“That won’t be the case with the Resistance. Many of them have lived in the tunnels their entire lives. They won’t be on the run or have been turned away by their spouses,” I explained, trying not to think of children being left behind—of families torn apart. No matter what Holt said about the way they would handle those instances, I had dozens of reasons not to trust him.
“We’ll deal with it when we get there, min asteren,” Caldris said, gripping my forearm lightly and using it to turn me back to face him. I kept my gaze pinned on the thick leather covering his chest, finding the intricate curve where the metal of his armor crossed over his heart fascinating in my effort not to meet his eye. He gently snagged my chin, pulling my gaze up to his with smooth but efficient force. “You shouldn’t worry about them. I promise, they will not bother to care about what happens to you.”
“I can’t exactly blame them for that. I wouldn’t care what happens to me either,” I said, twisting my chin out of his grasp. I looked over his shoulder, watching his frame slump when my mouth parted in shock. Each of the Wild Hunt carried shackles in their hands, moving toward the Marked. Caldris’s army of the dead stepped away, creating an opening for the riders to slip into the protective circle.
The humans struggled, pressing at the barrier the Hunt formed in an attempt to fight their way to freedom. A woman slapped both her hands down on Holt’s chest to shove him back, but he held steady. He was gentle as he captured her wrist and pulled it to him, settling the weight of the cuffs on her arm. She sagged beneath them, the reaction far greater than I would have expected from simple chains. Her knees buckled, threatening to force her to the ground.
“What have you done?” I asked, staring at Caldris in horror. They weren’t just shackling them in chains. They were putting them in irons.
Caldris hung his head forward, his expression filled with his distaste for what was happening—for what he was allowing. “They cannot be permitted to hurt themselves,” he said. I stared at the Fae Marks, at the Viniculum that was supposed to protect us but had never once moved against him or the Wild Hunt. It didn’t protect us against the very creatures who put it there.
“They can’t use their magic against you. They can’t fight you. What are you preventing them from doing?” I asked, pushing on his chest until he took a step to the side. I moved beside him, my view of what was happening around me now unhindered. I didn’t dare go any closer to the Fae Marked. The memory of the mud and the knife they’d thrown at me was far too fresh in my mind. I didn’t want to hate them, but I’d be a fool to trust them.
“They may not be able to use the Viniculum against us, but they can use it against each other if they think one of them is a threat,” he said. The words hung between us, the unspoken meaning clear as he heaved a sigh.
“You mean they can use it against me?” I asked, straightening my shoulders.
“Yes,” he agreed. There wasn’t even a cursory nod to accompany his statement, nothing to indicate that he’d just shaken my world upside down again, turning it over until everything spilled upon the very ground at my feet.
“That implies we have some control over the Viniculum. That would imply we can learn to wield it as a weapon,” I said.
“Because you can,” he returned, nodding his head. “The Viniculum is an instinctive power that is there for your protection whether you seek to use it or not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t practice and learn it like any other kind of magic. You can call upon it when you wish. All you need to do is try.” The statement recalled the revelation that I could raise the dead, an echo of his power existing within my body.
“I don’t want to be like you,” I said, thinking of the darkness that lurked inside of me. I didn’t want to touch it; didn’t want it to come out more or to once again feel all of that rage come bubbling to the surface.
“Oh, min asteren,” he said, pausing as he tilted his head and studied me. Sympathy filled his gaze, remarkably similar to pity, and for the first time when he looked at me I felt naive and childlike. “You already are.” There was a barely present taunt in his voice, a note that someone who didn’t know him as well as I did might not have even noticed.
But I did. I saw it for what it was—a reminder of everything I didn’t want to be.
“I’m not,” I argued, clenching my jaw as I stared back at him, willing him to see everything I hated in him. “I could never do what you have done.”
The Wild Hunt continued to shackle the Fae Marked, the cries of their misery and pain striking me in the chest each time as I stared at my mate who would condemn them to such a fate. I didn’t think it would have been necessary to shackle them at all, if it hadn’t been for me and the way they’d tried to hurt me.
He was willing to agonize a dozen men and women, plunging them into the depths of exhaustion, all to keep me safe from harm. Under any other circumstances it might have been almost sweet, but in this it was only wrong. “You think I don’t feel the need for revenge that courses through you? I know how much you long to make Lord Byron bleed for what he did to you,” he said, snagging my gaze with his.
“That doesn’t mean I should embrace that part of me. Nobody is in control of my actions but me. If I sink to his level, I’m no better than he was,” I returned, shaking my head sadly. There were many things in the world I didn’t think I wanted to be, but being like him was the worst I could imagine.
“You have never harmed an innocent. You’ve never violated a girl who should have been under your protection. You will never be Lord Byron of Mistfell, Estrella. But what you can be is an avenging fury on the battlefield.” He leaned into my space, finishing in a growl, “And I cannot wait to see you burn it all to the ground.” His lips tipped up into the slightest hint of a smirk, as if he could just imagine the portrait he’d painted in his mind.
“The only thing I intend to burn is you,” I hissed, ignoring the whimper of one of the wolves as he stepped up to my side. Without thinking, I rested a hand on his head, unable to stop myself from glancing down at the red-eared beast.
Caldris’s eyes dropped to the affectionate touch I gave to the animal, his lips tipping higher in satisfaction. The insufferable ass acted as if it was him I petted and not the wolf. All of his satisfaction quickly faded from his face as Holt stepped up to his side, holding out a pair of shackles. “In you get, Beasty,” he said to me, his voice sympathetic.
“Over my dead fucking body,” I said, the memory of iron searing into my skin fresh in my mind. The others didn’t seem so affected, their bodies weakened but not outright harmed.
“It’s not necessary. She won’t hurt the others,” Caldris said, hand on Holt’s arm as he pushed the shackles down and away from me. I felt the weight of the probing stares of the Fae Marked watching our interaction, waiting to see if I would be forced to endure the same fate as them.
Holt turned to him in surprise as he lowered his voice. “If you show her preferential treatment, you’ll only make them hate her,” he said.