Page 16 of Tempting the Fae Lord (The Gatekeeper’s Weakness)

Chapter Fifteen

Gale

We retrieve Petru from the underground pit Ezra calls a holding cell. The mage can barely walk, but between us, we manage to escort him out.

Ezra is vigilant, gaze darting across the landscape for any sign of Sonja, but without her mage, I doubt she’ll make an appearance.

The forest is quiet. Even the night bugs are asleep in their hidey-holes. Only the crunching of our footsteps breaks up the eerie calm.

Ezra guides us through the evergreens due south, hugging the shore of a frozen lake. He strides with purpose. I’m glad someone knows where we’re going. That is until he says, “We’ll never make it before daybreak at this pace.”

“Make it to where exactly?”

“To food and shelter.”

The landscape is beautiful but rather barren in terms of human settlements large enough to host an inn. “Can you fly us?”

“I shouldn’t. Not together.”

I want to ask why not, but I’m worried I won’t like the answer. Ezra looks tired. More than that. Worn. “You could take him while I keep walking, then come back for me.”

“I can’t leave you alone. Not with her lurking about.”

“Sonja won’t hurt me.”

Ezra scoffs. “Don’t be so sure. Look what she’s done to him.”

I skim my gaze over poor Petru. He’s starving, sick, and exhausted. “Fair point. But she thinks I’m your thrall. That I’m protected.”

“And knowing you’re important to me is all the more reason to use you as leverage.”

“What choice do we have but to take the risk?”

Ezra mutters angrily under his breath.

If our situation weren’t so dire, it would be cute. All right ,maybe it’s a little cute even, considering the chaos we find ourselves in.

“I won’t risk you,” he says. “But I’m willing to risk him.”

“Sir—”

“Don’t argue. I caught him once. I can do it again if I have to.”

Petru stays silent. If he has an opinion, he knows better than to voice it. I can’t say how much he pays attention. He’s half-passed out and dragging between us, but it could be an act. Or he could be on death’s doorstep, and it’ll be our fault if he crosses.

“All right,” I say. “Whatever you think will get us to safety quickest. Let’s do that.”

Ezra scoops up Petru, carries him to the nearest tree, and ties him to it. I try not to let my disapproval show on my face.

Leaving him here in this condition is cruel but, with any luck, only temporary. The mage makes no complaint.

“Come.” Ezra holds his arms open for me, and I step into them with the same trust I’ve always had for him. Apparently, that part of our bond is unshakable. Should I question it? Has his blood made me feel this way?

Maybe, but I don’t think so.

He lifts me and flies south until we approach a sleeping town. I’m not sure how he intends to acquire a room at this hour, but I’m tired enough not to ask questions. He moves as if he has a plan, which is more than I have, so I embrace my role as cargo, along for the ride.

Curiously, we pass the town’s inn and slip through an unmarked door in a side alley that smells of urine. I scrunch my nose and follow.

Inside, it’s dark, but Ezra waves a hand and illuminates the path in front of us. We descend a narrow flight of stairs, turn, then head down another.

I don’t know how I feel about creeping two stories underground, the earth a silent weight above us, but if this is what it takes, so be it. Hopefully, the cramped feeling will fade in time.

“This will do.” Ezra pushes open the second door on the lower landing and ushers me inside. “Wait for me here. I’ll collect our pris—Petru—and return shortly.”

I glance around. Smoldering ashes, it’s stifling. The ground is packed dirt with nothing but a round dusty rug to call a floor. Two wooden cots with no mattresses line the walls on either side with a short, bare table between them.

There is nothing else. No windows, no art, no chairs, no basin, no life.

My reticence must show on my face because Ezra says, “Don’t worry. You’re safe here, and I won’t be long.” To my surprise, he places a swift kiss on my cheek, then darts away, footsteps silent.

I’m alone, my hand on my cheek, caressing the cool, damp spot where he kissed me.

True to his word, Ezra returns with Petru before I have a chance to work myself up into a true panic.

“Where are we?” I take Petru from him and lower the fragile man to one of the cots.

Petru mumbles his thanks and promptly passes out in a heap.

“Tornea, in an old safe house for traveling messengers of the preternatural variety. It’s fallen out of use because there’s no longer a population in the region.”

“Sonja won’t know of it?”

“Probably not. I can’t be sure, but without him, she’s been reluctant to attack me.”

Petru groans, restless.

“He needs food and water.”

Ezra shrugs off his outer cloak and hands over a leather bag. “I thought of that. Here.”

Inside is a skin of water, a handful of strips of dried meat, a hunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread. “Where did you get all that at this hour?”

He glowers from behind half-lidded eyes. “Stole it. Will you be protesting that next?”

“Erm, not when you say it that way, I won’t.”

He sits on the opposite cot from Petru, crosses his arms, and leans back against a rickety wooden wall. “Good.”

I shake my head and uncork the water skin. “Petru, wake. You should drink.”

His lids flutter open. Sunken eyes struggle to focus. He reaches for the water and drinks while I look him over.

Other than weak and sickly, he looks… normal. Like any other human. Thin with dark brown hair and eyes. Young. He certainly doesn’t look like a powerful mage capable of calling legions of undead to throng at his will.

“What happened to you?” I blurt out.

He fidgets with the water skin and doesn’t make eye contact. “It’s not a simple story.”

I hand over the food. “Eat. Rest. You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to.”

Ezra holds up his hand. “No. He has to tell it. At least something to explain himself and why I shouldn’t execute him for his crimes against the natural world.”

Petru flinches.

I scowl. “Sir, you’re not helping.”

“He’s right,” says Petru. “I owe him at least that much, after all the trouble I’ve caused.”

“See.” Ezra looks pleased. “He agrees.”

“I admit I’m quite curious. Sonja said you owed her a life debt.”

“Aye, several in fact.” Petru struggles into a seated position.

“She saved my whole family, me included, from freezing to death during a bad storm. A tree fell on our house and knocked down a wall and much of the roof. It was a bad blizzard. We’d have all frozen to death if she hadn’t used her powers to keep us warm.

In return, she said each of us owed her a life debt but that she’d let me pay all of them if I’d commit my life”—he stares down at his bony knees—“and my powers to her service. So I did.”

“Wait, how did she know about your powers?”

“She saw me once. I think she’d been watching me ever since.”

“Saw you do what?” asks Ezra.

“Raise a dog. My dog.” Petru doesn’t lift his gaze at all while he’s talking. “I missed her. I loved her, and I thought, maybe… but I knew better. My curse makes them awful. Makes them demons. They never come back the same.”

“And knowing that, you raised people?” Ezra’s voice is harsh.

Petru cowers. His voice is naught but a whisper. “I didn’t want to. But if I don’t obey her, she’ll take it back. She’ll kill them.”

“Rot me sideways.” Ezra thumps the back of his head against the woods and blows an irritated huff through his nose.

“See,” I say. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“If he’s telling the truth, Gale. We don’t know him. No offense.”

Petru shrugs and lifts the bread to his lips. Mouth full, he can’t be expected to talk anymore, and he clearly doesn’t want to. He doesn’t touch the rest of it. Only water and a bit of bread before he slumps back down on the hard cot.

I feel bad for him. Even if he is lying, which I doubt, he’s in a sorry state. Something terrible happened for his condition to get this bad. I don’t want to think so poorly of Sonja, but I have to know.

“Petru, is she starving you?”

“Obviously,” says Ezra.

“Hush, I didn’t ask you.”

“She isn’t,” says Petru without opening his eyes.

“Then why are you so thin?” Maybe it’s rude to ask a stranger such invasive questions. Rude to keep him from his rest. But my thoughts circle round and round with no easy conclusion. Ezra is right. We need to know what he knows.

He sighs, then answers in a shaky voice. “I’ve been starving myself. Our agreement was that all my family’s life debts would be paid in return for a lifetime of my service. If you’d made such an agreement, wouldn’t you also consider shortening your lifetime?”

Air catches in my throat. Not Sonja’s doing, but his own. How utterly tragic. My heart cannot stand it.

Sticky silence stretches between us as I ponder his question. Would I take such drastic measures?

I don’t think I could.

Petru continues, “She’s on to me. At least I think so, though she hasn’t ordered me to take better care of myself.

I doubt she wants me beyond her obsession with him.

” His eyes flick open and land on Ezra. “She hates you. Wants to cross through the gate, and after that, she wants you dead. My hope is she leaves me behind.”

Why? Why does she hate Ezra? But I already know. He stole the life she was meant to live. His duty to the fae realm demanded it of him, but when one is wronged, what care have they for excuses?

He stole her from her family. Her homelands. Her rightful future.

Same as he did to me.