The Maleficent Faerie
It’s a frightening thought, one that turns my universe huge and empty. But it’s empowering, too. Because maybe that means anyone can choose to be a savior.
Malec chose to protect me, knowing that he might die, and that if he died, all his plans would be for nothing and our realm would perish.
Saving me wasn’t just about him defending the ingredient he needs for a ritual. It was something more. Something sweeter.
In those long, dark hours of travel, and throughout the morning of the next day, I take the pieces of everything I once knew, everything I have been, and I begin to reassemble them. I pick out the truths, lay them side by side, and build upon them. I explore my feelings about the faeries who raised me, about my true parents, about Dawn herself. I inspect my view of the Caennith Priesthood and dismember their teachings about the Daenalla. I assess and dismantle my prejudices, my false assumptions, and my fears.
Last of all, I confront my feelings forhim.
Enemy. Captor. Caster of my curse.
Truth-teller. King. Companion.
He is all those things, and he is the man who let me use him as a pleasure toy. He’s the faerie who fucked me on the goddess’s altar. He’s the soul so wracked with insecurity about his own worth, so burdened with heavy responsibility, that he would consider ending his own life.
Maybe that’s why he gave himself to protect me. Not out of some imagined affection for me, but out of the desire to be done with it all. The thought sours the tender hope in my heart.
I don’t do tenderness or softness with men. I fight them, and I fuck them. I don’t befriend them and crave their love. That would be pathetic and foolish. Especially since my life will end in just a few days, if Malec lives.
Why did my existence have to be so complicated? It’s a puzzle I can’t reassemble perfectly—the pieces are broken and warped, cut into the wrong shapes.
I cast another look at the King. It’s morning now, so I should be able to discern the hue of his skin—but he’s still slumped over so far I can’t see his face, and his hand is hidden by his wing.
And truth be told, I’m somewhat distracted by my current surroundings.
We’re riding through mountains now, picking our way along narrow, winding paths. The Void is a line of absence slicing through the landscape, as if the mountains are loaves of bread shorn in half by a knife of darkness. Beyond the rocky crests is empty space flecked with stars, a great Nothing that extends forever downward, and outward, and upward. Overhead, the blackness fades into the layers of bright, sun-soaked air that arch over our realm—the protective, invisible dome Malec mentioned.
As we navigate the mountain road, I stare into the Void, at the tiny stars in its vast depths. They shift constantly, winking out and reappearing. Malec was right. The Void isn’t Nothing—it moves and changes. It exists as motion and chaos within its own emptiness, like a brain exists in a body.
My attention veers from the Edge as Ember leaps off his steed, spreading his leathery wings and soaring above our group. He calls down to me and points ahead, to a gap between two bluffs. That gap should empty straight into the Void, but instead there’s a tunnel through the Edge, like a hallway with black walls extending up to an infinite height.
“The passage to Ru Gallamet,” Ember calls.
My stomach soars with horrified expectation—because Ru Gallamet is actuallyinthe Void. It’s located on a peninsula of ground stretching out into the Nothing. Or perhaps it’s more like a cave within the mountainous Void, a solitary refuge accessible by a long tunnel.
We don’t need to fear my people pursuing us here. The Caennith would never venture into such a place… would they? No wonder some of my people believe Malec worships the Void, that he’s mad and untrustworthy and wicked. Who but a madman would maintain residence in such a dangerous location?
Yet he has managed to keep this spit of land from being swallowed up, even in his absence. There is something solid about his theories, something reliable in the spellwork he crafts.
Chills roll over my skin as we ride between the walls of the Void, along the narrow bridge into the Nothing. My brain keeps switching its perspective, sometimes viewing the Void as a solid mass, sometimes as the most terrifying emptiness, as if I could topple off the edge of the road and fall forever. Perhaps both are true. The darkness seems to thicken the farther we go, surging and writhing like smoke, like tenebrous serpents.
At the end of the narrow road rises the mountain of the Void King, with the castle of Ru Gallamet jutting from its peak like a clawed hand bursting out of black rock. The tallest tower has a flat peak, atop which sits the great Spindle, pointed to the churning Void overhead. Beside it is a massive wheel of gleaming black metal. We’re still some distance away, but they’re both so huge I can see them clearly, as well as part of the mechanism to which they’re attached.
It’s a terrifying sight. No wonder my parents didn’t want to give me up to the Void King—although judging by Malec’s story, Ru Gallamet hadn’t yet been encompassed by the Void at the time.
If Malec survives, that Spindle is where he plans to bind and bleed me. That’s where I’ll sink into the enchanted sleep and lose a century of my life.
The Edge-Knights urge their horses forward faster, racing toward Ru Gallamet, and suddenly I understand Malec’s men a little better. It takes a reckless kind of bravery to ride into the Void itself—a loyalty that approaches insanity. It’s easy to see how Reehan’s particular brand of youthful arrogance and boldness might have been mistaken for the qualities necessary in an Edge-Knight.
“There’s a healer at the castle?” I call to Vandel.
He turns to me, his skin paler than usual beneath his freckles. “There is.”
“And he’s still alive?”
In answer, Vandel cups the King’s face and turns it toward me. Gray skin—frighteningly gray—but no translucence. Not yet.
I lean forward in my saddle, urging more speed from my horse.
