Page 1 of Brutal Fae King (Dark Faevea King #1)

My fingers burn in the cold as I pull the rope, drawing water from the well. My fingers are pink, slick with the wetness of the rope. This is my least favorite chore; Thawallow’s constantly freezing temperatures make it a miserable task.

I pull the rope one more time, carefully maneuvering the bucket through the ice that has formed over the top of the water on the well. Once I have the bucket, I very carefully lower it down, but I still can’t avoid the ice-cold water slopping over the sides and making my fingers feel worse. My arms are almost immediately aching from carrying it, but I just grit my teeth and keep going.

The well isn’t that far out from the village—just a short, serpentine path that can only be about fifty feet at most—but carrying a bucket, it feels like it will never end.

Eventually, I arrive at the wall that surrounds Thawallow. It’s built of the tallest, thickest logs, sharpened at the tips. It looks like it was built to keep gigantic monsters out, but in reality, they’re only there to hold the net that’s there to try and stop the chunks of ice that routinely fall from the ice wall nearby.

The monsters have no trouble getting inside.

As I walk through the gateway of the wooden wall to Thawallow, movement catches my eye. I look over, and I see Ahfaldor painting a big red X on the front door of his house in the low lighting of the lamp he’s carrying.

Oh, no… his family has the Weeping Fever, too?

My stomach sinks. It feels like it’s spreading faster this year than it has in any previous ones… There might be no one left by the time the next harvest comes… It’s never not flu season in Thawallow—the constant cold eking out from the ice wall, combined with being so far toward the edges of the kingdom of Faevea that humans never see the sun anymore, means that recovering from sickness is… difficult. But the greater races than humans have taken the more pleasant lands.

Ahfaldor turns around and spots me. For a moment, he just stares. I look back at him.

Then his face crumples into a sneer, glaring at me. He starts muttering under his breath, walking back into the plague house.

I sigh, realign the bucket in my grip, and keep moving.

Out of all the houses in our village, I’d say nearly half of them now have X’s on their front doors by now. The villagers wander around, going about their regular business, but there is an air of sluggish melancholy amongst them. Unless they spot me—then they glare at me with crinkled noses, narrowed eyes, and sometimes bared teeth. Most of them don’t dare to speak, but Hegtiro, outside her home and washing her family’s clothing in freezing water, never has anything better to do than berate me, so I’m mentally prepared when she screams at me:

“Do you see what you have brought upon us?! You should have kept your filthy magic to yourself, you whore of demons!”

Other people refuse to say anything, but they glare at me in the same way; they don’t need to say anything to show solidarity for Hegtiro.

I suppose she’s right about one thing—I should have kept my magic to myself. I only used my powers once, many years ago, but it was enough to turn me into a social pariah. It didn’t even help; my powers don’t help very much in a small village—all they can do is destroy. I’ve never tried to use them since, but that doesn’t matter to the folks of Thawallow.

I just keep my head down. Just get the water home. I say to myself.

The village has a population of a hundred and thirty at most—it doesn’t take me long to get to my house at the very end of the village. It feels oddly separated from the other houses, and even though I know it wasn’t built like that, it feels like even my house reflects the social pariah status.

The problem is… I’m not the only one who lives here.

I get to my front door, marked with a red X, and I press my shoulder against it to push it open. There’s a flood of warm, stale air smelling of woodsmoke. I welcome the warmth like a loving embrace.

But as I enter my house, I deep, retching cough rattles out.

“Maribelle?” I call lightly.

I enter my house. The entire wooden house is drenched in smoke from the dying fire. The cauldron on it seems to be smothering it, and on the other side of the room is the large bed where Maribelle lies. There are so many fur rugs and other coverings on the bed that it looks triple the size, but I can still hear her shivering.

“Maribelle?” I ask again.

“We-welcome back, Ebelor!” she stutters.

“I have the water!” I say. “I’ll heat it up on the fire for you. The stew should be warmed by now as well. Would you like some?”

Maribelle starts coughing again. It’s a very wet cough laden with phlegm.

“I’ll fill you a bowl,” I state.

I carry the water over to the fire and put it down. After putting a few logs on the fire and restoring it to a crackling flame, I check the cauldron. The stew bubbles lightly, so I ladle a bowlful and carry it over to Maribelle.

My heart sinks into the soles of my shoes; she looks worse than ever. Her skin is flushed and pink, and a steady stream of liquid comes from her nose, ears, and eyes, dribbling out constantly. She’s curled up in bed miserably, wiping her constantly flowing face, extra foam flecking from her lips as she coughs. It’s the final stage of the Weeping Fever.

I sit down on the stool by her bed.

“Come, Maribelle,” I say. “Have some stew. You need to recover your strength.”

She just stares into nothing, eyes constantly flowing with water.

“What’s the point?” she asks. “I’m going to die soon.”

My stomach clenches.

“Don’t talk like that!” I insist. “You’ll recover! People have recovered from the Weeping Fever before!”

“Not Mom and Dad,” Maribelle answers grimly.

A little nausea moves through me, and I swallow hard.

“No…” I murmur. “Not Mom and Dad. But you’re younger than they were. You can get better if you regain your strength.”

She still lays, staring at nothing miserably.

“Please, Mari,” I beg. “Eat something! For me…”

My sister sighs lightly and then laboriously struggles to sit up. I give her the bowl of stew, and she very slowly starts to eat it.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

As she eats, I return to the cauldron and take it off the fire. I fill a new cauldron with the water and hang it over the fire.

“Once that’s warm,” I call to Maribelle, “you can have a bath. It’ll do you good.”

She just grunts a little, eating her stew. My stomach turns, and I just turn, tending the fire.

“Can you light some lamps?” Maribelle croaks suddenly. “It’s very dark in here.”

“Certainly.”

As I do that, she adds:

“They say the light is fading from around the ice wall,” Maribelle murmurs worriedly. “Have you heard?”

“Yes, I have,” I answer. “I don’t know… we have never seen the sun here. How do we know the light is fading when it’s always dark?”

“I don’t know,” Maribelle says. “But I’m worried. I swear I can see it some days.”

“Things will be fine,” I state firmly. “It’s all going to be fine.”

I’m in the middle of lighting more candles when a noise starts sliding into the door for us. Crashing. Clashing of metal. Voices. Screaming.

“What is that?!” Maribelle croaks.

“I… don’t know,” I answer

“That is not a raid, is it?!” Maribelle says, then breaks out into a coughing fit.

“No,” I protest. “It can’t be! There hasn’t been a raid since we were children!”

We both wait. There’s more commotion outside. More screaming. Banging.

“It has to be!” Maribelle gasps. “It’s a raid!”

My skin prickles in terror—my body’s paralyzed. I’d only ever heard tales of the raids. My mother used to tell me about how the fae used to come for the women of the village and take them away, never to be seen again. I just assumed that she was telling us tall tales to scare us away from being inside the forest when it grew dark.

But… it’s real…

“Ebelor!” Maribelle wheezes. “What do we do?!”

I turn to her and open my mouth-

A smash causes me to whip around, and I see them.

They all tower over me, every one of them. They wear black, spiked armor, including obscuring helmets, their eyes hidden. They barely fit through our front door, the spikes on their shoulders spread so wide. As three of them barge into our house, their iridescent insect wings spread wide. Each one of the wings is as big as my leg is.

I back away. My heart feels like it’s throbbing—it’s beating so hard.

The dark fae leading the crowd looks over their shoulder:

“Captain! There are two more in here!”

The dark fae start striding in—there are five of them now, walking right on in.

My chest is tight. I can barely breathe, but I suck in a breath and squeak:

“G-get out of our house!”

They all turn their gazes on me. There’s a rumbling of dark laughter among the group. A voice echoes in from the outside.

“Take them both!”

As the terror cascades through me, it’s followed up by a bolt of rage. The soldiers start walking toward Maribelle. She screams—to the best of her ability—but it comes out as a weak croak.

Another bolt of rage crashes through me: No! NO, YOU DO NOT TOUCH MY SISTER!

The rage keeps coursing through me like a waterfall, smashing, crashing, swirling, and frothing. It all seems to boil in my torso, filling my stomach and swelling in my chest until I have so much hot rage in me that I can’t contain it anymore.

I thrust my palm out toward them.

“NO!” I scream

With a mighty BANG, a bolt of lightning strikes across the room. It hits one dark fae and sends them tumbling across the room. They all gasp and start backing off.

My head’s whirling already; my powers already take so much out of me. But I keep firing lightning into the room. The dark fae back away, and I run forward to Maribelle’s bedside. I lean on the side of the bed, heaving in breath.

“Ebelor!” my sister begs.

“It’ll be okay, Mari,” I pant. “It’ll be okay…”

My head is reeling. My vision grows dimmer and dimmer. My chest is spasming—I just can’t catch my breath.

“Captain! This human! She-she has magic!” one of the knights calls out toward the door.

“What?”

Another dark fae comes in through our doorway. Bigger than the last few, spikier. It’s a hulking mass of a being.

“Very well,” they growl. “Leave this house. I shall handle this one.”

“What about the other one?” one of the dark fae asks.

“She’s on her deathbed from Weeping Fever; it’s useless to take her,” the Captain answers.

The other fae turn and leave our house—the large one starts stalking toward me.

“Get away from us!” I shout.

I thrust my palm forward again. Another bolt of lightning crashes out, and the dark fae holds up their own hand, and I see the air ripple in front of them. My magic bounces off the outstretched palm, crashing into the wall.

But that last one took everything out of me; my vision suddenly blacks out for a moment, and I fall. My knees crash against the floor.

“Ebelor!” Maribelle wheezes.

My vision comes back a touch, wavering like I’m seeing the world through rippling water. The dark fae gives out a loud, dark chuckle.

“You cannot control your power?” they chortle. “Well, that makes things easier.”

They keep striding toward me, but my vision is blacking out.

“Ebelor!” Maribelle says again.

“It’s… fine…” I murmur. “Things will… be fine… Mari…”

Then my vision blacks out, and I fall forward. I’m gone before I hit the ground.