Huntsman's Prey (23 page)

Reforming immediately, he tossed the dark, jelly like matter to the ground and pulled Chrysa into his arms. She was limp; her head dangled and there was no warmth. No life. No laughter.

She was gone.

“Lissa? Chrysa?” He lightly tapped her cheeks. His eyes frantically searching for any spark of life, or hope…

But there was nothing there.

And he didn’t know how to take it. There should be tears. There should be wailing and moaning. But he felt strangely void. Just… empty.

Then another set of arms was snatching her out of his and he didn’t fight it, he didn’t move.

And now there was wailing. Female wailing—great and keening and loud and so full of pain that it hurt to listen to it.

A large hand clapped his back, making him stumble in the water. He turned, and Jericho just shook his head and there was a wet sheen reflected in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Huntsman, I know you tried.”

He may have muttered something back, Aeric wasn’t sure.

There was so much droning of noise all around.

The mad chattering of a broken man. The agony of a mother’s shattered heart. And the quarreling of fairies casting blame all around.

“Aeric!” Danika’s voice finally cut through his stupor.

“Huh?” He glanced up.

“I said,” she took a deep breath, but he could see that her lower lip was quivering, she fought to keep herself together, “you’ll catch a chill in that water.”

He looked down, only just realizing he was still standing in the moon pond, but no longer did it glow, no magic to fill the night. Wonderland rang with the sounds of a happy forest. Buzzing bugs, hooting owls and the strange laughter of a vaporous cat.

Hatter was on the ground, Alice beside him, Chrysalis was in his arms and they were rubbing her limp arms, cooing and humming to her.

The sight made a hard lump work its way to the back of Aeric’s throat. Swallowing hard, he walked out of the water.

He needed to get away. To go back to his court, to his people and away from the madness of a world that for a moment had filled his bleak existence with laughter and light.

“Wait.” Esmeralda shook her head. He turned to her.

She looked as she normally did. Her eyes were a deep mossy green. “I need you here to help me pass down final verdict in this case.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that they still needed, but Aeric was too exhausted to care. “What?” he snapped.

But rather than get angry or hurt at him, she merely gave him a soft smile, as if she sympathized with him. It infuriated him to receive such a pitying glance. He didn’t need anyone’s pity or remorse.

“Aeric, what was it that you found inside of Chrysalis?”

Closing his eyes, hating all of them for all their past sins that caused the death of his woman, he snarled and pointed at the pile of gelatinous goo. “That.”

“And that is what exactly?” Esmeralda continued to ask softly, being so much more patient with him than he would have been with her. “Is it a soul, hunter?”

Aeric knew what it was, and he knew she knew what it was. He looked into the eyes of all of them. Galeta and her petty jealousies. Danika and her foolishness that led her into being cursed in the first place. Jericho and his desire for more than he’d been allotted. Alice and Hatter with fat tears still streaming from the corners of their eyes. Esmeralda and her guileless eyes.

He sighed. His anger was distorting everything. None of them had asked for Siria’s duplicity in this matter. Even Galeta with all her flaws, hadn’t known what the sun planned to do to Chrysalis.

And it would be so easy to fix all his hate into that black puddle on the forest floor, but what purpose would it serve? Siria’s plan had worked perfectly. It didn’t matter that she’d been caught and that now she’d be punished. All she’d ever wanted was to hurt Danika and Jericho, using their goddaughter had been the perfect way to get back at them.

She won.

“That
thing
is a sliver of Siria’s own soul.”

Danika’s lips curled.

“Thank you,” Esmeralda whispered and gently rubbed his arm. “Galeta, have you any words?” The Green asked the headmistress.

Hugging her icy robe tighter, the Blue dipped her head. But instead of looking haughty and gleeful, as was her usual manner, her tone was subdued and tinged with a touch of remorse.

“As much as I’ve warred with Danika,” she glanced at the fairy in particular, “I did not know what Siria had planned when we’d passed judgment all those years ago. You must know, Danika and Jericho,” she looked at them both, “I would never have condoned this.”

Everyone’s eyes immediately turned to Esmeralda, because she was the one fairy who could see through any lie to the real truth beneath. The Green nodded.

“She speaks from the heart. There is no duplicity in there. Then if that is all that is to be said,” she quirked a brow at Galeta who nodded an assent, “I shall pronounce judgment.”

Suddenly the mass of black began to take shape and coalesce into a shadowy figure that sparkled with veins of brightest onyx. A face formed, and then a mouth, and when it moved, it spoke. “Galeta, you hated her as much as I. How could this be wrong? I’ve done nothing,” the smoky mirage pleaded, holding out her arms in supplication toward the Blue.

In a rare act of solidarity, Galeta hissed. “How dare you beg me for forgiveness.”

The mirage that was Siria frowned.

“But I thought—”

Galeta snorted. “That I’d back you? Be okay with this? I’ve never, in all my days, hurt a child. And I never would. I understand the need for vengeance, but this…” she dusted her hands together, “even I am not so heartless. Esmeralda, if I may have some say in this punishment?”

The Green frowned, as did everyone else. Judgment was the sole domain of justice, it wasn’t unheard of to have an outsider step in and dole out punishment, but it was exceedingly rare.

Galeta’s smile was nothing but sharp pointed teeth. “I think I know exactly how to hurt her.”

“Galeta,” Esmeralda warned, holding up a finger. “You might be head mistress but justice is justice and I will hand it down to
whoever
deserves it.” The threat to Galeta was obvious.

But the head mistress didn’t miss a beat.

“Indeed, I should hope so. I am not the monster you all assume me.”

Danika snorted, to which Galeta merely rolled her eyes.

“All I’ve done, I’ve done with purpose, as have the both of you.” She pinned both fairies with frosty glares. “I swear to you now, that the punishment I have in mind will favor us all and will be good for Kingdom as well. Do I have your trust?”

Aeric didn’t know much of fairy machinations, but he did understand that justice could only be handed down once. That was the way of magic justice, what was done could not be undone.

“I don’t know if we should,” Danika hedged.

But Esmeralda held up a hand. “I believe her. Galeta, I cede the right to you.” The Green stepped aside. “Just this once, mind.”

The Blue nodded. Danika held tight to Jericho’s hand. Alice and Hatter didn’t seem to be paying any of this much mind. They were still peppering their daughter’s brow with kisses.

Aeric had to squeeze his eyes shut against the sight of it. The sooner they finished here, the sooner he could go. And he had to go. Wonderland held nothing for him anymore. All its allure was gone with her.

Lissa had made everything sparkle, had made the beautiful ten times more beautiful and the dangerous even more exciting. Now it just looked like a spooky forest with a couple of twisted multi-colored trees. The excitement, the verve of the place… it was all gone.

He clenched his jaw.

“Siria, daughter of the son,” Galeta intoned.

Siria trembled.

“No longer are you guardian of the sun.”

“What!” Siria cried, eyes going wide in her hazy face. “You cannot do this, Esmeralda, please, she cannot do this!”

Danika and Esmeralda both sucked in loud breaths. Aeric wasn’t sure he fully understood why.

“Not only that,” Galeta continued, and staring deep into Siria’s eyes, the gleeful smile she always wore was nowhere to be seen, there was only determination and a fine hint of sadness, “you are now mortal.”

“Dear Gods,” someone breathed, and it sounded suspiciously like Jericho.

Esmeralda looked stunned. “But the sun, the sun requires a guardian, Galeta, what have you done?”

Galeta shook her head. “And the sun will have it, there will be an interim guardian until we find someone who can honor their position with the same type of class and grace as Jericho has exhibited.”

Danika sobbed and hugged Jericho’s neck with such joy that Aeric couldn’t understand it. Something had just happened, but it was more than he could currently process.

He was stunned when he turned to look at the smoky mirage to note that no longer was it smoky or hazy, but now there was a woman there. A very mundane looking woman dressed in a red silk gown that fitted her poorly. Her blond hair hung around her shoulders, lank and lifeless. Her eyes were a cloudy shade of blue and her face wrinkled and pitted, as if from sun damage.

He could only assume her to be Siria, she was hunched over, sobbing loudly and muttering that they’d gone too far.

That was enough to make his deadened emotions flare to life.

“Too far?” he snarled, shaking his fist at her. “Not far enough in my opinion. You deserve to die for what you did. For how you used her. She is dead and you’re still living.” He spat.

“Siria, no longer are you a denizen of Kingdom, your home is Earth now. You cannot stay and you can never return,” Esmeralda said with a shake of her head, and there was a glow of tears in her green eyes—as if somehow she felt bad for the hunched over woman before them.

“No, please. This cannot be. This…”

His lip curled, and before he gave in to his need to strangle a woman, Aeric turned on his heels and walked away. No longer caring what happened or what they did.

No one tried to stop him, or called his name. They no longer cared. He didn’t matter to them, and the one person to whom he had mattered was gone.

The second he made to step foot out of the demarcation between Wonderland and the rest of Kingdom the roar of a steel horse caught his attention.

A gloating Rumpel lifted devilish brows. “And now, huntsman, you belong to me…”

Three months later

“And you’re sure of that?” Rumple lifted a blond brow, twirling the jewel-encrusted dagger between his fingers.

“Yes,” Aeric nodded. “I’m sure of it.” He slapped the parchment into the imp’s chest and turned to leave. His debt had been paid in full. The rest was up to the bastard himself.

Grabbing the sheaf and tucking it into his pocket with a tempered sort of glee, Rumpelstiltskin nodded. “I don’t trust you, hunter, and if you’re wrong—”

“You know where I live. Got it, beelzebub.”

The blond haired sorcerer nodded as he leaned back in his leather seat. His steel horse rumbling and purring with its need to seek out their next adventure.

Aeric had been right the first time he’d seen the imp’s mode of transportation. The thing was part sentient and as mean as the devil’s dog.

The cliffs they stood by whistled with the strength of the winds coasting up from the Seren Seas.

“I’ve debated for months now whether to share this with you, because sharing isn’t really my thing,” Rumple laughed.

“So why start now?” Aeric leaned against the slate shelf of a protruding rock. For months he’d been on the hunt for the so called ‘enigma’ a being that would supposedly lead to the destruction of Rumpel.

Of course the imp hadn’t out and out told Aeric that, but he’d gleaned the truth from the bits and pieces of information he’d gathered.

Rumpel was as powerful as they all said, but even the most powerful had that one enemy they all feared. But rather than wait for the destruction to come to him, Rumpel decided to find it first and end it.

A solid plan if Aeric had anything to say about it. But now he was done and he was ready to go. Not back to court either.

He was through being the Red Queen’s goon. Aeric was tired, it’d taken him months to get over the loss of her.

He still couldn’t bring himself to even say her name. Some days were harder than others, but each day he could breathe just a little easier. All he wanted was solitude.

Rumpel chuckled. “While your self-flagellation has been a delight, truly, there are… shall we say, mutterings of something strange happening in Wonderland.”

“There is always something strange happening in Wonderland.” Aeric kicked at a rock, watching as it sailed over the cliff, tumbling end over end, before finally crashing and breaking apart into a hundred smaller pieces below.

Revving his engine, Rumpel nodded. “Indeed. But humor me for a second with a riddle.”

“Dear gods, what?” he snapped, at the end of his rope and desperate to go. As if three months of his life wasn’t enough, the imp was goading him.

“What is blue and black and purrs like a kitty?”

Head snapping up, eyes narrowing, everything inside Aeric went very, very still. “What are you saying?”

His answering smile was his only answer.