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How sweet.
How wholesome.
Have we arrived in time for a celebration, perhaps?
We move through the forest as if we ourselves are made of shadow. We pass the villagers’ cabins and their school and the place where they gather to eat and drink in the evenings.
And every single bit of it makes me sick to my stomach.
That they spent so many hundreds of years living like this while we, the Shadowkind, were bound and tortured and locked away. And it wasn’t just the Mountainside fae. It was all of them. Every single sorry creature in this entire kingdom ignored our plight.
Because it did not suit them to see it, and it was not worth risking their own existence to help ease our suffering.
They are all ignorant, arrogant, despicable specimens. No better than Eldrion.
Because although it was his hand that did most of the damage, and his family who started our oppression, those who stand by and do nothing are just as complicit.
They just carried on living their lives. Having babies, playing with magic spells, fucking and dancing and living while we died slow, withering deaths behind Eldrion’s walls. While our young were taken from their parents, and thrown into orphanages, wings bound, destined for a life of servitude to the ones who decided they were not good enough for anything else.
Not worthy.
Well, we are worthy now.
And we are about to show them what a mistake they made by casting us out and pretending we did not exist.
They will regret turning their eyes from our suffering.
As we approach the edge of the forest, I hear the roar of the ocean. We are near the cliffs. I turn to Yarrow, and his eyes flash in the gloom. “Take their eyes,” I whisper to him. “But not until they have seen us and what we can do.”
“Their eyes?” Yarrow’s face sharpens into a grin that would send a shiver through any sane or normal being.
“They chose not to see us for centuries,” I hiss. “Now they will have no choice. Take their eyes, but leave them alive.”
Yarrow nods at me, still smiling, and then he spreads the word.
Murmurs of approval ripple through the trees.
We are not many, but we are powerful. And when we have shown our might, we will recruit more. The Gloomweavers will fight with us, and the elves too. Because elves are nothing if not whores for survival. At any cost.
I might take Garratt’s eyes first, though. Because he really did betray me, and I really do not like that. At all.
When we reach the edge of the trees, I motion for everyone to stop.
We watch from the shadows as a crowd of Mountainside fae cheer and clap for a bride and her new husband. Their wrists are bound with pale yellow ribbons. They kiss, then the ribbons are untied, and they walk under an archway of their friends and families’ wings.
They emerge smiling, elated. Music starts to play. The dancing begins.
And then we descend.
Yarrow takes the husband. I take the bride.
She screams delightfully as I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tight against my body.
Yarrow holds the husband’s head still.
I was not going to kill her. I intended to do exactly as I said: take their eyes and leave them alive and bleeding. But perhaps that is not enough.
If I learned one thing from Eldrion, it is that sometimes a display of might is necessary to make your audience understand what they are dealing with.
