Page 51 of Across an Endless Sea

“No more chaos than Danu wanted when she decided to make Caed my Guard,” I reply dryly, feeling buoyed by the lack of instant rejection. “Besides, if I could get this cuff off, then I might be able to do something about your eye, like I did with Caed’s hand.”

Her laughter dies, and her hand rises to briefly touch her one cloudy, scarred eye. “Don’t tempt me.” She pushes to her feet, takes a deep breath, and cracks open the door. “It doesn’t matter. Elfhame City will fall soon enough, and this will all be moot. Come on, we better get you back to your—”

The sound of conversation and laughter echoes loudly from the corridor beyond, and we both freeze.

“The feast is over,” Prae murmurs, pressing the door until it’s almost completely shut. “Change of plan. We wait until they’re all gone, and then go collect Caed.”

It takes ages. The Fomorians don’t seem in any hurry to leave, but eventually the sound of their passing turns to an eerie silence, and Prae opens the door again to stick her head out.

“Come on,” she says.

The feast hall is cold and empty when we creep back inside. The quiet is broken only by the sound of hurried footsteps, but the huge troughs of fire have been extinguished so I can’t see who’s making their hasty retreat.

Caed is lying where we left him, knocked out cold on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. Some part of me—the ludicrous part that wants to forgive everything he’s done to me—aches a little at the sight.

That same stupid inner voice wonders if he’s like this because of me. Before his cousins snatched me from Prae’s table, he was almost finished with his stupid punishment. Then Elatha sentenced him to suffer another hundred.

No. I refuse to take the blame for this.

This is Elatha’s fault. Not mine. I’m not the sadist who whips people until they pass out over something as stupid as losing control of their magic.

Beside him, there’s a bucket and a cloth stained with blood, as if someone has started cleaning him and then abandoned the task. I take up the rag myself, wiping a smear away from his face. There doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to clean his back, given the state of it, but at least if his eyes are clean, he’ll be able to see.

“Who would…?” Prae asks, casting about as if searching for the mysterious helper. After a second, when it becomes clear that no one is still here, she stops, dismissing it.

“How often does Elatha use his name like that?” I ask, moving aside a bloodstained lock of his hair to clean his jaw. I end up tracing the shell of his double-pointed ear with the cloth as I go, marvelling at how similar—yet different—they are to a fae’s.

Prae snorts. “If you’re hoping to blame all of his actions on that, you’re going to be disappointed. Elatha despises him for having such a ridiculous fae weakness. He’s made Caed promise to be truthful, and not plot to take the throne—but those are the only two times I know of. He must have been pissed to use it just then…”

She shakes her head. “Come on, help me wake him up so he can draw from you.”

I drop the cloth, and it splashes back to the red water, sending droplets flying. I can’t hide my grimace as I remember exactly how it feels to have my energy drained to heal my Guard.

“You could…” The bargain prevents me from asking her to remove the bangle, so I raise my wrist in suggestion instead. “And then I could heal him that way.”

Even if I can’t figure out a way to make Titania do whatever it was she did before with my necromancy, perhaps I’ll be able to connect with Danu and lessen the strain.

Prae’s eyes harden. “Fat chance.”

She leans over Caed and slaps his uninjured cheek twice.

“Wake up,” she orders. “Come on, idiot. Draw from the fairy so you can walk your heavy ass back to your room.”

Caed’s eyes roll back in his skull, but Prae slaps his face again, merciless. “Get it together.”

This continues for several minutes, until she rocks back on her heels with an aggravated sigh. “Stubborn son of a bitch.”

“There must be someone who can carry him for us,” I murmur.

“Caed has to walk out of here,” Prae cuts me off. “Otherwise it’ll just lead to more challenges from people who think he’s weak.”

And weakness in Fellgotha gets you killed.

The words hang heavy and unspoken between us for a second before Prae starts shaking his shoulders again. I’m distracted from her renewed efforts to wake him by Titania, who appears on the other side of his body, giving me a sad smile. She’s so translucent that I can barely make her out in the darkened room as she gestures wildly to his outstretched, gloved hands.

Trusting that she—the healer among my guides—must know what she’s talking about, I reach for his glove, tugging away the leather to reveal my mark on the skin there. Titania smiles, nodding approvingly before miming something else. She’s so faint that she has to repeat the motion several times before I understand she wants me to touch it.

I take a deep, shuddering breath, because I don’t know what this will do, I link my fingers with Caed’s. The buzz between us roars to life at the contact, magnified a thousand-fold by the contact. I can feel his sluggish heartbeat in my own chest. His tiredness.

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