Page 4 of Black Hearted (Cursed Fae #4)

Zane

It was unnaturally quiet as Nellie and I left the oil river behind us and headed toward the town of Orange Hills.

There were no birds flying through the air, no leaves rustling in the trees, no insects chirping or detectable life of any kind as we walked over the blackened, dead grass.

Even the wind itself seemed to be holding its breath.

As fae, we shared a close relationship with nature.

We respected and nurtured it. Some even had their magic rooted in the life-giving properties of nature itself, which I was told was the case with Lorelei and the fae in Faerie, who had seasonal-based magic.

But as I looked around, it was obvious there was no life here anymore, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Everything about this place was unnatural. Wrong.

This land was nothing but death.

Nellie and I remained silent as we reached the first house on the outskirts of town.

It was a small cottage painted blue with red shutters and a thatched roof.

Even the colors of the home, which were probably bright and vibrant at one time, were faded and muted, covered in a layer of what looked like gray soot.

As we passed, I noted that the front door was open and hanging awkwardly from only one of the three hinges. Whoever lived there was long gone.

We walked deeper into town, passing boarded-up storefronts and homes with shattered windows.

There wasn’t a single sign of life—not so much as a lit candle flickering in a window.

I supposed that made sense. The residents must have fled to another court for shelter because who could survive in this land of death?

Everything in the town appeared to be covered in what looked like a fine layer of dark dust or soot, dulling any colors that would have given this village a livelier look.

The sun was still nowhere to be seen in the sky above, but the daylight had darkened, telling me that night was going to fall soon.

I wanted to press on—the need to reach Lorelei was like a living beast, constantly rattling in my chest—but when I glanced over at Nellie, her eyes were drooping, and her steps were unsteady.

It was clear she was exhausted, and unless I wanted to carry her through the dark in an unfamiliar and most likely hostile land, we had no choice but to stop here for the night.

With any luck, maybe one of these homes still had running water.

I would give half my fortune right now to get cleaned up or at least find a fresh set of clothes that weren’t covered in the oily substance we had basically just bathed in.

“We should stay here for the night and get some rest,” I said to Nellie, and she nodded woodenly. “We can set off first thing in the morning when it’s light.”

Nellie glanced up, and the look she gave me was nothing short of eerie. “The sun’s never up anymore,” she said, her voice hollow.

I swallowed, thinking of how much trauma she’d been through recently, how much she’d lost already, and at such a young age. I vowed to myself then and there that I’d make sure I got her to her aunt in the Spring Court, no matter what it took.

“When it’s lighter, then,” I told her, and she made a noise that I think meant she agreed.

We’d walked about two-thirds of the way through the town already, and rather than backtracking, I steered her toward the first home that looked mostly intact.

It was a squat, A-framed wooden house set back from the street.

There was a small decorative fence in the front yard that only reached my hips.

It was once white but now held the same grayish hue that everything else did in the village.

The gate was open and, much like the door of the first cottage we passed, hanging from only a single hinge. The front door of the house was still attached, though, and the windows weren’t shattered or broken, which I took as a good sign.

We walked up to the door, and just as I was reaching for the knob, I paused, my ears picking up noise coming from something other than Nellie or me for the first time since entering the town.

“What?” Nellie asked, looking up at me with wide, scared eyes.

I held a hand out toward her. “Stay here,” I ordered and then started around the side of the house in the direction of what sounded like a faint grunting noise.

When I reached the back of the house, I froze, taking in what I assumed was once open space for the town’s members to enjoy but was now a makeshift graveyard.

Dozens, maybe even up to a hundred piles of turned dirt, were laid out in front of me, each one with its own rough stone marker. The marker was similar to what we did back in Ethereum to honor our dead.

Off to the side, I spotted an older man digging another hole in the ground, grunting with each stab of his shovel into the dirt.

“What’s going … ?” Nellie started as she came up next to me, having completely ignored my command to stay put. I rolled my eyes. She crossed her arms.

The man’s head whipped up, and his gaze landed on Nellie and me immediately. I didn’t fear him. Even with my powers somewhat unreliable at the moment, a single fae wasn’t any match for me, but I still nudged Nellie behind me.

“Who goes there?” the fae called, a touch of mistrust in his voice, and I didn’t blame him. Even if it wasn’t obvious that we weren’t from his town, Nellie and I were covered in oil from head to toe. We had to be a sight to behold.

Lifting a hand in what I hoped was received as a friendly gesture, I started to slowly walk toward him. “Just a pair passing through on our way to the Spring Court. We were hoping to take shelter here in town tonight before moving on.”

I stopped before drawing too close, not wanting to spook him more than I already had. Nellie stayed a step behind me, and for that, I was grateful.

With my hand, I gestured up and down my body. “As you can see, we ran into a bit of trouble.”

The fae’s grip on his shovel loosened a little as I spoke. He opened his mouth to reply, but a hacking cough racked his body, and I could hear an underlying wetness to it. When it cleared, he said, “Decided to take a swim in the river of darkness, did you?”

That was an apt name for what we’d just floated in.

Reaching back, I rubbed the back of my neck and chuckled. “Something like that. I’m Zane, by the way.”

He nodded at me. “Evander.” He wheezed, coughing again.

By the lines on his face, I’d guess that Evander was older than me by at least three decades, but he had a strong build and was clearly fit despite the slightly gaunt look of his face.

His shoulders were almost as broad as my own, and he was also a tall fae.

Again, not quite as tall as me—very few fae were—but almost. His beard was speckled with brown and white, and his gaze was both wary and tired at the same time.

Nellie poked out from behind me, and Evander’s eyes shifted to her and warmed before returning to me.

“And this is Nellie,” I added.

“Did you say you were passing through?” he asked, and I nodded. “Where from?”

He didn’t seem suspicious of us, more curious, but even so, I had no intention of telling him the truth. “The other side of the Harvest Mountains,” I told him, then gave him the name of a town I remembered from the map.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Nellie shooting me a look that I ignored.

I might not have been able to hide that I was from Ethereum from her because she’d seen my powers, but it wasn’t something I wanted to broadcast. From what Isolde and the other princesses had told me, these seelie had deep-rooted prejudice against our realm, and if this fae had any help to offer us, I planned to take it.

“What happened here?” I asked, waving a hand toward the graves and then the fresh hole he was digging.

I hadn’t missed that just behind him was something wrapped in a dirty sheet that was approximately the size and shape of a body.

I didn’t think this man was a murderer. What killer dug graves for their victims?

But just in case, I reached for my magic so that I was ready to lash out if he tried anything.

Evander grunted a half-laugh that was completely devoid of humor.

“What do you think? The curse, of course. Many of us stayed, thinking we could hold out and withstand it, but …” He let his words trail off, and sorrow filled his gaze.

He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the wrapped figure.

“This was our neighbor. He passed just this morning. It’s just me and my wife now.

Everyone else either left or—” He gestured to the graves around us before hacking into his fist, this time releasing a gray puff of dust from his mouth.

It was clear the cough was because of the dust.

“Cover your mouth with your shirt,” I whispered to Nellie.

Evander waved me off. “She won’t get the powder lung from one night.”

Powder lung. “Is that how they … ?” I nodded toward the grave closest to us.

He just nodded.

I cast my gaze around the area, once again taking note of the gray and blackened earth that stretched as far as the eye could see.

I didn’t know Aribella very well. Out of all the princesses, I’d spent the most time with Isolde, but even so, I knew with certainty that her heart would be broken if she could see her beloved court reduced to this uninhabitable wasteland.

“Why didn’t you leave when the curse started poisoning your lands?”

Evander shook his head, and a stubborn glint entered his eyes. “My family has lived and farmed these lands for dozens of generations, just as most of the families in Orange Hills. This is our home.”