Join me in night painted with crimson and black.

Mina’s mind whirled and she felt like drowning in flowers. Thick, scentsy and mesmerizing. She knew she was led somewhere, she saw wings, beautiful, wide, feathered. They seemed to close over her, giving her safety. A voice was touching her sore soul, a voice that pulled her to sleep. But she wasn’t sleeping. She knew she put one step after the second step and her clothes tangled, and her hair windswept. It all didn’t matter though. The scent of roses was too prominent, a poppy spell, making her less and less conscious.

Her skin brushed against something. Someone’s hands were touching her, hands pale as snow. The eyes gleamed from the corners, curious eyes of curious creatures. The hazy light was entering through crevices in her eyelids, fighting with her pupils, caressing her irises.

And she heard the laughter. It held both beauty and madness. It was more beautiful than anything, but also dark.

Dangerous.

Wake up. They lead you somewhere. Somewhere you don’t want to be in.

Her steps became fumbling, she stopped feeling her skin but the song still persisted – yet her mind tried to escape, to show her that something is wrong, that all of this… is more sick than meets the eyes.

“Do you want to dance?”

“Do you want to go with us into the grove?”

She wanted to say yes, but something brought snow boughs to her mind. And blood on the branches.

“Do you want to sink with us into the sunset?”

“Drink the night?”

“Kiss the midnight moon?”

No.

Please.

I don’t want to go.

She almost fell on her knees, stumbling over her own feet. And the song cut, like sliced with a knife. Her senses started to be less numbed, her eyes – to see better.

She was in a large chamber, made of both stone and branches, tangled together in an almost artistic way. Trees seemed to grow straight from the walls, the marble floor – to breathe under her feet. The huge stained glass windows were made as walls, and depicted scenes which she couldn’t see well.

The chamber was filled. Curious eyes still gazed at her, close, closer, a hand touched her wrist and she turned her head instinctively, to see a woman with thick black and curly hair, clothed in black gossamer dress. Her feet were bare, like she didn’t care for wearing shoes, a nuisance good for more bothered person.

Her taloned hand caught her by her wrist and the woman started to look at her with almost obsessive intensity.

“Such a beautiful human” she smiled eventually. “Such delicate skin. I would envy it if it all wasn’t destined to wither.”

Mina tried to snatch her hand from the woman’s grasp, but her hold was strong and if Mina wanted to still try, she could lose a hand.

The woman’s eyes were alluring, big, green, but devoid of any human emotion. Mina felt bare under this gaze.

She pulled Mina harder, like she wanted to force her to go forth with her. Eyes everywhere. Beautiful, scary eyes.

“Areltha.”

A voice cut the air, and the woman in black – Areltha – looked at its owner, with a wide smile. Someone was coming their way and suddenly, Mina felt like awe and fear started to attack her from every direction, making her nauseous.

She bent in half and suddenly, a hand from behind pushed her hard, and Mina landed on her knees, the hard stone against her tired bones. She still tried to not throw up.

“This is how we treat our guests?” she heard a voice again, man’s voice, seductive and deep, like a murmur of the storm in the distance. “Maybe we should have them more often… to learn how to be good hosts.”

Areltha laughed lightly, and it sounded like pearls. She didn’t see any pearls in her life, but that’s how it would sound.

She lifted her gaze… to meet the completely black eyes of the man who stood above her, his hair moving, touched by elusive shadows. His aura was forcing itself through her skin – again, she didn’t know that, she just felt that this description is right.

“Where… am I?” she dared to ask, almost sure that the man- whoever he was – would just laugh at her question. But his features didn’t show any mock or amusement.

“I have a better question for you, little one” he leaned over her and looked deeply into her eyes. His own black holes seemed to suck the air around her. “Does your brother love you?”

That took her off guard. Her mind still was dizzy, still not contacting fully.

“Yes?”

“You think so, my child? You think that your brother would come for you, even with storms and sun and death against him?”

Mina was sure that he would. It was Tiyan, after all. Her big brother. Her protector.

“Yes” she was really feeling more nauseous and the eyes around her started to resemble the cats’.

The man looked at her with intense gaze, strange shadows creeping from behind him, craving to reach her, to delve in her.

“Then, you are allowed to stay alive” he said, evidently pleased. He smiled and Mina for a moment thought that she sees sharp fangs, teeth made od night and shadows, many of them, deadly and ready to sink in her flesh.

Areltha touched her cheek. The person who brought her pulled her up.

And the song again filled the air, throwing her into an unconscious jig of mirages and colors.

Eyes.

Cats.

Beautiful.

Made of pure danger.

But that, she didn’t see.

We are the earth, we are the black soil. We come back to roots, to fertilize the ground, to drink eternally from the bottomless streams that hide deep under the rocks. We are the earth and black soil. Aiming to the heart of the goddess. Feeding her children with ashes.

Tiyan didn’t expect to say these words so early in his life. He almost hoped he would never have to, even if immortality was nothing to long for. His parents, clawed from his life so violently, will be returning, to be reborn. But not during his life. He hoped though they will, in better times and he will be able to meet them. Even without memories, the bond never fades.

The evening swallowed the shadows, cast by the huge bonfire. His mother and father were laying on the improvised pedestal, hungry flames licking their wounded bodies. When the fire burns out, he won’t scatter the ashes on the wind, though. He won’t feed the snow, he won’t feed the cursed magic. He will bury them, like nomads from the south do. Give them straight to the soil.

Tears glistened in his eyes. The fire burned, not quenched by the cold wind, not silence by the snow. A part of human right to live, biting through the curse, opposing the spell, speaking through death. Death if life and life is death. You always come back, for better and for worse.

Only he couldn’t reconcile with that.

Coming back to the current world was a cruel joke from the goddess. And the flames reminded him of things he has done… and things he couldn’t do.

He wiped his tears, pretending cinders fell into his eyes. He knew he had all right to cry. But he felt so guilty that he was sure that he should be stripped from it. His face buried into scarfs, red from icy cold and slowly awakening anger.

“Tiyan…”

Noyd. She put her slender fingers on his arm. He didn’t have the strength to just tell her, that now, it may be even more difficult, that it will be more difficult.  But something in him longed for her touch, for her understanding and comforting presence.

“I am so sorry,” she said, in a calm, soothing voice. His chest heaved and a short moan escaped his throat, misplaced, weak. “If there is anything I can do…”

His mind rattled in his skull, like dices. His feelings burning in him with grief. Noyd saw that, observant and caring and taking him in her arms, she just allowed him to support his chin on her arm, allowing him to bury into her embrace. Like a wounded animal, seeking warmth.

“If you need me…”

“I need you” he uttered into her neck, his eyes again filling with unwanted tears. Her hand landed on his head and caressed his hair. She knew that now, no words are needed.

*

Tiyan returned home, his fingers trembling, when he searched for the keys. Mina still wasn’t found, even if he and the boldest villagers sought her for almost three days. She vanished, like a mist after a dry day. Not knowing what happened to her was even worse than knowing she was dead.

The house looked and felt empty. He almost wondered if not to invite Noyd tonight, at least to keep him company, but he thought that it would be unfair towards her. Even if he really needed company. Even if he still liked her more than he wanted to admit.

He ate the rest of the anglor he hunted the other day and thinking of the next hunt, which will be even more difficult, he just drowned in the armchair, which still smelled of Mina and Gravir. It smelled of home. This building was not a home anymore, though. It was empty. Empty like a his heart.

He drifted into dreamless sleep. Restless sleep which sent him far from tears and far from pain. Far from grief and from death.

He had to sleep longer than he expected, because the moon was high. Something, some unsure feeling woke him up. The moon beamed through the window. The house was silent as ever, bathed in cocoon made of solitude.

And something was not right.

He decided to go and check the locks. Even if it was the enemy, locks would stop him from going out willingly – if he threw away the key.

But when he tried to lift himself, he realized he couldn’t. His legs were bound to the chair. He swallowed with arising panic. When he dared to look down, he didn’t see ropes or dreaded vines.

The spell.

He knew that tossing in place won’t do. It will only tighten and he can even lose legs. But the vision of being tied down and exposed was making him nauseous.

“I know you are here” he decided to speak. Everything is better than the vicious unknown, prolonging the time of not knowing what games are played and what chance he still has.

For a while, nothing happened. Like it knew of his fear and fed on it. Pulling the cords of his growing panic.

A nd a tiny shape stepped from the table. It was hiding in the darkness but now he could see it in all its small glory.

It was a woman, with the same glittering wings, with the same ethereal face brushing on perfection. The same he saw in his dream. But this time, her gossamer dress was not present. She was naked, in the cold and snow and wind.

Before she could react, she moved, fast, very fast and within a second, she was standing on his chest, her big blue eyes were sparkling… but they were empty. Completely emotionless, which was a stark contrast with her wide smile.

“He learned his place” she grinned wider and stepping closer, she touched his chin in an almost imperceptible  way.

“My place was with my family” anger came a bit on the surface, but only slightly.

“He learned that his place is with blood and spells,” she continued. “With us.”

“What you want from me” he didn’t like that the fae again tries to play with him, giving away only riddled words.

“We want him to go and save his sister, of course!” giggled the fey, her eyes still dead like stones.

Something turned violently in Tiyan’s stomach.

“You have her,” not a question, a statement of a fact. “Why.”

“His power too devouring, like iron. Only Shadow can feel it and love it. We don’t like his white and blue.”

“You fear me?” it dawned on Tiyan like a blanket made of sharp nails, but the fairy laughter, with this pretty voice, which promised not pretty things.

“Ah, he foolish. Why choose harder path and lose life, why to waste his gift, when we can worm into his heart and promise him lack of his sister’s pain?”

“You took her, because you couldn’t take me?” he felt as a ball of snow sinks into his stomach. Mina was in danger. And he couldn’t even save his parents.

“Not us. The Shadow has her. Is it tempting to save her? Is it delicious to think of freeing her?”

Tiyan’s blood slowly boiled. Slowly, swallowing him with hundreds of hungry maws.

“Where” he almost hissed.

“In our palace, in our realm. He must come. But he must come by free will. He must want to enter.”

Something alit in him, something not unlike a nerve wrenching hope.

“And if I won’t come?”

“The Shadow will swallow her soul. Day by day, and again, until she is dry like a dead branch. He loves young souls. He devours them with glee” she smiled with the most charming smile.

“Where” his teeth clenched, his throat too.

“Will-o’-the-Wisps will guide him.”

He felt as if his feet again could move and wanted to grab the fae and do something, maybe even break its tiny awfully beautiful neck. But she already disappeared in the darkness. He realized the window in the kitchen was open, snow falling inside. Quickly he closed it, and moved to the common room, to burn in the fireplace again.

They had her.

They had her.

And he of all, had to go into the maw of the lion. Maw, filled with sharp teeth and cruel spells.

He was not ready.

But he had no choice.

And he was afraid, like never in his life.

Leira walked into the throne hall of Dal’coler. Her limbs were less supple; her presence less ethereal than of those around her. She looked human – less graceful by comparison, her form a raw contrast to inhabitants of Dal’coler,  like a splinter in the bleeding eye.

Yet something in her was not fully human: her hair gleamed with an unnatural shine, and sharp horns rose from her forehead. A long, elegant tail followed behind her, misplaced, alien.

She moved forward, her light steps ringing silently on the stone. Unlike the other humans – and even most fae – she had the right to be here. She pierced the gathered crowd like a knife separating tendons, heading for the throne where two Unseelie were deep in conversation with Lorian Ain’Dal. The other fae, still waiting their turn, began to take notice. She held no mark of nobility, no status… and yet she was gifted with this unnatural privilege they could not deny.

The chamber glowed dimly, lit only by floating lights that pulsed like alive embers, casting shadows; darkness was the fey’s domain, like winter they brought to the world; quiet, cruel, stunning in their absence of light. It devoured innocence, ate weakness and drowned all things in shadows.

But the shadows were ruled only by him.

Lorian leaned back on cushions, relaxed and radiant, like a fallen star. His attention seemed fixed on his guests, yet Leira knew better. His awareness extended across the room, always seeking, sensing. One hand slowly played with the blonde hair of a kneeling woman beside him. Her golden collar gleamed against bruised skin, where collar spikes had tore flesh. She looked at him with a blend of terror and worship.

Leira knew that gaze. It was enchantment – not just magic, but a subtler power. Some fae could bring humans to their knees with a simple gaze, the force of their presence pulling fear and devotion from mortal hearts.

She was his servant – his most “inspiring” one, as he claimed. He had many servants. And he had many humans. But only one who held that title. The rest were slaves; a property.

And sometimes, a voice inside her whispered that she, too, was his property. Just called differently – but still a slave, who he had a whim to hold closer.

He called her inspiring. But she knew better than to believe everything Lorian Ain’Dal said. His promises were unsolved riddles, his kindness was often just a lie. In this world, where fae were almost gods, the only truth she could trust was her own determination.

They played with humans like toys – beautiful, fragile things, fun to break. They fed on fear like on juicy fruits, ripe and full.

And she was one of them now. A human in body – but fae in soul.

It had taken years to admit that. Years touched with pain and this bitter truth was in the beginning arder to swallow than iron meal.

Lorian didn’t look at her as she approached. His gaze stayed on the Unseelie nobles but she felt his presence enter her thoughts like elusive smoke – soft and familiar. An intrusion, yes, but one she never resisted. She had learned long ago that he would enter her mind whether she allowed it or not.

Leira felt him before she heard  his voice inside her head; a presence sliding into her thoughts . He didn’t speak in words; he was inside her, joined to the marrow of her being.

“So… Avel sent you instead of arriving herself.” His voice sounded in her mind, playful, almost teasing. “I know you’re thinking the same thing, Leira. Such a rude gesture from her.”

“She wished to clean herself after the journey, my lord,” she answered in thought, her heartbeat quickening as it always did under his mind-reading power. “Only she survived.”

He responded with a soft gleam of a smile.

“Avel knows my priorities. Her bath isn’t one of them. She’s a huntress, not a court lady. Sent to hunt and to bring prey.”

Leira knew what fae hunting meant. She remembered the first time she’d seen Lorian’s cruelty, like something torn from a fevered dream.

“Tell lady Avel” he continued, his tone honeyed, sweet, but holding a masked threat, “that I am very patient. I delight in protocol. And I adore waiting.”

His presence began to retreat from her thoughts, slowly, like trickling sap. He knew what it did to minds – how his enchantment lingered like heat after the flaming outburst. His power left a silence behind, almost hurting her with his absence.

Then he looked at her, a glance with the gravity of a star. Sparks danced in the depth of his eyes – glimmers swallowed by black void. That smile, which was beautiful, distant, dangerous – the smile she learned to…

… feel.

The other fae watched her too, with visible scorn. They didn’t know what she was. They assumed she was just another slave with a pretty face, used to please. They didn’t see the sharpened dagger behind her fearful gazes.

She was more.

She was the shadow behind Lorian’s throne. His spy and his most valued secret.

She had done things for him that would have shattered her before. She hated him, most of her life and she feared him. And from that hate, from that terror, something else had grown – something tangled and consuming. Something so close to desire, that she repressed it, wildly. A flame that threatened to eat her alive if she won’t fulfill her longing.

No one questioned her presence now. She was there, always. Sewn into his court, her identity hidden in plain sight, tangled with vines and with many shared secrets.

The human girl at his feet was one of many he owned. Lorian kept them like dolls in glass cages. Each bound by invisible chains of pain and pleasure, cruelty and grace, until they no longer knew what is real.

Leira watched as he whispered to the woman, his voice deep, seductive.

“Yes, my lord…” the girl breathed, then climbed onto his lap like a moth eager to be burned with black flame.

The fae around her turned their heads after Leira, their eyes gleaming like white and blue and green moons. They knew she was not like the other slaves, they just couldn’t see why.

In their eyes, the leash was still wrapped around her throat.

She left them behind, her footsteps echoing in the vast corridor. Arches loomed above her, columns towered over her head, disappearing in deep shadows. Dal’coler was monumental, older than winter, older even than first spring.

Her reflection passed her through the stained-glass windows. Scenes of fae history merged with her face – battles, bloodshed, beautiful lies. Crimson light dripped from her cheeks, like old blood.

A warning.

Or maybe a dream.

Unreal, like the life she once had.

Tiyan at first didn’t know where he was. His head was pounding with dull pain. He felt as if something wet trickled down his neck. He was too tired to check, he allowed it to fall on his hand. Blood. He was laying face down in the soil, snow glimmered in the awakening morning. The sun was still low, but the forest beamed with an almost joyful aura.

And he didn’t hear other people. The village seemed empty. Like a ghost town, inhabited only by murmur of the trees and croaking of scavengers.

Scavengers.

He heard them, as they circled around him. Like they thought he was dead.

He opened his eyes, effortfully. The sound of rushing blood filled his ears and he almost threw up. He was before his house… but… yesterday… something happened. Something he should remember better. Something vile.

His clothes were dry, even if… snow. Scorched soil around him, still beaming with smoke. He melted the snow. Evaporated it.

It was all too much.

Trying to somehow catch the balance, he lifted his arms and face from the ground. The scavengers, as rotten as their prey, with mold on the black wings, landed nearby, looking at him with empty eyes.

I am not dead.

One of the birds, emboldened by his lack of clear reaction, jumped to him and bit him in the arm, which was luckily concealed by the thick jacket. Its teeth were bloodied, when he was retreating, croaking.

Bloodied. The bird’s beak and teeth were all in blood. It had to feast on something, on dead meat. The wind carried the intense scent of blood and the birds started to wail in anticipation.

Do not turn back. Always when you do so, you see horrors.

He looked just into the pale sun. Maybe if he looked into it for long enough, he would lose sight and would not be forced to face the reality. But the reality would deal with such cowardice tenfold.

They are all dead. Devoured by roots, eaten by monsters.

He had to do it.

So he did.

Few steps from his, there laid Gravir Markon. Blood was still trickling from his ears. The Bean Sidhe… she placed sounds in his head, something so loud, that his head cracked inside. His eyes will haunt him, he knew that. Filled with pain and terror, defenselessnes. His body lay half-burned and Tiyan with horror realized its because of… him.

You should have helped him. But you were adoring them.

His mother…

Tears rushed to his eyes as he slowly approached Alina Markon. He effortfully knelt near her. His eyes slid over the roots, vines and branches. His fists closed, impotent gesture, short nails digging into the skin, too blunt to break it, even if that would be a relief, his blood for the blood of his mother.

The vines and branches, roots and stones. They always appeared, when fairies were going on the hunt. A morbid marriage of nature and dark magic.

Her arm, the one which the fey tore from her body, was laying near her, half bitten. Her flesh still bled meekly. The horror of her death was pushing him deep into the ground. Her legs still smoked from the fire.

A silent, mute cry filled his lungs, which he didn’t try to repress. He embraced the dead body of his mother and allowed himself to lose it completely. Nothing mattered anymore. This was the end. This was the ultimate end of all things.

His fault.

His fault. If he was dead now, they would live.

If he did something, anything, lift an iron on them, not allow them to enchant him…

The flame eating the fae. The heat in his veins, in his mind and soul. Flames getting closer to his mother, while she suffered the last punishment of the fae…

He furiously started to remove the earth from his mother’s mouth, carried by roots from the soil in which she was laying. He didn’t allow them to desecrate her, not after death. He was weak, guilty of their death, but at least will give them a funeral, without a cruel mockery of the fae lingering on their bodies. The cracking of her scorched flesh was stinging in his mind.

He burned them… He burned them all. Memories of this dreadful night was flooding him more and more vividly.

How. How on goddess.

It could be another dream, another nightmare… if not dead bodies of his parents, who he should have been defend.

But you still have someone to defend.

Mina.

He looked around, stopping his hands. She had to be here too. Maybe she managed to escape. Maybe she is still in the house.

His fingers ran through his mother’s scarce hair, in pained caress, and he stood up, with half hope and half terror, afraid of what he could find inside.

People started to look through the windows, meekly, with fear-painted faces. They weren’t there to help his parents. They weren’t there, but he didn’t blame them. They were as weak as him. Only Alina and Gravir were brave enough. And paid its price.

He rushed through the house, trying to check all hiding places Mina would choose. It still stood, only outer wooden boards were black from fire. Their house was big enough to hold crevices and dark spots where the girl could find at least temporary safety. He fell through the backyard, and checked the cellar and attic.

Nothing.

Like she never was there.

Maybe she ran into the woods. Maybe she found solace in one of the neighboring houses. Maybe… maybe. He wanted to scream. His fault, not even the fey, but his. They wouldn’t be here, if he chose wisely, when he knew what would happen. When his mind didn’t think of consequences, scared and selfish like… like…

That day, something changed in Tiyan. He walked from house to house, to see if Mina didn’t hide there, when the fae attacked. He didn’t find her, people looked down, when he was gazing at them. Almost everyone lost someone and almost everyone knew how guilt tastes. Bitter, gagging feeling, making one want to never feel again.

He ventured into the woods, trying to check as much space as possible, before twilight started to paint the sky with purple and black. He didn’t dare to search during night, and he doubted too, if he even saw anything, if he couldn’t find her during day.

But the soul-wrenching guilt never left him.

It was the first day of his new life.

Gravir Markon took the news with pressed teeth and keys. Keys to the basement.

Iron was forbidden, just at rowan, which still rose under the snow, dry and almost dead, but still able to weaken the fey spells. That’s why people in Vennklan Valley dug the vast cellars, in case faeries felt especially hungry. Their keys and pots, even weapons, were made of bronze. But deep under the rooms, deep under the foundations, even deeper, in the soil, villagers were keeping iron – ultimate weapon against a deadly glamour.

Tiyan observed how his father walks down, and brings back knives and nails, even a hatchet.

“Nothing is immortal, even if it claims so” he said, his eyes looking like sunken, black bruise-like smudges under them. Tiyan didn’t know if Gravir’s readiness to fight at all cost worried him or filled him with hope.

His mother still kept company with Mina, who eventually fell asleep. Her feet were still cold, but slowly warming up, lips stopped having almost blue color.

“And what if they won’t come tonight?” expressed his worry Tiyan. Faeries were unpredictable. Maybe they had enough for now. Maybe… maybe Tiyan just tried to push back the fact that it won’t end, even if they resign. They will be an easy prey, they had whole life of Tiyan on their plate, since he shared the mind with them. Most villagers would just give themselves into their hands, if they promised them quick death. But now, Tiyan knew – if you fight, you may die. But if you don’t – you lose your soul.

Which didn’t belong to him anymore.

“They will come tonight, or tomorrow’s night, or a day after tomorrow” Gravir put his sharp equipment on the table, all in one place. “But they won’t harm Mina again” his gaze slid over Tiyan’s frame. “And they won’t harm you.”

Tiyan felt a pang of shame, but decided to wash it away, acting, putting himself to use.

They both went out, putting hard iron nails into the wooden walls, to stop them from using the house as a trap. Snow was hiding the ones that they stuck in the backyard and before the front door. The rowan branches were pushed into the windows.

As they worked, they heard how Alina starts to sign. Tiyan didn’t recognize the sad, almost painful song, but Gravir’s eyes watered down, not much, only a bit, but enough to make him pretended it was caused by the wind. Tiyan smiled. Bittersweet. A song they both knew, but he didn’t. A song from the long gone past. They were in so many places before he was born. Alina was coming from a city, on the south. Gravir took her on the travel through whole Avras, they saw not only deep mountains, but the Marcen lakes on the north and capital of the land, with  the battlements of the academy towering above the huge city – a place where one could just disappear for days and still not see one hundredth percent of the book collection.

That was before. Befote Unseelie turned their eyes on them.

Before… Tiyan.

Now, the academy was in ruins and the city captured by winter and fear. No more happy songs. Only songs that cause eyes to water – like the wind.

When they finished, Gravir sat in the armless chair just between the closed door and the table and put the iron hatchet on his knee. Tiyan knew that he will sit here like that, until they won’t come. And if they won’t come, he will attract them, like hunters attract prey.

With himself as a bait.

This all seemed madness. No one fought the fey and won. They were too numerous and their spells were too strong. But a hope entered his heart, strange hope, bittersweet like the song Alina was singing. Tiyan sat in the chair under the window and looked through it outside. The chair slowly creeked while he was leaning on the windowsill. The snow was falling, covering everything with additional white.

White like marble. And like a sign of peace, a hopefull banner.

Snow.

Burying them all under the thick blanket of silence.

*

Tiyan realized that the fireplace burned out, and the room was enveloped in darkness. Mina and Alina disappeared, deep in the house. He had to sleep, he didn’t know how long. But his father was still sitting in the chair and his eyes were glowing with strange white in the dim blackness.

“How—“

Gravir put a finger to his lips. He moved restlessly in his seat and patted his hand with the blade of the hatchet.

Tiyan still wanted to inquire further, but then, he heard it. That was what awoken him, tearing into his dreams like a dagger.

A howl. Not a wolf. It was deep, low and guttural sound. A howl of something much more predatory.

And a song. It filled the air like a lightning.

It was not a song similar in any case to the one Alina was singing. It was deep and heavy, a tombstone over a living person. Emotionless, cold, cruel like eternal winter. It washed over the woods like a sharp knife slicing the flesh in half, it seemed like the closer it got, the more heavy the air was becoming, like pressed with hard stone.

It was the song of the Higher Unseelie. Nothing could be so powerful, even hundred of hundreds of lesser folk.

“You are really important to them, son,” Gravir gazed at Tiyan.

“I don’t know why” Tiyan pressed his teeth, but he knew why, or at least suspected it, on the very shallow surface. They wanted him, yes, not the lesser folk. The Higher Unseelie, whatever brewed in their sick minds.

“Yet, they are here. At least one.”

Tiyan looked pale. But that didn’t stop Gravir from telling the truth.

“We will fight. But I don’t know how we make it.”

Tiyan slowly, very slowly took the knife from the table. His hands were shaking, but his voice was not.

“We will fight.”

Gravir nodded. There was nothing that was right enough to say at this moment.

They will fight.

Or they will die.

If they have luck.

They both opened the door, at unison. The snow fell inside, and quickly covered the closest boards. The song started to lower, to again go into the howl, this time so close. So fucking close.

Tiyan felt the hair on his arms and hair stand up from worry… and something else. Which was not particularly unpleasant but was tearing its way through his head like a frantic weasel.

And in the same moment, when they left the house, watching around with sharpened senses and expressions moulded in steel, it hit them with sheer beauty and horror, with strength of the stars and moons.

Hard.

Mercilessly.

A wave of awe, love and fear entered through their skin, to veins, just into the marrow. It was so strong that Tiyan almost lost balance.

It was beautiful. Beautiful like a fresh breeze in the chilly morning. Like a first kiss under the hidden grotto, paving its way to something more.

Tiyan fell in love in the song, but mostly, in the one who sang.

He was lost.

He was doomed.

He was still holding the knife, which now trembled in his hand, ready to fall and disappear in the snow.

“It’s not the Higher Unseelie!” he heard the frantic scream of his father, but it didn’t matter. He wanted just to fall into the embrace of the one who lured him in. Peace. Eternal peace. Like death.

But calmer.

It was not a Higher Unseelie… that’s good, he thought. That’s good, yes? He thought it was good. Very.

“It’s a Bean Sidhe!”

The voice was shattering his being, drilling holes in his defence.

And they appeared. Cruel beauties of the nightfall.

The creatures couldn’t be more different from each other. Some were monstrous, with long spines protruding from their backs, looking like carved from bone. And some… some had mouth like open craters… and they were producing the sound that was throwing him on his knees, making him feel they are most beautiful beings in the whole world.

They all had wings, membrane ones or feathered… and they all looked just at them, in vicious hunger for their prey.

“Tiyan, iron!”

The fey who landed first, kicked Gravir with her wings, his father flew through the whole courtyard, ending in the wall of their house, destroying it; the wood shattered around him, the fae went after him, with that stunning vicious smile on her beautiful face, leaving Tiyan for the others. Gravir aimlessly searched for his iron axe, but it was kicked too far. His gaze fell on it, three meters from him, and the fae’s eyes followed. The smile on her face was not stunning anymore. It was horror incarnate.

Gravir started to crawl, while the other fairies surrounded Tiyan, still enchanted by their cruel magic. The Bean Sidhe with spines who pursued his father, wagged her finger at him.

“Nah ah” she chuckled, and her voice didn’t remind of the tempting song they heard before. “How cute, searching for safety in iron. Your ears didn’t hear enough of my song. Let me fix that.”

Tiyan was circled, the fae seemed to leave him as last, watching their leader approaching Gravir. Her steps were supple and light, like she weighed nothing, almost dance-like. Her taloned foot stepped on his hand, which still crawled to reach the iron. Tiyan heard the breaking of the bone; his father screamed. But Bean Sidhe didn’t bother and lifted him up, high, so her was at the level of her face.

“Let me show you how beautiful it can be.”

Her talon lifting his chin and turning his head to Tiyan, so he could watch his face. And her mouth got closer to Gravir’s ear. It looked like she is about to whisper him her secrets.

Tiyan couldn’t hear anything, like nothing happened. Bean Sidhe’s hole-like mouth vibrated slightly, but gave no sound. But his father’s eyes widened, his mouth shivering… and eventually, he screamed, loud, so loud. The blood started to trickle from his ears, at first meekly, then gushed with full force. Tiyan, enchanted into adoration, could only fall in love again and again, seeing as the fairy murders Gravir in his eyes.

His father moaned in pain, as the fae was finishing her silent song in his ear. His throat pulsing under her fingers, until he sagged from them, like a dead kill.

“Wasn’t it beautiful, in the end?”

Gravir’s body fell on the snow, without a sound. Blood flew from his ears, staining the white with red.

Tiyan tossed in their grasp, feeling as if the spell was buried inside his head. Offering him millions of pleasures if he gave in and forgot his father, forget where his heart lies. He could feel as the magic tears him inside – but he tried to stay in one piece, so desperately. Their talons deep into his jacket, wings beating around him, grotesque forms, cruel eyes. His love, his fear, mixed up, into an amalgamate of sheer panic.

They will take you. They will not kill you. It would not be so easy.

“He was delightfully receptive” purred the Bean Sidhe, leaning over Gravir and pulling his head up, to show his dead eyes to Tiyan. His father’s face was stained with blood, with snow stuck to his beard, and saliva dripping down his chin. Tiyan groaned; the fae welcomed it with laughter. Melodious, tempting, ready to send him again into reverie of love.

“Cute human!”

“Pity that is not for us.”

“But we can always devour Alina on your eyes.”

“Would you like that, silly mortal?”

Another fae was dragging his mother from the house. She didn’t scream. Her eyes were showing unadulterated fear though. She knew what fairies are. And what to expect from them. The fairy tossed her into the hands of the Bean Sidhe who killed Gravir.

“Shall we eat her?” a talon poked his jacket. “Shall we tear her limbs one by one?”

Bean Sidhe hand closed over Alina’s throat, pressing her against her chest from behind. His mother looked at him with resignation in her eyes. Tiyan felt the weight of it, like it was his fault. She would never blame him, but his soul fluttered inside him frantically, blaming him instead of her.

The Fae’s fingers travelled slowly over her body… landed on one of her breasts and squeezed, making one tear fall from Alina’s eye.

“You are so delicious, Alina Markon… I hope you enjoyed pleasing our lord. Now… you will please us.”

She kissed her neck.

Her hand left her breast to travel to her arm.

And she pulled.

It separated from the torso with such easiness, tendons and veins hanging from the mutilated flesh. Alina fell on the ground, her scarred face, her usually tired eyes… all showed shock and unbelievable pain. She choked on it. Falling face down in the snow.

Tiyan’s scream of despair forced out of his chest, a roar more than a human voice. His muscles tensed, his whole self fought against hands that were keeping him still, forcing him to watch, as the Bean Sidhe sinks her teeth in the arm of his mother.

He cried, his fear touched by sheer fury. His despair changed into anger, rage, almost touchable. His limbs became hard as stone. His eyes red from effort.

Bean Sidhe threw the hand on the ground with a nonchalant move, and lifting Alina again, she bit into the wound in her arm. She bit hard and well, tearing meat from it, burying face in the bloody mess. Her talon caressed her cheek, while Alina shook in pain.

“You are just as sweet as I imagined…” she purred.

The fairies laughed again, bluebells of their pearly laughter reaching into Tiyan’s core, killing him slowly.

It was all unreal. It couldn’t happen. It was just a dream. A dream filled with love and pain.

The snow started slowly to melt under his feet.

At first, almost invisibly. But when the fairy was eating his mother’s flesh, blood splattered over her face, her features twisted in a grimace of pure plesaure, Tiyan felt as if something changed around him.

The air grew thicker.

Hotter.

The fae seemed to not feel it, but he did. His body started to pulse with the inner drum. He felt as his heart started to beat faster, almost choking him.

Tiyan lost sense of reality, snow was falling on his face, melting, like it fell on a pan.

The world stopped moving. Nature stopped living. The fae stopped to exist. Everything turned white.

All was preparing for the flame.

It was sudden, wild and hot. It bursted from him, like a fire storm. The fey didn’t even manage to move, it was so fast. It embraced all around him with white, eating all what was alive. Devouring flesh, solidifying blue blood. The fae started to burn, just as they were standing, the smell of scorched meat reached his nostrils, awful, almost sweet.

Bean Sidhe, who was eating his mother, croaked like a crow. The fire reached her too, swallowing her thick black hair, avenging Tiyan’s broken heart.

The fairies burned, eaten by the flame that seemed to grow in Tiyan, like a parasite. It was not fire that could be quenched. It was inferno of his soul, of his fear, of his despair.

And it was devouring those who came for him.

But not him.

Please…

Roots were crawling into his mother’s direction…

No, I beg of you…

He didn’t know what happened next. Only flames which were his saving grace… and gut-wrenching pain, knowing he won’t save his mother, seeing her in agony, hearing her screams. He couldn’t move. The fire almost petrified him. He felt his limbs as heavy as pinned to the stones, hard and dead. Alina… he needs to help her. He fell on his knees, like pushed by an unknown force. Roots already were penetrating her though, and he was helpless… useless.

Fae around him danced their jig of death. Flaming wings, burning hair, graceful in their morbid twirl. They danced with flames, wild, untamed… and beautiful. Tiyan still felt love… love for the molten flesh and smoking tangles.

All was eventually embraced by silence. But it was the silence of the dead.

Silence of the fire slowly caressing him, licking his limbs as he buried his knees into the soil.