“Now who is going to explain who just attacked us?” I ask as Stormfire steps over the bodies, even as some of them groan and plead for help. He makes his way to the pit of darkness with us following.
“Rogue Unseelie fae from the old Unseelie court,” Alun answers me. I gulp and look back at them, guilt churning inside my stomach. “Do not worry, their numbers are few. The Unseelie court will eventually be nothing more than a fairy tale.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t scream the words burning in my throat. I just stay silent, like a coward, as we get to the pit. Even as I hear their cries, their pleas for help. Even as they beg behind me. Alun’s and Torfinn’s horses jump into the pit, followed by Poppy, and I halt, stopping Stormfire from following. He whines a little as I turn him around and look at all the bodies.
Closing my eyes, I focus on the power I never use because it’s not safe. Healing. Green waves of energy leave my body and slam into the ground. The ground shakes and rocks, making Stormfire neigh loudly as vines shoot out of the ground and wrap around the Unseelie fae. Those alive will heal, even if it drains me to do that, but I can’t leave them begging for help. My soul won’t let me. Tired already, I turn Stormfire around and whisper to him.
“Let’s go. That was our little secret.”
Stormfire neighs loudly before jumping into the darkness, and I can only cling tightly as everything is lost in shadows.
Eventually, the shadows become less dark, and more light seems to pour in from the nearby distance. Stormfire picks up speed, charging towards the exit. My whole body itches to get out of here, and I can only hold on as Stormfire jumps through the light and we land on a grey cobblestone street.
“There she is!” Poppy exclaims, and I blink my eyes a few times from the bright light of the city around me, the noise of it, how everything is just so different from the darkness I was just smothered in. High streetlights with fires within orbs line the streets, making it almost seem like it’s day, even though it never is here. I guess this is their way of coping. I take a few seconds to really look at the city I’ve been running away from for so many years. We are right next to the high rock walls of one part of the city. The magical barrier burns right behind Stormfire, and I stare at it for a second, sensing the magic inside. Poppy might be drawn to the shadows, but me? I’m drawn to the magic inside this barrier. It takes effort to pull my eyes from the wall and look around the city I’ve avoided my entire life.
The cobblestone streets are lined with raised beds of moonflowers, and behind them are market stalls with dozens of reapers walking around. The flowers make the air smell almost sweet, but the food in the stalls adds a spicy scent to the city. Many of the people wear cloaks, and I don’t spot any children at all, which is odd, but perhaps they are at some kind of school.
The tall stone buildings are high and much bigger than I expected them to be, and up close they seem almost worn down. They have thin windows around the top, but the rest is just pure stone, looking like dominos that need to fall one day. From rumours I’ve heard over the years, the city aboveground is only a front, and much of the real life of the city is actually underground in the many tunnels and caverns. I look down an alleyway between the houses, seeing a much busier street of reapers on the other side.
“The academy gate is in the middle of the city,” Poppy explains as she pulls her horse to my side. “I haven’t been here myself. It’s astounding, right?”
This girl needs to get out more.
I smile. “It’s interesting, but I prefer Earth simply for the beaches and sunlight.”
She laughs. “One day you can take me to your Earth.” She sighs, and her eyes take everything in. “You will be able to see the royal castle as the gate is right in front of it, and it houses the academy students within the lands of the castle.”
I don’t know why she is excited to see a castle. If you go to Earth, they have dozens of them, and they usually smell like dust. I tightly smile, though Poppy grins back before clucking her horse forward. Stormfire follows Poppy’s horse, and I look down, shaking Mossy’s shoulder to wake him up. Damn reaper magic knocked him out again. Mossy doesn’t wake up until we are out of the market area and passing through small white stone houses with black doors and black-framed windows. These are decorated with small hanging crystals and flowers that catch the moonlight, and others have a range of flowers growing in their gardens. They look after their houses here, that’s for sure. A few faces fill the windows as we pass, but I don’t catch many people’s actual faces.
“You need to hide and follow from a distance. Make sure no one sees you,” I whisper to Mossy when we get to the bigger houses of the lot. He looks up at me with worried eyes before jumping off Stormfire and onto a windowsill of a house. Knowing Mossy, he won’t be far behind me, and I trust he can sneak himself into anywhere.
I pull my gaze back to see we are coming up to a walled part of the city with a big archway that everyone is heading through. The archway is made of pure blue crystal, and I gulp as we get closer. No one seems to look twice at the archway, even though I am aware that it is from the Otherworld, and a strange feeling ripples over my skin as we go through it. Torfinn looks back at me, and he narrows his eyes like he is feeling the same thing that I am. Who knows, he might be. He is a demi-god, and I don’t have a clue what his powers stretch to.
On the other side of the wall, the houses are bigger, and each has their own gates and gardens hidden behind them. The cobblestone looks cleaner, almost white here, and there are fewer reapers walking around than before and pretty parks with children running around inside them. It takes us at least half an hour to get to the end of the rows of pretty gated houses and to another walled area. This one is different than before. Instead of an archway, there is a huge golden gate. The gate is made of winding metal formed into the shapes of the strange rune symbols I saw on Torfinn’s dagger. The gate is slightly open, a gap big enough for one person at a time to walk through, and it shimmers silver, making it look like it would be impossible to walk through at all. I can’t see what is on the other side of the gate because the walls are too high, but I can see the crowds of reapers behind a roped pathway up to the gate.
Torfinn and Alun lead their kelpies to the side where a row of similar looking kelpies are tied up. Poppy and I follow them over, and I steer Stormfire into the space next to Mistress and slide off her back. I tie her reins around the wooden pole in front of us like Poppy does, though my knot isn’t as well-skilled as hers.
“I cannot walk with you, you must go alone, my child,” Alun tells Poppy, holding her close to him. I avoid them as I go around Stormfire, but Alun calls for me before I can actually escape.
“Come here, Daesyn.”
I groan and walk to Poppy’s side, feeling more than a little awkward. I’m the assassin he picked up from Earth and swapped with his daughter. I’m the girl he is happily letting possibly die. I’m just the stupid one who is going through with this plan. Alun smiles at me and pulls out two daggers from his cloak. The daggers are gold at the end, drifting up into silver, and the leather is blue. They are pretty, I will give him that.
“These are cursed daggers, said to be made from elves,” he tells me.
I snort. “Elves aren’t real. They are just horror stories.”
Alun levels his gaze on mine. “Do not be so quick to push away what is said in stories as not real, and I can assure you, elves are very alive and very skilled with weapons.”
“Fine. What’s so special about these cursed daggers?” I ask. This is the second time I’ve heard about curses, and it’s getting annoying now.
“If someone stabs you with these, you can die and come back. These are the only weapons in the world that can do this,” he tells us and hands us them. Poppy looks terrified as she takes hers, and I sigh.
“You want us to stab ourselves, don’t you?” I question. I’m not doing that. Not only is this a coward’s way out, it would hurt. I like stabbing other people. Not myself.
He nods. “If there is no other way, then yes.”
Poppy slides the dagger into her bag and then wraps her arms around Alun. “Thanks, father. Tell mother that I love her.”
I walk away from them as Alun speaks softly to his daughter, and nearly bump into Torfinn’s chest. Not that it would be bad to touch his rock hard chest. He holds a small bag up for me.
“Velia packed you a bag of clothes,” he tells me, and I accept the bag. “See you around, Dae.”
I step back as his wings appear at his sides, and I itch to touch them, to see what they feel like. Torfinn’s eyes stay on mine as he jumps into the air and flies off into the sky.
“Are you ready?” Alun asks me, making me snap out of searching the clouds in the night sky. I quickly slip the dagger into the bag and nod, gripping the handle of the blue fabric bag tight in my hand.
“We will walk together,” Poppy firmly states, holding her head up high. Whatever her father said to her has made her more accepting of our fate. I walk ahead, forcing Poppy to jog to catch up with me. We head down the pathway, ignoring the people behind the rope who go silent when we walk up, and I resist the urge to look at any of them. Two reapers stand in front of the gap in the gate, thick black cloaks completely hiding their appearance, and in their hands are silver scythes with black tips.
An echoing voice speaks from one of them, but I haven’t a clue which one actually spoke. “Welcome to The Royal Reaper Academy. Speak your name to the gate and enter.”
“I will go first,” Poppy tells me, and I eye her before nodding once. She walks to the gate, a small girl with a cream bag in her hands, who is shaking the whole time. I feel for her, this isn’t a choice I would make in her shoes. No throne on any world is worth fighting to the death for. Poppy stops right in front of the shimmering silver magic, and she looks right up into it, a confidence entering her voice I didn’t know she had. “My name is Persephone Riverlite, and I accept my fate. I wish to accept the test for the throne. May the gods judge me.”
Poppy disappears into the silver magic a moment later, and I blink, surprised at how quick she was gone. The gates shake a little bit before they go still, and I gulp. Fuck, what name do I say? The pretend one is what I’m going with because I can’t say my real name out here.
“Go next,” one of the reapers commands. I steel my back and walk right up to the magic. I do as Poppy did and lift my head, looking up. I can only see silver magic shimmering and bouncing around like it’s alive.
