Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
There were no runaway, missing, or unconscious brides this time, it would seem.
There was no way out of this.
I was finally going to be married. As a pawn. In a political move by my father. To prepare for a completely fucking useless, but seemingly inevitable war.
I made my way toward the ruins of an old torture shed, jumping up to the half-collapsed roof, knowing it was the one place the damn redcaps couldn’t follow me. They had endless stamina, but absolutely no agility.
As a surly child sick of being followed around, I once used a rope to sail across a cavern with roaring rapids beneath.
The dumbasses just walked off the cliff, fell, and drowned.
They’d been replaced by the end of the day.
They were like fucking cockroaches. Didn’t matter how many of them got stomped on, there were always another thousand to take their place. Walking around with their heads full of blood, smelling like rot and sour skin.
I’d barely known a moment of solitude my entire life. And as my father’s sanity slipped further and further away—bringing in more mass violence that scared people into falling in line no matter how twisted and unpopular his plans were—he only got more and more paranoid and obsessed with controlling me.
Forcing me into a marriage I didn’t want—and we didn’t need—was just another way for him to keep me on a leash.
If you heard him talk about it, he would claim my marriage was strategic and political, a way to shore up alliances. In reality, no one wanted this damned war.
The Dark and Light would never be friends, but we’d managed to mostly avoid outright conflict for a long time. They stuck to their world. We stuck to ours. It was tense but tolerable. We could have easily continued on that way.
If not for my father.
I found myself rooting for whatever it was eating away at his mind, begging it to work harder and faster. If he wasn’t able to form a sentence or walk a straight line anymore, maybe even his allies would stop following him.
Right now, it didn’t matter that the people didn’t support him when he had all the rich and powerful families in the Dark realm on his side. But if he lost their confidence, things would change quickly.
Would that likely mean unrest? Sure. Other families vying for the crown that would, genetically, fall to me? Yep. But I had my plans. My own allegiances. I would be fine. Once my father was no longer in charge.
Below me, the redcaps started circling the shed I was standing on, making demonic humming sounds that grew into an almost buzzing.
What a useless fucking existence they had. All blood and death and not a single thought to share among them.
As a whole, the Dark realm got a bad rep because of creatures like the redcaps. The problem with that was, the majority of the Dark were just… normal fae. Normal fae with a higher tolerance for violence, gore, and backstabbing? Sure. But fae like me. Not nightmare fuel.
That said, we were home to the redcaps and their bloody heads.
We were also where giant horse-like kelpies and each-uisge—the shape-shifting water sprites—leapt out of the water and dragged people—and fae—to their watery deaths.
And, sure, the sluagh soared through the skies in flocks to invade homes to taunt and terrorize anyone foolish enough to leave their western windows open.
Of course, we were also quite famous for our seducers. The gancanagh, who seduce women only to leave them emotionally ruined. The sirens, succubi, harpies. The leanan sidhe, beautiful female sprites who inspired artists, granted them incredible talent, then slowly allowed those talents to consume their lives until they went mad and died.
But those were the minority.
Most mortals didn’t judge entire countries based on a handful of murderers or rapists. This didn’t feel all that different. If anything, it was less dark than humans torturing and maiming and killing one another. Humans chose to be violent. The truly Dark fae creatures had no choice. It was their nature.
Did many humans who accidentally wandered through the Veil meet gory and terrifying ends? Sure. Did it also happen to Light fae who decided to get brave and come over to the Dark side? Also, yes.
It would be like humans who got killed by bears or sharks… you were in their home. You couldn’t blame them for attacking you.
The majority of us, though, weren’t driving people mad or rubbing blood on our damn heads. We were just… living. Or trying to.
There was no reason to go to war over a few violent creatures and one mad king.
For thousands to die for… what?
That was the question. What did my father hope to gain by overtaking the Light court? More wealth? Sure. But he had more than anyone needed. More death and terror and subjugation? He had plenty of people in his own realm to torment.