The Unseelie Bargain (The Fae Kingdom Series Book 1), page 3
“What? That’s ridiculous. Why would they do that?” Alice responded.
“She just said she didn’t know why, Alice,” Griffin pointed out. Alice elbowed her brother’s ribs and he let out a whoosh of air in response to it.
“I know that. I wasn’t asking her why. It was rhetorical,” Alice scowled at him.
“How am I supposed to continue buying things for Ma and Rielle if I can’t get any more coins?” Aurora questioned, looking at her friend with desperation.
“We’ll help, Aurora,” Griffin promised her.
She shook her head in response. “Absolutely not. I’ve taken enough from you already,” she refused. The siblings shared a glance that said they didn’t agree with her statement but wisely refrained from commenting.
“You could enter into the Unseelie King’s trials and win,” Alice then snorted in a teasing tone. “The money you get from that would be more than enough.”
The look that Aurora gave her caused the laugh to die from her lips. She cleared her throat.
“Sorry. Not a serious suggestion,” Alice apologized. Aurora sighed and started to make her way back across the market to leave.
“Aurora!” Tamaren, a young woman around Aurora and Alice’s age, called out across the market crowd as she rushed up to her. “Is it true?”
“I’m sorry. Is what true?” Aurora questioned in return.
“That you were attacked by a fae creature? Thomas says he was hunting in the woods same as you the other day when he heard a horrible screech and then a woman’s scream. He searched around until he saw you decapitate a fae creature.”
Aurora’s jaw dropped and she silently stared at Tamaren, not knowing what to say.
“Well Aurora, is it true?” Griffin piped up; his voice strained with anger. He already knew by her expression that it was.
“Uh…um yes, it is,” Aurora stammered.
Tamaren gasped. “I can’t believe it! You killed a fae creature?! I mean the gossips and superstitious folks around here are saying you’re cursed or something because a rogue lone fae creature attacked you. But I just think it’s so interesting that you came out of the attack alive.” The girl rambled on, and Aurora had to put a hand up to stop her before she turned to Alice and Griffin.
“The hide sellers must be nervous to sell my hides if they think there’s some sort of curse surrounding me. They’ve always been the superstitious type. And with the Unseelie King coming into town soon they wouldn’t want to take any chances,” she mused.
Griffin’s face was red with frustration. He now knew she had lied to him and wasn’t happy about it. Alice looked like she pitied her friend.
“Well, have a great rest of your day,” Tamaren then chirped before wandering off.
Aurora sighed, feeling defeated. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Aurora pushed her way into the cottage, sighing in relief as the icy cold numbness melted away once it was met with the glowing warmth flowing out of the room. She pounded her boots on the doorstep and watched the white powder fall off her shoes as much as it could before she fully entered.
Her success hadn’t been any better in her hunt this evening than it was in the last hunt. In fact, it had been even worse. Today she only managed to catch one runt of a rabbit. In all honesty it would just serve as a snack to hold them over until Aurora could get it together and provide an actual meal for her family. Who knew when that would be though with the way things were going right now. No prey out to hunt, no profit from her hides anymore, and now she only had three days until the Unseelie King arrived and she would be forced to halt her hunting for the time he was here.
“Aurora,” Rielle’s voice called out, jolting Aurora from her depressing thoughts. The panic in Rielle’s voice sent Aurora’s heart into a fast rhythm, thumping in her chest at the possibility of something being horribly wrong. Rushing into her mother’s room, where her sister’s voice had come from, Aurora saw her sister kneeling beside the bed where her mother lay. Her mother’s body was thrashing around as her lungs forced her to cough roughly without ceasing. The whole bed was shaking with the force of her mother’s seizure and the look on Rielle’s face made Aurora’s heart ache. Sprinting to her sister’s side, Aurora hurried to push her mother onto her side and hold her down to minimize the damage and assess her mother’s state.
“What happened?” she asked in a rushed tone, her eyes scanning her mother up and down.
“I don’t know. She called for me just before you got here and when I came in, she was shaking uncontrollably. She started coughing violently just as you walked in the door,” Rielle explained.
“A rag and a glass of water, get her both,” Aurora instructed. Tears were still streaming down her face, Rielle nodded and raced out of the room. Barely a minute later she returned and waited for Aurora to tell her what else to do.
“Put the rag on her forehead then take my place and hold her down while keeping her on her side. If she stops shaking, make sure she is breathing then try to get her to drink some water for her throat. I’m going to get the healer,” Aurora explained.
“Wait,” Rielle called out even as she took Aurora’s place holding their mother, allowing Aurora to stand. “Please don’t leave me alone with her. What if she is not breathing when she stops shaking?” Her younger sister’s voice was small and fearful.
“I will be quick,” Aurora assured her.
“We don’t have the money for a healer Aurora,” Rielle reminded her.
“Don’t worry about it. Just stay with Ma,” Aurora responded before leaving for the healer’s cottage as fast as she could.
Tossing and turning, Aurora struggled to fall asleep. The healer had come. She had helped sedate her mother, but she had told Aurora that her mother’s condition was worsening with alarming speed. Sedating her was the only way to keep her body still at the moment. Aurora had promised the healer she would get her the payment for her services and the sedating medicine. Now she had no food for her family, no coins to purchase anything, and a debt to the healer that she could not yet pay. She was becoming desperate. If only her father were here, and her mother was healthy. But because of her mistake all those years ago, that was not her reality.
She should have never tried to start a fire in the fireplace on her own. At six years old what was she thinking?
Shaking the memory from her mind, Aurora turned over again.
For a split second, Alice’s comment about Aurora entering the Unseelie King’s trials popped into her mind. The sum received for winning and then working for the King was a lot of money. And it would mean no more unsuccessful days of hunting, no more worrying about the hide sellers not taking her furs, no more debt to the healer, and even enough money to keep the healer helping her mother. She could make the Unseelie King give all her earnings to her mother and sister while she was in the Unseelie Court instead of to her.
Almost as quickly as the thought popped into her head though, Aurora banished it again. She would have to leave her family and would probably never come back. It wasn’t worth finding out if every rumor circling the Unseelie King was true or not.
Three more days, she was certain she could hunt enough in the next three days to cover them. She had to.
CHAPTER 4
Aurora sat up on the low branches of a snowy tree near the edge of the forest. Ice coated her lashes, and her muscles were stiff as the coldness had settled in down to her bones after her long day out hunting. She moved spots all day, hoping to get something, and yet here she sat, with nothing.
The quietness of the forest was a deafening roar in her ears, reminding her there was nothing out here to hunt despite her desperate hopes.
“How long are you going to sit up there?” Griffin’s voice called from down below. Aurora looked down to see him standing under her. He was looking up and smiling, amused she was in a tree.
Aurora sighed and hopped down, her feet crunching snow underneath them as she landed. She winced as she landed on the still healing leg.
“I would stay up there all night if I knew I would catch something,” she answered as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and began guiding her back to the cottage while trying to rub some warmth into her limbs.
“You have two more days. I’m sure you will catch something,” Griffin encouraged.
“Will it be enough even if I do?”
Griffin just shrugged in response. “You’ll make it work. You always do.”
“I’ve always had hide sellers to help get me some money to hold me over during this time of winter. I don’t have that now. We’re out of food, out of money, and in debt to the healer. I can’t do this anymore, Griffin. I’m failing my family.” Aurora’s voice broke during the last sentence as she tried to choke down the tears that surfaced.
“Hey,” Griffin said, stopping her in her tracks and cupping her face in his hands. His palms were warm against her icy skin, and she fluttered her eyes closed for a moment as he said, “You are not failing your family.”
She scoffed in response and pulled away, knowing he was just saying that to make her feel better.
“Aurora Harland, stop beating yourself up. You’ve been doing it for fourteen years.”
“With good cause.”
“Yeah right.”
She didn’t want to hear it. Nothing he could say would make her believe she was guiltless. As her mind circled back to the trials happening soon, she thought about participating, if only for the money. How else could she provide for her family? Her options were few.
“Maybe I’ll just work for the Unseelie King,” she mumbled aloud, both hoping Griffin had and hadn’t heard her.
The laugh that tore from his throat told her he had, and he thought she was joking. When he realized she wasn’t laughing along, the sound died from his lips and the deep lines of a frown formed on his face.
“You can’t be serious?”
Aurora shrugged, realizing that not just her body was numbing from the cold. Maybe her heart was numbing from guilt and disappointment as well.
“You’re not serious. I won’t allow you to do that. You being gone will not help your family, no matter how much they are getting for it.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Griffin. I think being gone would be worth it if my family gets the money to survive from it,” she argued.
“It’s not happening. End of discussion,” Griffin demanded.
Aurora only scoffed again.
“You’re not my husband, Grif. And even if you were, you can’t control me.”
“So, you want to take part in the trials and work for the Unseelie King?”
Aurora rubbed her hands up and down over her face, frustrated and discouraged.
“No, not really. I just don’t have any other options at this point,” she admitted.
“Yes, you do. We’ll figure it out,” he assured her, wrapping an arm around her once again and leading her back home.
Aurora drew the hood of her cloak up over her face to further conceal herself as she raised her fist and knocked on the dark wooden door. After hearing a bit of shuffling inside, the door opened, and Aurora stepped back.
“Can I have a word?” she asked the resident.
“I’ve heard you’re cursed,” Elijah, the bakery shop owner, stated in response.
“And do you believe it?”
In answer, Elijah stepped aside and let her in. The last time the Unseelie King had come to this town was three years ago. Elijah’s wife, Karmen, had taken part in and won the trials. She went to work for the Unseelie King and never returned. Rumor said that money from the King continued to come to Elijah at his home every month.
Aurora stepped inside the cozy little cottage and waited as Elijah closed the door. She couldn’t help taking in a long inhale through her nose to smell the freshly baked bread and pastries. The scent was wafting around the little home.
It reminded her of trips to the bakery with her father when she was younger. They were always her favorite. The smell of the place was too divine to leave without a pastry in hand. She would stand on her toes to look into the glass case and tell father what she wanted. It was different each time. Her six-year-old taste buds were determined to know what every single pastry felt like on her tongue. Those trips, of course, stopped once her father was gone and Aurora couldn’t ever bring herself to enter the shop again.
Trying to cast away the grief that wanted to consume her, Aurora turned her attention to Elijah. He had now come back around from behind her and crossed his arms.
She swallowed her hesitancy and spoke up. “Was it worth it?”
He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to.
“Yes and no,” he answered as he gestured for her to follow him. They walked into the sitting room and she took a seat. He stepped over to the kitchen to make them some tea.
“The kids and I, we have all we need now. Karmen went willingly. We agreed it was what would be best for our kids. They couldn't grow up without all their needs being met. But I lost my wife. I don’t even know if she’s alive on the other side.”
He handed her a steaming cup of tea and a freshly baked roll. She gave him a small smile of thanks.
“And you haven’t heard from her once since?”
“The first year she would send letters back every month. After that, the second and third year came, and I heard nothing. I’ve tried so many ways to get in contact with her or learn about how she’s doing. They’ve all come up as dead ends.”
Aurora took a sip of tea and closed her eyes to let the warmth slide down her throat and seep into her bones for comfort. Then she took a bite of the roll and savored the burst of sweet flavor over her tongue.
“Should I do it?” she asked, opening her eyes to look at Elijah.
“I cannot tell you that. All I can tell you is it will help. But will your family be willing to lose you over it?”
To Aurora, it didn’t matter whether they would be willing to lose her. What mattered is that she made up for all she had cost them. That she made sure they had what they needed. And in that case, the answer was obvious.
“Thank you,” she nodded before finishing the roll and handing him back the still warm cup of tea. She stood up from the chair to leave.
“Good luck,” he responded before showing her out.
One more day now. As that thought raced across Aurora’s mind, she pulled another arrow back into her bow and let it fly. It landed right where it was supposed to, a soft thunk telling her the arrow had sunken into the tree trunk.
If she remembered correctly from the last trials, the Unseelie King tested three things: use of weapons, range of movement, and individual response to unexpected situations. It had to do with whatever work he required once the victor was in his court. Therefore, all day today, Aurora had been practicing with her bow and arrows and dagger.
She knew movement and response time should be ok considering she hunted in the forest all the time and survived a fae creature attack just last week. Right now, she wanted to make sure every shot with her arrow or throw with her dagger would be without fault. If she was going to do this, she needed to make it worth it. She needed to make sure she won.
Every one of the ten shots she had taken landed in the same spot on that tree. She pulled out another arrow, set into the bow and raised her arms again. Tomorrow, her shots will be the same. She would not miss.
The handle on the door clattered a bit too loudly as Aurora let it drop from her hand. After hearing bare feet softly striking the floor and watching a light turn on in the window, Aurora recognized the sound of the lock being pulled back.
“Why do I have the pleasure of seeing you on my doorstep so late at night?” Griffin inquired as he opened the door to her. He leaned against the doorway with a sideways smile. Aurora rolled her eyes and pushed past him inside.
The town cottage was smaller than her own family’s cottage. Walking in, everything was right there. The small living area was just inside the door. The kitchen was at the back of the room, and there were two small doors to the left that went into two very tiny bedrooms. Then there was a small upright piano against the right wall. That was it.
Though it was small, the mismatching furniture was smaller. It allowed the space to look as if it were roomier. Everything in the place looked just to be barely hanging on. The cushioned sitting chairs had fabric swatches stitched in different sections where Alice had repaired and covered rips. The small dining table had one leg that was about to give up its position, leaving the whole thing lopsided.
Aurora always felt that tug of guilt when realizing they would not live like this if one of their parents was still alive. Griffin worked, but not for much. He only worked enough to be helpful to a family that already had a substantial income, which they did not.
“Get Alice in here. I need to talk to you both,” Aurora demanded.
As if her own name summoned her, Alice stepped out from her room. She looked like she had just woken up from a deep sleep.
“Aurora? Why are you here? Did something happen to your mother?” she asked, eyes going wide with worry. Aurora shook her head.
There was a moment of silence. Aurora hesitated before she spewed the confession out of her mouth.
“I’m going to take part in the trials tomorrow.”
Alice’s jaw dropped at the same time Griffin called out in protest.
“I need to be more awake for this,” Alice then said. She stalked over to her kitchen and started a pot of tea.
“What in saint's name would convince you to do that?” Griffin asked as he grabbed Aurora’s hand and whirled her around to face him.
“You already know the answer to that Grif,” Aurora answered, her voice desperate.
“Um, hello? Do you remember what happens to the person from whatever village who gets that job each time the Unseelie King comes around?” Alice then asked, pouring three cups of tea. Each of them took a cup and started sipping. “You would be stuck in the Unseelie Court for a year, or more, if you follow in Karmen’s footsteps. They wouldn’t allow you to even come visit your family during that time. It is more than likely that you would be gone from the mortal lands forever,” she pointed out. The last part came out in a whisper as if she could barely speak of the horror. Aurora worried her lip between her teeth.
