Hope Falls

“She doesn’t care what you call her, skins thicker than the woods.”

“The word you were cooking up in that mind of yours can’t have been too polite.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“Your observational skills are sharp, well done.”

“Don’t expect much. They’re drugged up to the eyeballs, especially the big one, had to keep him like that so he didn’t keep causing a fuss and trying to break out. Dont know why you’re so interested in seeing a bunch of sleepy fae but…” Rafferty laughed with a shrug.

“Responsible for the deaths of thousands of us, if not by his own hands by his orders. Everyone talks about the Fae Queen with contempt but they forget she has never wielded a sword herself. Never personally skinned our kind, never sullied her own hands with our blood. He has. Thousands. He’s sat as the head of bed armies for centuries and whittled our kind down with his men. He’s rode through villages and burned them to the ground. It’s been on his orders our pups have been slain in their beds. He killed Iszak Kazinksys mother and sister in the same blow during the last war. Sarika has had him at the top of her shit list since then. They say she considers it the blow that made her lose him in the end. Something she’s never quite recovered from. For that alone Lèna knows killing him will earn the Adairs favour. It’s a shame he won’t get even a fraction of the pain he’s caused.”

“So we get the ransom… and they will get him back. And he will seem well. But Lena has used silent poisons from the East. He will get on his horse to go home and never make it. Sarika will have the last laugh. He will have that relief that he was going home to the family he has, and he won’t make it. The way their boy never did. The way so many of our kind never did.”

“Mm. Gave him enough so that he’ll definitely die when it works its way through his system in a week or so, but not too much so that when the sedatives wear off he’ll still be able to appear normal enough to get to his horse without them realising something is amiss. Lèna is the only one with the antidote, just in case.” Rafferty glanced over his shoulder with a grimace. “Don’t touch anything,” he warned before heading back towards Lèna.

Wyatt was among the surviving members of his captured party, all hung from the ceiling in shackles by their wrists, sedated and unconscious.

Wyatt dropped heavily against her, a popping and cracking noise heard from his shoulders as he was slipped from the shackles.

“Perhaps the younger ones just aren’t ready for this kind of responsibility if they keep messing it - “ Rafferty’s head whipped around at the noise, frowning as he looked around for where it came from.

A day and a half later…

---

“I have no concerns at all about him, Your Grace.” Lily assured as she gently handed Idris back over to Kael, having spent the last few minutes examining him in the healing wing, as she had every day. “No signs of anything at all to be concerned about. He’s gaining weight, his colour is good, his heart and lungs are healthy and there is no sign of any disease. I know it is a parents instinct to panic, and I know after all that has occurred you would be panicking more than most but, he seems like any other normal, healthy little boy I have looked after.”

“Thank you, wonderful to hear.” Daphne gently squeezed Kael’s arm, “We have all been worried. And of his mother? Kael cares for her too.”

“The Princess? She is healing as well as can be expected. Physically she is where I would expect her to be. She still - I find her calmness to be a little - I do not know the word. And I do not know how she has not yet cried, unless it has been in the brief moment she is alone. But Princess Avani has warned me to not poke the bear as she puts it. That she will release when she is ready so… To answer your question, she is healing fine. I no longer believe she is in danger of death.” Lily glanced around when she heard noises from the corridor.

---

“You are going to create a dented pathway on my floors if you keep pacing. I’m sure your soldier will be home soon.” Indira raised an eyebrow in almost amusement at her sister, sat up in bed as she watched her. “I have never seen you so concerned for someone’s safety before, even more surprising that it is someone you have barely known for long. This man is just fun, to you?”

---

“When can I go see Kael?” Mor whined as she followed her mothers skirts from her parents bedroom through to their living room, not the first, nor second time she’d asked in the space of a few short minutes.

“Morfyyd if you cannot learn to listen when you are given an answer you will be punished. Wilfully ignoring answers you do not like will not change anything! I have said that Kael will come to you when he is ready, he has gone through a lot and is not feeling up to company right now!”