Tiyan felt warmth embrace him with delicate fingers. Warmth. In the midst of the freezing winter. The soft rustle of leaves above his head, sometimes giving off a crystalline sound. The sound of a wind where there was no wind; a hint of an ethereal breeze in the still air.
He remembered everything that had happened the day before. He almost died, buried in the cold sheets of cruel snow. He still remembered the deceptive peace that winter would lull him into. It would have been a silent and unimportant death, a tiny pollen blown away over the vast plains of Ain’asel, small and forgotten.
His bones were still tired, his muscles sore and aching. His body was drained of strength, and he didn’t know how much more walking lay ahead of him. But he was alive, and that was what counted.
The leaves above him seemed to be made of crystal, but as he slowly stood up – his body protesting with a mute wail – and reached out with his hand, he realised they were real. Real green leaves, moving slightly in the wind that must have been blowing outside, hiding him safely in an emerald bubble. How the leaves managed to survive the winter that reigned everywhere was beyond him. Magic could be cruel… but also… stunning in an unbelievably beautiful way.
He would never have allowed himself such a thought.
The leaves shimmered between his outstretched hands, already beginning to regain feeling.
Cut finger.
Only now did he remember that his finger had been cut by the Fae who had saved him. A huge bile rose in his throat, especially since his last words to the unknown fey had been “it’s better that way”. Tiyan had never said anything so stupid. So bold. And so hopelessly untrue.
He didn’t feel the wound that had to be there. Magic again or… just his dulled senses? In his mind he saw the Fae leaning over him, touching him and deciding that his finger was beyond saving. Was he enjoying it? Or was it a daily routine for him, so obvious, cutting off fingers of frostbitten humans?
He quickly hid the hand. He didn’t want to think about how he would work later. How he would hunt – if he survived. If he would save Mina and, by some miracle of the goddess, be allowed to take her home. Home seemed as distant and unreal now as the Unselie Fae had been to him before all this began. Distant, looming danger that he might not have a chance to face. Home was a dream now, almost foreign, almost unattainable. If he ever came back… how could he return to his normal life? Hunting and coming home to meet Mina… but without Gravir and Alina.
He almost laughed. Bitter, sad mockery left his mouth.
He was already thinking about what his life would be like when he returned home. As if he had a chance to regain his former life.
Fear blossomed in his gut again. The Fae with the transparent throat kept him safe, but surely that was only temporary. Whatever they all wanted from him probably didn’t include letting him live. Or it did… which was even more frightening.
Tiyan didn’t see his host anywhere. The crystalline, living leaves lay scattered across the rich, dark earth. For the first time in so many days, he didn’t sleep surrounded by snow. It felt unreal, too, like a slight touch of the life he had lost when the Fae invaded Avras.
Leaves.
He had almost forgotten what they looked like.
Perhaps the Fae had left to gather water or food. Or both. Tiyan hadn’t eaten for two days or more, but he realised he wasn’t hungry. Whatever the Fey gave him in the drink fed him and restored his strength.
But the taste of the drink. He would remember it forever. It was the taste of his youth and the years he never lived, combined into a terrifyingly delicious liquid pleasure. He was afraid to even think about what ingredients were in it and if they wouldn’t harm him later.
He pulled on the jacket, tried to manoeuvre his bandaged hands somehow, and gathering strength to face the winter again, he left the safe harbour of leaves, bark and vines.
The wind bit him as soon as he was out in the open.
Less cruel than yesterday – if it was yesterday at all – but still cold and merciless. The snow didn’t fall, leaving the world in a mute cocoon of silent white. The world around him slumbered – only to wake later in a raging mood of icy petals and hungry blizzards.
The footprints in the snow led to the edge of the small clearing where the Fae made their camp – almost invisible, as if the Fae didn’t weigh more than a raven or a hare.
And then he saw him.
His robes pulled down slightly, his face up, his pose welcoming, as if he were inviting a lover. Tiyan didn’t know whether to look or just run for safety. The Fae’s throat was glowing, radiant, as if he had hundreds of fireflies beneath his transparent skin. His face was pleased, almost ecstatic. The glow danced across his skin, little sparks, sharp and bright. It looked intimate and personal, a moment ripped from the fabric of reality to wash him in light.
Tiyan thought for a moment that he was intruding on some kind of ritual and that the Fae would somehow punish him for it. But then his host turned his deep yellow eyes on him and smiled.
He really smiled. Not a mocking, dark grin, as he might have expected, but a stoic and dusky smile, straight from a cosy autumn day that Tiyan only vaguely remembered – but with a nostalgia that tore his heart to pieces.
Tiyan was aware that he looked like a fool. The fey must have thought the same.
“Light is so invigorating,” he said, tilting his head in a very bird-like manner. For a moment, Tiyan was almost sure that he could see a misty and hazy shape spreading behind him – a shadow, but made of dust or smoke. But the moment passed and Tiyan saw only a man standing on the skin-biting wind.
“You look so impressed again,” his host chuckled and slowly began to pull on his warm robes.
Tiyan had to agree.
He was.
The Fae killed your father. Killed your mother. Destroyed your home, the one you held close to your heart.
And he suspected it was all a trap, too; to impress him, to dull his caution, to show him that the Fae could be kind, friendly.
To later throw him at the feet of “his king” – to be devoured by darkness.
Caution was Tiyan’s second nature. When the snow sucked all the strength from his bones, he knew he lowered his guard. When his thoughts turned to the warmth of the fire, far from here, and the possibility of rest for the first time in a long time. But… he would be too scared to do it again.
“Now it’s your turn,” the Fae grinned.
Tiyan looked at him with a visible anxiety in her eyes.
“To eat,” the Fae explained. “You are empty and need to fill your insides. I have dried meat. Should keep your stomach busy.”
Tiyan didn’t know if he was being serious or if the Fae were joking with him. He only dreamed of leaving winter behind and staying in the safe warmth of the enchanted spring.
But even if he was not hungry after the satisfying drink he had received that night, the promise of dry meat, real one, not rotting meat, made his mouth water.
