Abandoned (Born From Shadows #2)

The pine trees were gently swaying around her as if passing a message to each other hoping that the birds wouldn’t pick up on their secrets. The clouds were not as discrete, their movements through the air were not to be halted, their whispers hidden in the smoke for all to see. Beneath them sat a female cradling her head. Her long caramel hair fell down around her body as if to offer her protection. A cocoon from the world around her. She was alone, save for the great wolf lying on her feet. She was alone so she could cry silent tears as she waited for the white-winged Fae to appear.

Exhausted, tired, feeling as if the world just wanted her gone. She missed being ignorant. She missed being afraid of only bad men, not of the threat of war. When her dreams of escape turned into reality, she realised they weren’t dreams at all, just another nightmare.

“How about we run away? Never look back,” she whispered to the wolf. “Take a boat maybe, and see the distant lands. The ones the humans came from all those centuries ago.”

At her voice, the wolf looked up at her, as if in reply Nylif shook her head much to Tatianna’s confusion. She always had a suspicion the animal could understand her, but to understand and comprehend such a large sentence?

She dared to ask. “Can you understand what I say?” The wolf did not reply. Or at least Tatianna did not see Nylif’s response as she was distracted by a distant snapping of twigs. Tatianna stood up and Nylif moved from her resting place on the Elf’s feet.

She reached for her dagger and scanned the white tree line. Feathers. Wings in the distance. Not a pair, but multiple. Tyrion did it, she realised as she took in the oncoming Fae. He survived the lion’s den.

“Tyrion!” she called at the sight of the familiar individual.

“Tatianna?” he replied in surprise as he came closer. “I thought you would have run off by now. Or were dead.”

“Apparently not. What happened to him?” she asked gesturing to the passed-out Fae.

“I had to knock him out. Help me get him on the ground,” Tyrion answered. Tatianna nodded her head and they both slowly laid the Fae on his back.

“We will need to get out of here. The Dwarves may go looking for us,” Tyrion said, glancing around the woods as he did.

“We can’t get very far at the moment,” she told him.

“Tatianna. I walked straight passed them. The Dwarves saw me leaving with him and they didn’t do anything. They let me go, something isn’t right,” he replied. “I’d rather we leave as soon as possible.”

“And go where?” she asked, she was still a complete outcast from society. Some things don’t change no matter how much you want it to, she thought.

“Zarenda.”

“And how do you know the Fae won’t hate us? Hate me?” she questioned.

“Trust me.”

“I tried the whole trusting thing. More than once. I think I should get a solid reason for going there,” Tatianna replied.

“You can do whatever you want, I am going to Zarenda,” Tyrion said.

Tatianna looked at him, her personal guard. Not to protect her but to protect others from her…because she was evil incarnate. She almost laughed at the thought. “Did you know?” she asked.

“Know what?” he replied.

“That my mother was an Elfir,” she responded.

“Yes. That’s the reason I knew the distraction would work. You aren’t just a Queen,” he replied truthfully.

“I guess I should have known your answer to that question,” she told him. That should’ve been enough proof, but her mind refused still to believe it. “I want to go to the dark lands.”

“What?” Tyrion questioned, now suddenly giving her his full attention and taking his eyes off the unconscious Fae.

“I have to see it…I need to see it. It’s the only true connection to my family I have if that’s even true,” she replied. “I don’t need you to understand, but I just…have to go.”

“If you thought walking into the mountains was a suicide mission consider going into the Dark Lands being a one way trip to death.”

“There is only one way to find out,” she answered.

“So what? You are just going to walk in and walk out?”

“I’m going to find my grandfather.”

Tyrion closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. “When a Carasak, Goblin, Vampire or something worse comes for you. Know that I will not be going in to save you.”

Tatianna thought’s cast back to Cainva, remembering how the Carasak decimated the town in less than an hour. They should have killed her…but they didn’t. Pieces in her mind started to come together, they didn’t kill her not because she is an Elf. But because she is an Elfir. But she bled red, not black. How was this possible?

“Vampires aren’t real,” she replied. “Just a myth.”

“The vampire depicted in legend is much different to the one in reality. They do in fact suck out the blood of their victims as told in the stories. But the sun is harmful to them, so to walk around they wear the skin of their victims. You may think you are talking to your best friend when they suddenly carve your skin off and suck at every part of your body, even the organs. They practically eat your insides. Do you want that happening to you?” Tatianna shook her head. “Then don’t go to the Dark Lands,” Tyrion concluded.

“What I do is none of your business,” she told him.

“Fine be a stupid child, what do I care,” Tyrion replied and his attention went back to the Fae. Tatianna also looked towards Tyrion’s fused. He was shirtless, revealing multiple scars along his chest. His skin was pale, although she suspected it was an effect of being in captivity. His actual skin tonne was probably much darker. She looked at his pitch-black wings that heavily contrasted against Tyrion’s.

“How long…was he there for?” she asked.

“Seventeen years,” Tyrion replied.

Seventeen years. And she could barely last four months of captivity…she knew without even seeing the Fae conscious that his mind was well and truly broken. She wouldn’t be surprised if the first action he took when he woke up would be to take her dagger, and drive it through his heart.

“He didn’t even recognise me…he shut off the bond years ago to save me from feeling his pain. He wanted to stay…” Tyrion said in such a monotone voice that Tatianna knew he was trying to stop the tears by ignoring the pain.

She looked over towards Nylif. “I didn’t know that you could do that.”

“Neither did I until one day I just felt a door close within my mind. I thought he was dead…but the connection was still there, just not…I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t need to,” she replied.