I opened my eyes.
That wasn’t my bedroom ceiling. An expanse of grey rock stretched above me, and my breath hitched, my eyes widening. It wasn’t just grey. Grey was dull and drab, the colour of a city in the depths of winter. Grey skies, grey buildings, grey pavements, walked by grey-faced people on their way to dreary, grey jobs. This was different. This was beautiful.
I’d never seen so many shades of one colour, all marbled together in such a magnificent ripple. There were hues I’d never seen before. I’d never known such a spectrum existed. My phone would never be able to capture such detail.
Wait, my phone. Where was it? Where was I?
I shifted, propping myself on my elbows. A warm, green cloak fell away from my shoulders, but the bottom half wrapped around my legs like a burrito. Beneath the cloak, I was wearing black.
Gross.
The soft, oversized shirt was definitely not mine.
My head was too heavy for my neck, but I turned it, examining my surroundings. At least I wasn’t in some stranger’s bedroom, facing the walk of shame, but I was in a cave, which was arguably a worse hook up location than a sparsely furnished bachelor pad.
Sitting with his back to me, a shirtless man stared out over the dismal, grey clouds beyond the cave mouth. The tips of his pointed ears peeked out from beneath his inky black hair. Not a man. A male.
A friend.
“Idris?”
The muscles in his broad back bunched at the sound of my voice, and his despondent shoulders lifted slightly, but he didn’t look around. My gaze dropped to his lower back, where four deep but healing gashes slashed through his flesh. What had happened to him?
My brow bunched as I slogged through my sludgy brain, sifting for memories. I should remember this. I should remember how he’d been hurt, and why it made my guts tighten with shame.
My arms wobbled dangerously under my weight as I pushed myself to sitting. The cloak settled in my lap, and the black shirt–Idris’ shirt–gaped low over my chest. A strange, red mark unfurled between my breasts, an oddly beautiful, fern-like pattern, etched into my skin.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Was it a tattoo? I probed it with a tentative finger. The slightly raised mark was tender, but not painful.
Weird. I couldn’t remember why, but I felt certain I should be in pain. Its absence only stirred the confusion already clouding my mind.
Dropping my hand, I peeled the cloak away from my lap. The faint scent of smoke wafted up my nose as I exposed my long, bare legs, and fell still. Those weren’t my legs. My legs had annoying little dimples peppering my thighs, not to mention an ugly scar on the inside of one ankle, courtesy of the surgeon who’d pinned my broken bones back together. These legs had neither. The skin was smooth and flawless, glowing with a dewy sheen, and the perfect toenails lacked the hot pink varnish I seemed to remember applying at some point.
No, they couldn’t belong to me. So why were they attached to my body?
“Idris?” I said again, a faint note of panic sneaking into my voice.
I didn’t give him a chance to reply before kicking free of his cloak and scrambling to my feet. I barely made it halfway to my full height before those stranger’s legs buckled, sending me crashing to the floor.
The impact jarred through me, but the crack of rock against flesh and bone was oddly painless. I’d barely hit the ground before Idris appeared before me, on his knees, his hands hovering over me but not touching. Since when had he been afraid to touch me?
“Are you hurt?” he asked, worry evident in his low tone.
I wasn’t, but that seemed like a tiny, irrelevant detail compared to the leg situation. I lifted my eyes to his, and though my heart stilled for a moment at the sight of that beautiful shade of yellowish-green, I asked, “What happened to me?”
A smooth mask erased the concern from his face, leaving it blank and impassive. I knew that face. Knew it was nothing but armour. Slowly, as though I was a dog primed to snap, Idris lowered his hands. I followed the motion.
The slashes across his back weren’t his only injuries. The red-raw skin covering his hands was twisted and pitted. Burnt.
Flames. Maelgwyn. Flames and brutal, flesh-melting agony.
With a tremulous breath, I dissolved into violent shivering. I remembered. The memory unfolded, replaying within me, every torturous second of it. I’d screamed before the end. I’d screamed, and nobody had come. Except…
Idris lifted his burnt hands again, gathering me to his chest and folding me in his steady, reassuring strength. I’d been alone. There’d been crowds and guards and even the human-hating king himself, all there with me, but I’d thought I was alone.
I’d been wrong. Someone had come for me. Someone had cared.
I wrapped my arms around the prince, clinging to him as though his uncle would appear and attempt to pry me away at any moment. Idris cradled the back of my head, his injured fingers sliding into my hair.
“I’m so sorry, Aliza,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”
Sorry for what? For saving my life? My weak, trembling limbs should be covered in third degree burns. I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be dead. The fact that I wasn’t, the fact that my skin was flawless and new, my scars erased…
I unhooked a trembling arm and lifted my hand to my ear. My fingers jittered as I brushed them over the new, pointed shell. Fae ears. My breath sawed in and out of clear, strong lungs. I was alive. I was fae. I was immortal.
I was never going home.
My face and heart crumpled in unison as unbidden tears spilled down my cheeks, but I ground my teeth together, fighting against the black wave of loss rising inside me.
“There was no other way,” Idris said, desperation leaking into his voice, as though he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone.
He didn’t need to tell me. I’d suffered it. I knew better than anyone how beyond help I’d been.
I straightened, shifting away from him. He released me at once, and when I looked into his beautiful, stricken face, I forced my lips to twitch into a brief smile. “You came for me.”
Idris dropped his gaze to my wet cheeks. When he swept away my tears with gentle, sure sweeps of his thumbs, my eyes fluttered. He didn’t drop his hands, but cupped my face, holding our gazes steady.
“Where else would I be, if not with you?”
