Page 89

Puck tells me, “Until the thirteenth year.”

This number would be considerable for mortals. For Faeries who live forever, it’s nothing. The Trapping was nine years ago; their window is closing.

I shake my head. “But what does this have to do with the game?”

Puck’s gaze is tangible, an invisible thumb stroking my cheek. “Everything and anything.”

He expands on the games his kin have played, how those games have been essential for the Faeries’ survival. It’s the loophole to their demise. His kin can’t resurrect the Faeries who died trying to save their animals. But they can do something about the fauna. For each human life given to the Solitary wild, one of the lost animals will rise again. If all the fallen are restored, the land will thrive once more, and this world will endure.

A new emotion kindles, this one taking a hot bite out of the dread and worry I’d felt. I draw out, “What do you mean, a human life ‘given’ to the Solitary wild? What does ‘given’ mean?”

Puck’s bleak grin delivers a blow to the nervous system. “Come, now. You’re smarter than that.”

“And you’re gutsier than that,” I scold.

But I know what ‘given’ implies. It means sacrifice.

Bile congeals in my mouth, and the betrayal I’d felt earlier recycles itself into repugnance. The Faeries are sacrificing humans to the wild, avenging what happened during The Trapping, compensating for what my people took from this land. That’s what this hunt is about.

Puck tells me the rest. He tells me these sacrifices require rituals—games—as is the age-old custom of his culture. Each ruler of the Solitary wild oversees the proceedings and upholds its rules, which are unique to the environment.

Only one set of conditions is unanimous across the mountain, forest, and deep. If the human wins, they go free. If they lose, they die. If they die, another lost animal will rise.

Either the mortals perish from the game, the elements, or at the Faeries’ hands. It depends on the game itself and how it’s played. Apparently because my sisters and I had trespassed together, we suffer together. By suffering together, our fate is contingent on one another.

That’s why I’m here. That’s my purpose.

I’m here to die for Puck’s survival, for the survival of an entire race. Either that, or I’m here to compete for his extinction and my sister’s lives.

I stand there, quaking. Puck stands there, immobile.

Oh, I see the way my silence wrings him out like a cloth. I see the remorse, the hankering for forgiveness, and whatever else he hopes I’ll feel. I see it’s not about him, if it ever was. I see he’s split like a fault line between his world and my life. I see that I’ve become more to this Fae than he’d planned. I see him snared, caged.

I see that he hadn’t wanted to tell me. But he did anyway.

He’d been unable to keep this from me any longer. And I’m glad of it.

Because it means I can do this: I march up to the satyr and punch him in the face.

His head whips to the side. His body follows, twisting like a corkscrew. The mouth I’d recently suckled on spritzes red. Puck curses, his fingers shooting to his teeth, the ivories stained.

There’s an extreme discrepancy between the strength of a mortal versus that of a Fae. Which means the circumstances must be exceptional for that mortal to do damage, to make the slightest dent. I’m wheezing, my knuckles smarting. Either I’ve caught him off guard or Puck had prepared himself for this scenario and loosened his stance. Both possibilities justify why the crack of my fist has a substantial impact.

Pearls of blood drip from his upper lip. He must have bitten the skin when my fist rammed into him.

Rage boils at the tips of my fingers, at the tip of my tongue. To say the least, my reaction is overdue, though I can’t say which was a longer time coming—the punch or the kiss.

Yes, his offenses in the past had already warranted this response from me. He and these Faeries had forced my family here. He’d turned me into hunted prey. He’d made a game of it. Those factors validate more than my right hook.

By learning the reason behind this game, I understand his motives. But like hell do I agree with them.

My stomach curdles. “You eternal bastard.”

Puck straightens. He waits for the rest, knowing better than to defend himself.

“You want to save your people, the fauna, this world,” I grit between my teeth. “You want to restore the fallen animals. And who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t battle for that?” I draw breath, scarcely keeping my venom in check. “But if you can’t exist without this landscape, then leave. Seek out another wilderness or take refuge in one of the kingdoms. I’m sure the Unseelie Court would open its doors for the likes of you.”

“Some have,” he concedes. “The ones who weren’t born in the Solitary wild have left, the ones who got the hell away from the Courts to begin with, wanting a life cloistered from political bullshit. But surprise, surprise, we merry natives belong to this land. We can leave whenever we want, but we’ll be tied to this environment for eternity. Its fate is our fate. Leaving won’t make a lick of difference.”