Page 13 of King of Immortal Tithe (Darkmourn Universe 2)

“We should leave,” I said without realising. Auriol pulled her hand out of reach as I tried to take it. “Something is not right with that one.”

She ignored me, instead muttering the same words under her breath, “Me, please choose me. Please. Please.”

Faenir’s eyes fell upon my sister and stayed there. He did not smile. His face did not warm at the sight of her. Instead, he looked sorrowful. It was an expression we both knew well. After the death of our parents, anyone we passed, anyone who visited us, looked at us the very same way. I didn’t have a chance to understand why as the shift of his cloak hushed across the ground as he walked towards us.

Toward me.

Toward her.

Auriol’s breath hitched. My heart stopped. Three words lingered across Faenir’s lips as he closed in on us. “I am sorry.”

Somewhere behind him, the elves buzzed with a dangerous excitement, Gildir and Frila’s voices reaching over the rest of them.

Faenir stood before us, inches from Auriol, as he faced her down.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My mind screamed for me to say something, do something, to stop him as he raised his hand.

Faenir closed his eyes, handsome face wincing as he lowered his palm towards my sister’s willing and waiting head. The world seemed to stop for a moment. All the sound drained from existence until it was only the haunting whisper of my parents which remained.

Do not lose sight of her. Do not leave her as we have. Stay together, promise us.

I broke free from my prison of horror and reached out my hand. Snapping my fingers across the man’s wrist, I clamped down with a vice-like grip. His skin was soft like downy feathers, yet it was cold, as if I’d buried my fingers in snow. My hand was not big enough to wrap entirely around the width of his wrist, but my strength was unwavering, fuelled by my desperation to keep him from the only person I had left.

“You. Cannot. Have. Her,” I spat, wrist aching beneath the weight of his arm.

“Arlo, stop it!” Auriol pleaded.

Faenir looked at me with widening eyes. I saw my reflection in his stare, stern face twisting among the gold flecks.

No longer did his siblings laugh and coax him on. Instead, they were as silent as the crowd who watched on as I had interrupted the Choosing.

Then he spoke to me, eyes furrowed, and mouth parted in a mixture of disbelief and something else. Something I should have recognised sooner. Terror. “This should not be possible.”

Heart thundering like the cantering of a hundred wild mares, I tossed his wrist away and stepped between my sister and him. Like many men, Faenir was taller than me, but I did not let that deter my territorial stance. “Pick someone else. She is not for you.”

Faenir cocked his head, looking at me as though he was a hound, and I was something new to him. As he spoke again, I discerned his words were for me and me alone. “What are you,Arlo?”

The way he said my name felt as rancid as it clawed up my spine. Not only that, but it was a strange question, one I never imagined being asked by anyone, let alone an otherworldly creature such as him. I replied the only way I felt like I could, “Not of any interest to you, elf.”

He smirked, surveying me with those burning, honey eyes. “You could not understand how very wrong you are.”

6

The chill which slithered up my spine was not caused by the gale of cold winds that brushed through Tithe. It was the silence, sickening and endless. That was what conjured the reaction. Even with the streets of Tithe full to bursting, I could have heard a pin drop. Every set of eyes were focused on me.

Whereas my attention was frozen upon the elven man.

Faenir stumbled back as though moved by an unseen force. His hands were raised before him, fingers splayed. Without so much as a blink, he studied them as if it was the first moment he had realised he even had hands, turning them over, inspecting every inch of skin with such intensity it seemed he searched for the true meaning of life upon them.

Myrinn was behind him in moments, her movements rushed but still dripping with grace. “Faenir, we should leave.”

“Did you see?” he murmured in response, still not taking his eyes from his hands.

Myrinn looked at me, only for a short moment, eyes tracing me from head to toe. “I saw enough. We all have.”

Faenir finally broke his concentration and focused on me with the same wide-eyed expression. And he was not the only one who did. Myrinn, Haldor, and the other two fey whose smug expressions had been scraped clean from their pleasant faces. Not a single one tore their gaze from me, not even as Gildir and Frila shared whispers behind their hands.

The human occupants of Tithe also observed in horror at what I had done; some gazes were gentler than others.

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