The Lost Runes (A Demon's Fall Series), page 23
He is intimidating.
But I’ve been intimidated by ugly ass demons, terrifying monster creatures, undead souls in hell, and even an alpha werewolf shifter before and survived it.
The Seelie Fae King will not scare me.
He looks down at me with a confident smile, as if he is expecting me to be in tears like Laelia currently is. Part of me sees the likeness to Sebastian, but not by much. The Seelie king is nowhere near as good-looking as his son.
No wonder the king doesn’t like him.
“I can see why they sent this one to the academy with you and not her.” He points at the sisters. “But I do wish we had found their parents for their punishment. They have so far eluded me.”
I see Poppy and Laelia’s instant relief, and oddly, I feel the same way. They are good people, even if they are a little messed up letting Poppy go to the academy and saving the bitchy twin instead.
But for Poppy, it was a good thing. She has changed a lot and for the best, in my opinion. It’s a shame she won’t be doing the rest of the academy test.
Poppy would make a brilliant reaper queen.
“What makes you think you will ever find them?” I ask as I pull myself to my feet, forcing myself not to react to the pain in my stomach. The very knife he stabbed me with is clipped to his belt, alongside two other blue blades. I’m going to steal all of those and stab him right back with them. “In fact, what makes you think you will get anything you want?”
“Daesyn Heartlocke, I always get what I want,” he states with a smugness only a fae king could have. “Now you’re going to come with me, listen to what I have to tell you, and not fight back. If you try to hurt me or any of my guards, I will chop various parts off your friends and force you to watch. Do you understand?”
“It’s crystal clear,” I bite back. He only laughs as he points to one of the guards and the door. The guard rushes over and unlocks it, and I step out. The second I am close, the Seelie Fae King grabs my upper arm and starts forcibly walking me down the corridor.
“My name is Einar NightHold, and welcome back to the Otherworld.”
Einar doesn’t give me a break in his large paces, even as I feel my wound pouring more blood into my top and leggings with every step. My clothes are dirty and soaked with blood anyway, but the more he pulls me along, the harder it is to stay conscious from blood loss. The corridor opens up to a grey stone staircase that goes up five floors before giving out to a large room. Two more guards are waiting in front of the door, and they bow instantly when they see Einar, and I see first-hand the loyalty the guards have towards him. I wish I did more research into the king of the fae.
But then again, this shit was not planned.
Einar drags me to the other side of the empty room where two wooden chairs are facing a window with thick blue curtains hiding the view. The room has no smell, not even of dust or damp or anything, and a part of me misses the cell because all I can think of is that this room has been cleaned one too many times and might be the room he uses to kill people in. After he shoves me into a seat, which I can’t do much more than sit in my current situation, he sits down in the other chair.
Then he lifts his hands, and blue fire bursts out in the shape of a dragon. The flame dragon sweeps across my head, the fire so close I feel it against my hair, and I have to check I’m not burnt as it suddenly flies headfirst into the curtains. They burn up quickly, disappearing into magical embers on the floor.
But the sight they were hiding is nothing short of a phenomenal view.
The Otherworld is stretched out in front me, the fifteen islands floating in the middle of the air with currents of water spinning around them. On the water are so many ships, riding the currents effortlessly with their different coloured sails floating in the wind. Each island is different, with some like deserts and others thick with forests. Off the sides of the main fifteen islands are hundreds of little islands, but none of them looks like they have much on them.
Below the islands is just endless, beautiful, dazzling green sea.
“On this land,
The sea may rise into the sky,
and the islands can follow.
For the Otherworld was made
in the image of the angels.
And all angels ascend.”
I don’t look at Einar as he speaks, not until he is finished, as it is silent for a while—and not the comfortable kind. My mum told me that once, well, sung it to me like a lullaby. Like she did with so many songs, some that I barely remember anymore, and I wish I did. When I do turn his way, I make sure he can see all of the hate and disgust I have for him. “If the gods don’t kill you for messing with their test, then I am going to. I am going to kill you, make certain of that, Einar. You will die, and not even the gods will be able to save your soul from me.”
And I mean every single word.
I vow it.
“Many have promised the same thing.” He waves his hand and looks away, waving off my threat because he doesn’t know who I am. He has no clue what I’ve gone through and how serious I am in this moment.
“But none are me. I’m Daesyn Heartlocke, and I want vengeance. Unluckily for you, my vengeance has your name on it.”
And I will never stop. Never. One way or another, his blood is going to be on my hands and his throne destroyed into dust.
CHAPTER 36
If it wasn’t for my training, for my lessons as a kid in learning how to never relax around an evil creature no matter how silent they get, I might actually sit back and rest in the strange calmness that has drifted over us. I’m sure the Seelie fae have a certain power about them, a way of making you feel comfortable even when you know you are not like them. The Unseelie were always more known for being less friendly. I wonder if that was part of the reason why this man sitting next to me declared a war on my kind, ripping apart my world and so many others so easily. There was always a big difference between the Unseelie and Seelie fae.
But this man? He is nothing but pure evil. Through and through.
The Seelie Fae King is quite happily chilling in his chair next to me, acting like he didn’t kill me a dozen times just to test a theory out. Like he can’t invade my dreams, keeping me a prisoner even when I do escape this place.
“What do you want?” I finally ask. “What does a king want with an assassin? An Unseelie assassin?”
He folds his hands on his lap, his fingers ever so close to the dagger that I have my eye on. I’m sure the movement was done to piss me off. “Your mother was my closest friend as a child and my intended bride. The agreement was made between my parents and hers, your grandparents, who were highly respected in the fae court. Back then, it was simply the fae court, and our races were at peace in some respect.”
Colour me clueless, I never knew the Seelie and Unseelie got along. “Our marriage was going to unite the Seelie and Unseelie lines,” he starts to explain, shocking me into silence. “When Ingrid turned eighteen, she was given the cursed rune pendant to protect, like every woman in your family, and she wore it proudly. It was a great honour that made your family almost like royalty to the Unseelie, to be a keeper of one of the four godless runes.”
Godless runes? Four of them?
Knowing he won’t answer me about that quite yet, I bench the thought to learn more about my mother. A part of me needs to know what she went through, how she ended up with the reapers and so far away from the Otherworld.
And how she ended up coming back here with me...
“What happened?” I bluntly ask the obvious question as this story doesn’t end happily for him or me.
His lips drop into a sour line. “She left. Simply and easily, she walked away and left me just a note. Ingrid claimed she wanted a life away from the court of Seelie, and she wanted nothing to do with me because the rune sensed I wanted it. She also claimed she did not love me, and being mated to someone you don’t love is something she never coveted.”
I don’t reply, because I hear the distaste in his voice, how he clearly thinks she was insane, but I respect my mum so much more for her choice. She was so brave.
I already knew that, but this story just makes it clearer to me.
“I loved your mother very much, and I would have kept her safe. That’s a lot more than her reaper mate ever did, because in the end, he caused her death,” he remarks, and I bristle. I know my mum loved my father right until the end, I saw it in her eyes, I heard it in her voice.
She loved him, and my mum told me he was brave like her, that he did everything he could for her.
“My mother left us, me and my uncle, and then never came back. How do you know if she is dead?” I question, feeling my heart pounding in my chest like it’s beating its own drum.
He briefly smiles like he is enjoying a new memory. “Because her body was given to me by your grandmother and grandfather. Her parents killed her when she went to them for help...help with you.”
“What?” I whisper as my body starts to shake, and I curl my hands into fists.
“They told me she broke the vow your family had promised the gods to keep. The vow was simple...never use the cursed rune, only ever protect it, and Ingrid used it on you. You died as a baby when you were born, and Ingrid could not bear to lose you, so she forced the magic out of the pendant and into your tiny body. You came back to life, and the rune was impossible to remove from your soul without killing you,” he claims, leaning closer. “Only one of your bloodline could take the magic, but when I figure out a way to kill you, which I will, I will have the power I want. You don’t deserve it.”
I climb up off the seat, taking a few steps back, feeling the world closing in on me a bit. “What happened to my grandparents?”
His smile is vicious. “I ripped them to pieces.”
And it feels like the world is knocked away and I’m floating for a second. Having a feeling my mum is dead is one thing, knowing it is another. Refusing to deal with the desperate clawing emotions in my chest, I focus on the anger—the only thing I’m willing to show this man.
“If I didn’t hate you, I would thank you for that,” I growl out.
He shrugs his shoulders and crosses his leg over the other as he stretches out. “I enjoyed killing them, but it was not enough. I made it enough by making a deal with the reaper queen to destroy your race. The Unseelie screams, the deaths, the amount of suffering helped me deal with the loss of Ingrid. One day, no one will remember your grandparents.”
“I’m not Ingrid, and I can’t replace her. You do know that, right?” I question.
He stands up and walks over to me, catching my chin with his hand. “You look like your mother, but your hair is your father’s. Your stupidity is your father’s as well.”
“My father was clearly not that stupid. He got my mother when you failed to,” I reply, and I start to laugh. His eyes burn with hate before he slaps me hard across the face, and I fall to the floor. I don’t stop laughing as I climb up and meet his cold gaze.
I did deserve that.
“I’ve been hit much harder. If you wanna make an impression, you will have to do better than that,” I suggest, well and truly pissing him off. I can see why my mum didn’t like this asshole. “And for a man who says he loved my mother, trying to kill her daughter one minute and suggesting she will be his bride the next isn’t a way to honour her memory.”
“If I can’t have her, I will have you,” he counters. “You will enjoy my company in time, and we will have an heir before I kill you.”
I’d rather die.
“I highly doubt your plan is going to work unless it involves me stabbing you until you bleed out over your throne?” I sarcastically ask. “A throne I’m going to destroy. A throne I’m going to get rid of so this world can be free from you.”
He looks so angry for a second and something else? It isn’t fear, but it’s almost acceptance, before he cools his features and steps back. “Why didn’t you ask about the four runes? Aren’t you curious?”
I brush off the sudden change of subject, even though I am interested in his strange reaction.
“Yes, but I figure one rune is more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t need to know about the others,” I reply.
“But you do,” he replies and clicks his fingers at the guards before turning back to me. “They involve you.”
“How?” I question, taking a step back. “Being honest with you, I want to get the hell out of the Otherworld and back to my apartment on Earth. Everything has been insane since I joined that damn academy.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that no matter what you did or didn’t do, this was always your fate,” he counters with a smug smile. “Your very existence was written by the gods, and they created the godless runes to stop you.”
“Stop me?” I ask, almost wanting to laugh. “The gods don’t think they can’t beat me on their own?”
I mean, I’m confident about my badass skills, but fighting a god is another matter.
“On your twenty-first birthday, the Otherworld will give you a gift,” he replies, stepping closer, and I move back. “The first child who takes the cursed rune will be blessed with the greatest power in all the worlds. She will be blessed with pure destruction.”
“Destruction sounds like a shitty gift,” I mutter, needing to lighten the tone even when I’m freaking the hell out inside.
“You will destroy everything and everyone in your path. You will destroy worlds. It is predicted, it is seen by so many, and the deaths you will cause will never be forgotten. The only way to stop you will be with the runes. The divine rune, the forsaken rune and the forgotten rune. They can take the cursed rune from you, to join them, and make you weak enough to kill.”
“You can have the damn rune! I don’t want it or this gift!” I ask just as the door opens and a man I never thought I’d see again stumbles into the room. “Holy shit.”
My whisper catches his attention, and my uncle sharply turns my way, his eyes widening when he knows who I am. I guess I do look different than I was so many years ago when he saved my life. My uncle looks thin, worn down and grubby, but I still see past it all. I see the uncle who told me fairy tales, who taught me about flowers in the garden and climbed under my bed to prove there was no monster under it when I was scared in the night. I’m running to him before I’ve thought about it, and he catches me in his grip, holding me close to his chest like he used to. He smells worse than shit, but I never want to let go.
“I prayed to the gods every day that you were safe,” he whispers. “It seems I have failed now you are here.”
“Nothing matters but the fact you’re alive,” I whisper back. I’m not alone anymore.
“As touching as this is…” The dickhead behind me has to interrupt. “Arthur, do tell your niece how you knew about the cursed rune. How you let her mother walk to her death. How you spent years pining after her only to let her die.”
Uncle Arthur pulls me behind him, and I try not to swear from the movement and the pain it causes my stomach. “I told Ingrid not to go, but, Daesyn...well, she wasn’t right. She glowed when she slept, she accidentally killed animals that came near the house, and she kept repeating strange things in a trance.”
“I did?” I whisper. Arthur looks down at me, his eyes soft.
“Yes, but I believed it was the Otherworld and its connection to the cursed rune. The runes were all made here, and the magic is so strong. I bet things were better on Earth?” he asks.
Well, except for the demon babysitter...and all the assassin training.
“Kinda.”
“Good. We knew the mortal realm was the best chance, and I was meant to come with you. But that didn’t happen,” he sadly replies before turning his gaze back to Einar. “We both failed Ingrid, it seems.”
Einar roars, and a blast of fire explodes out of his body, hitting us both hard in the chest. With no way to protect myself or my uncle, I fly across the room and hit the door hard. Embers and smoke surround me as I cough, rolling onto my side, the room spinning as I hold in a scream from the pain.
Black dots swim in my vision as I open my eyes, seeing big boots walking up to me before Einar leans down and grabs my chin, lifting my head. Before I can stop him, he pushes his lips against mine, and I bite his lip as hard as I can. He almost screams, and punches me hard in the side of my head.
This time, I’m thankful when I pass out.
CHAPTER 37
“Daesyn!” my mum shouts, and I giggle, running faster through the long grass. I hear my mum’s laugh behind me, and I turn back to see the grass wiggling at the top not far away. I’m really bad at hide and seek.
Crouching down, I hold my breath for as long as I can just before my mum jumps out of the grass and rushes to me, picking me up and swinging me around as I laugh.
“How do you always find me, mummy?” I ask around giggles. Mum sits us both down on the ground and wraps her arms around me.
Her bright eyes look down at me. “You know how I’ve told you the Otherworld will give you a gift when you turn twenty-one?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Well, my gift is to track anyone and anything. I can sense them without even opening my eyes or hearing a single thing,” she tells me. “One day you will get a power, and I promise you it will be meant for you. The Otherworld is made of pure magic, and it always delivers what we need.”
