CHAPTER THIRTY
ARABELLA
My first thought was that my head was being cleaved in two. As I opened my eyes, I heard the sound of thunder rolling across the sky in the distance. Sitting up, I realized I was lying in a clearing. An enormous tree had been split and lay beside me; lightning had charred parts of the trunk and I still smelled the burning wood. Pale wisps of smoke curled into the air. I reached my hands up to feel around my head, but there were no bumps and my head wasn’t bleeding. Taking further inventory, I looked down at my arms, but they weren’t scraped up, either. My dress…
Where did this come from? It’s not mine. Is it?
The pale gray material was unblemished and unstained, ending just below my knee and buttoning up from the waist. I stood up, brushing myself off. My hair was a mess, with errant leaves and sticks poking here and there. Why was I laying on the ground in the middle of nowhere? Where was I?
I turned in a circle. The clearing was enormous. It was like the forest suddenly decided to end, and the grassy land took over. Someone must have worked hard to remove all the trees.
Continuing my perusal, I noticed something moving just inside the tree line. A squirrel scampered around the leafy ground, grabbing an acorn in its teeth and running back up the tree that dropped it.
My toes curled into the soft grass. Where are my shoes?
I noticed a small piece of parchment folded on the ground beside my feet. I bent to pick it up and opened the heavy paper. In elegant, scrolled letters, it read:
Follow the white rabbit.
Follow the white rabbit?
Was someone playing a trick on me? “Oryn?” I called out, certain my brother was teasing me.
No one answered.
Another scampering sound came from the woods and I craned my neck to see. Standing on its hind legs just behind the tree the squirrel had climbed, was a white rabbit. Its red eyes locked onto mine and it sniffed the air in my direction.
My mouth dropped open.
The two of us stared at each other for a long moment, but when he began hopping further into the forest, I followed him. Twigs and rocks bit into the bare soles of my feet, but I chased him, careful not to get caught in any thorny thickets.
The rabbit never paused. He hopped, faster and faster, darting this way and that, until I could barely keep him in sight. Then I lost him. Disappointed without understanding why, I finally looked around at my surroundings to see the town of Brookhaven down the knoll below me.
“I’m supposed to go to Brookhaven?” I wondered aloud.
There was no sign of the bunny. He had truly disappeared. Probably down into his burrow.
“Rabbit?”
Of course, he didn’t answer because he was a rabbit, and I was a stark raving lunatic for following him in the first place. But Brookhaven was at least civilization, and I needed to find my way home. I plodded down the hill, thankful the grass was soft as I made my way barefooted into the muddy streets.
So much for strange awakenings, and even stranger notes about rabbits who abandon me in the woods when they get too close to town.
Through his shop window, the butcher cleaved into a thick piece of meat. “Arabella! It’s good to see you,” he called out. He slid the window open and handed me a freshly wrapped package. “Give my brother your best.”
“I’m sorry?” I stared at the package uncomprehendingly.
The butcher smiled. “He brought in an enormous elk this morning. Did he not tell you?”
Uh… “No, sir. I haven’t seen him.”
“Well, when you do, tell him thanks. He didn’t even charge me for it, and I’ve already sold every ounce of the fine meat except for that piece.” He nodded toward the package in my hands. “It’s the least I can do.”
Holding the packaged meat, I walked away quickly, scattered thoughts rolling through my mind. Oryn never gave anyone the meat he hunted. Not to mention the fact we didn’t have any coin, and the price of that elk would certainly have been useful. If Father found out…
The scents from the bakery wafted into the air, making my stomach growl. I ignored the empty feeling in my gut, reminding myself of the promise of a good dinner weighing heavily in my hands.
Music spilled from the tavern across the street. My feet followed the rhythm into the road, where a horse-drawn carriage almost ran me over. The driver hollered something nasty, but I didn’t care. On the tavern’s wooden sign was a faded white rabbit, and beneath the creature in bold letters, it read O’Hare’s.
I held the wrapped meat in one hand and pushed the door open with another. In the back, Oryn cupped his hands to his mouth and called out my name. “’Bout time you got here, Bells. You’re late!” He waved for me to hurry, and even though my feet were caked with mud, I weaved my way through the crowd to a table in the back.
Seated around the table was an assortment of people I didn’t know. A woman with pale hair and dark skin sat on the lap of a tall gentleman with yellow-orange hair and matching eyes. They waved hello, but it was the dark-haired boy I couldn’t stop staring at.
“Bells?” Oryn queried. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I answered distractedly, unable to tear my eyes off the stranger. His eyes were black, but there was something hidden in their depths. Seams of gold, streaked from the pupil, radiated outward like the sun was inside him, trying to break through the darkest part of the night.
He stood, his chair legs raking across the wooden floor. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Arabella. Oryn talks about you nonstop.” The boy extended his hand, and when I took it, I didn’t want to let go. Once the moment passed from handshake to awkward, the dark stranger reluctantly pulled his away, but kept his eyes fixed on me.
A peaceful feeling unfurled in my belly.
Something warm.
Something happy.
Calm.
I didn’t understand what it was, but I liked it.
And I liked him.
Oryn pried the forgotten wrapped meat from my hands. “There, you should sit down. I’ve ordered you a drink. Mum will be here any minute.”
Dazed, I answered, “Mum?”
“Yeah, of course. This is your special day, after all. She wouldn’t miss it.” He tilted his head and laughed at me.
And then the world froze. Time stood still.
Everyone in the tavern was a statue. Some were stuck raising a tankard of ale to their lips, and others were in the middle of heated arguments, from the looks on their faces. The musicians’ fingers and bows were stuck on their instrument strings. Everyone was still…everyone but me and the guy with the woman on his lap. She laughed, a tinkling sound, and told him she’d give us some time to talk. Then she stood and walked around me, across the floor and out the door, weaving in and around the frozen people like an apparition.
“Am I dead?” I asked the flame-haired man.
He laughed in response. “Do you remember me?”
Though I felt like I should, I shook my head no.
He pressed a finger to my temple and a flood of memories washed over me until I was drowning in them.
Rule. His name crashed through me.
I walk through the market, hoping someone will take the one coin I found along the dirt path and give me enough for dinner. But the merchants’ prices are too high. I can’t afford anything but a carrot. A single carrot for two people to split. And if he saw the root, Father wouldn’t share it with me.
Tears filled my eyes and my throat felt heavy, when a stranger approached. A stranger with yellow-orange hair. He smiled and picked up a strand of my hair, inhaling the scent. I pulled away from him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Who are you?”
“Rule.”
“I’ll need you soon, but not yet. What is your name?”
“Arabella.”
Mmmm,” he purred. “My Mother will hate you.”
“Your mother?”
“Mhmm.”
“You sound glad that she’d hate me.”
I couldn’t think around him. The people. The noise. The smells. They all disappeared. It was just the two of us, the rest of the world rotating around us in a blur.
“Oh, I am. And you are exactly what I need to stop her.”
“How can you use me to stop her? Stop her from what?”
He grinned and dropped my hair to my chest. “You’ll see. But until then, here is what you need. Just wait for my signal.”
“Signal? Is this some sort of game?”
His smile widened. “The fae love playing games.”
“You are fae. Do you love playing them?”
He nodded. “Only when I’m sure I will win.”
He killed Carden. He died in my arms. I watched his chest stop moving, felt the coldness seep into his hands.
He killed his mother, the evil Queen.
Esmerelda was his heartmate.
My brother… Wait – how did he come to find Esmerelda?
But more importantly… “How is he alive?” I cried, walking to Carden and raking my fingers through his hair.
Rule answered simply, “You survived the game.”
Fury rose to my cheeks. “Not with him, if you’ll remember. You killed him, you asshole.”
Rule smiled. “If you’ll recall,” he began patiently, “I was protecting you from him in the process. And you can hardly blame Mother for using him against you. You gave her the idea.”
Puzzled by his comment, I thought back to the game and groaned.
I can’t believe I said that out loud.
I pulled Carden’s hand into mine and rubbed the back of it. It was so warm.
Overly accustomed to fae tricks and sorcery, I narrowed my eyes. “Is this a dream, Rule?”
“No. It’s all real,” he admitted. “But what I want to know, is whether you want it to be. I owe you a great debt, Arabella. If it wasn’t for you, I would be prisoner to her whims and machinations still. Although I’m sorry to have involved you, it was the only way.”
I shook my head, not able to follow his logic. “I don’t understand, Rule.”
His face became serious as he explained, “Mother was threatened by Esmerelda, but when I hid her away and cloaked the tether, she calmed down. I needed to cut her off. She was a cancer, smothering everyone under her control. I needed her to have a new target to distract her from what I was really doing.”
“Are you telling me you used me as bait?” I shrieked. “You do owe me.” I raised a brow. “Did you know she’d cut her own tether to you?”
Rule puffed out his chest. “Of course I did. I called it forth, just like the witch told me to. I don’t make mistakes.”
I took a moment to ponder what would have happened if things had gone awry. “That was a huge risk, Rule.”
“A calculated one,” he said with a wink.
I gave a small smile. He was insane. “Do you regret killing her?”
Without batting an eye, Rule replied, “I feel nothing. The tether is gone, and now so is she.”
His callousness was slightly disturbing.
“Throughout the game, Carden kept apologizing for dragging me into it. I guess I was the one who dragged him into it.”
He laughed. “Don’t take credit, human. I dragged you both into it. That’s why I’d like the chance to make amends.”
He pulled a piece of parchment from his coat pocket. “If anything isn’t to your liking, please write your requests—or demands—on this,” he instructed. “I’ll receive them and adjust things to suit you. Even if you decide you, too, want to forget it all.”
I put Carden’s hand back on the table in the same position it was in before I picked it up. “He doesn’t remember anything?”
“No.”
“Are the two of us still heartmates?”
Rule smiled. “Of course. And just so you know, he didn’t sleep with the pretty fae woman. She owed me a personal favor, so I called it in,” he admitted sheepishly. “He slept all night alone, and she slid into bed with him before he woke.”
“I hate you, Rule.”
“I can live with that, Arabella.”
I exhaled a tense breath. “What will happen to us?”
“That, Bella, is for the two of you to decide.” With that, he walked around the table and took my hand, placing a chaste kiss on the back of it. “I wish you a full and happy life, Arabella.”
I was opening my mouth to thank him when he disappeared, my hand falling limply to my side.
Loud chatter and music filled the air as the world thawed. No one noticed that Rule and Esmerelda were missing. It was like they were never there, like they didn’t exist.
But I knew better. Folded in my palm was a piece of parchment.
“What’s that?” Oryn asked.
I held tighter to the parchment. “It’s nothing,” I answered, offering a smile.
“You feeling okay?” he asked again, unconvinced.
Nodding, I looked at Carden, who was watching me like I was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. I knew in that moment that deep down, somewhere in the depths of his mind, in his marrow, he remembered me. His soul recognized mine.
I sat beside him and listened as Oryn regaled us with a harrowing tale of how he hunted the elk that morning. I was just happy it was an animal he was hunting. Did Rule fix that, too?
Oryn reached onto one of the chairs and brandished a tall hat, finely stitched and made of leather. “And then, I found this in the woods. Fits me perfectly.”
Carden chuckled. “What’s it made of?”
“Some kind of hide.” Oryn ran his fingers admiringly over the soft leather. “Pig, maybe?”
Pig, my ass. Esmerelda carved that hat from the flesh of someone who made her mad, and enjoyed every stitch. I just wondered who it was, and how long she’d kept the flesh before making that hat for my brother.
“Do you ever see fae in the woods?” Carden asked suddenly, aiming the question at my brother. My heart pounded. Did he remember?
Oryn waved him off. “They’re only a myth. I’ve been hunting long enough that if the beasts existed, I would have seen them. Hell, I’d have their heads plastered on our walls.”
I pressed my eyes closed, hoping no fae had heard him call them beasts or his threat to mount their heads…
Carden turned to me. “Do you want to walk outside and get some fresh air? You look a little pale.”
With a heartfelt smile, I accepted. “I’d love to.”
He stood and placed his hand on the small of my back, sending a delicious shiver up my spine. I swallowed thickly as he led me through the crowd and out the door.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit here alone until Mum arrives…” Oryn yelled.
Carden and I both laughed as I pushed open the door. The path outside was full of people; so full, we were getting bumped and jostled around.
“There’s an alleyway just over there,” he suggested.
We ducked inside, taking cover from the elbows and jeers, and walked toward the window on the side of the tavern, the same one we’d met beneath what felt like a lifetime ago. A trail of ants climbed the wall beside the warbled glass, which allowed just enough warm candlelight to shine out so I could make out a row of scars on either side of Carden’s neck.
“We can see the table from here. When your mother arrives, we’ll go back inside. If that’s okay, I mean,” he added.
“That’s perfect.”
Suddenly shy, Carden looked at the ground and then back at my face. “I swear, I feel like I’ve met you somewhere before.”
I shook my head, a coy smile playing on my lips. “You haven’t. I would have remembered you.”
Carden smiled. “I just arrived earlier this month and met Oryn a fortnight ago, so I know it’s not possible. But I can’t help feeling that you’re familiar somehow.”
“Maybe it’s because Oryn and I favor one another?” I suggested, trying not to laugh.
“Maybe. I guess you do a little,” he conceded, studying my features.
Attempting to change the subject, I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “Where did you come from?”
“The Seven Kingdoms.”
I swallowed thickly, fighting the tears clogging my throat. “Why did you leave?”
“Because leaving was easier than staying,” he answered without blinking. “But now I’m certain I made the right decision.”
“Why is that?”
A warm smile spread across his face, and I watched as his thick lashes closed and reopened. “Because I’d like nothing more than to get to know you better.”
I smiled. “I’d like that, too.”
Beside us in the soil, someone had drawn the head of a lion.