Eric Linnaeus | Book 3 | Chapter 7 - Better an Orphan than Dead (Patreon)

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𝔹𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕟 𝕆𝕣𝕡𝕙𝕒𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕟 𝔻𝕖𝕒𝕕ʙʀɪɢᴇᴛᴛᴀ ʟɪɴɴæᴜs:ᴅᴇᴄᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, 𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟾 - ᴍᴀʏ, 𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟿.

─── .✦········· ───

When I reached my aunt and uncle’s home, it was dim. The flowers in their garden stretched toward the moonlit sky, and I let myself in. The floorboards creaked underfoot, and a gentle breeze drifted in through open windows. I knew the layout well and moved silently to find my cousin. Anxiety hastened my steps; who could say how much time was left? Thankfully, Eiríkr was still asleep in his bed, and I hauled him into my arms without giving him the chance to properly wake as I shoved what I could into a backpack for him.

“Brigetta? What are we doing?” he mumbled; his voice thick with sleep and confusion.

“Quiet, just hold onto me.”

The boy held onto my neck as instructed, and I supported him in one arm. I slung the backpack over my shoulder and grabbed his leg brace in my free hand. It was cumbersome, but I knew we would not return. I left behind anything that wasn’t essential, and we went without delay.

“Where are we going?” Eiríkr repeated, more alarmed as we exited the town.

“Somewhere else,” I answered minimally.

“But where?”

“Anywhere that’s not here.”

“Where are Móðir and Faðir?”

“They left already…”

“Without me?” he pouted; he didn’t understand yet.

“Yes…” I mumbled without elaborating, and my cousin fell silent as he thought about it.

By then, the weather had worsened beyond my influence. Ice fell with the rain, and lightning broke the sky. These kinds of storms are rare in nature, though not impossible; but I knew this wasn’t a natural storm. I could sense death in the air, even from afar.

“What is that?” Eiríkr asked quietly.

We were at a good elevation to see the town, and he was looking back over my shoulder, so it was with reluctance that I turned around. It was difficult to see from a distance, but I understood what he had noticed. The creatures that descended on our town came from above. They were a tangled mess of dark feathers and far too many eyes. Their true form is different from ours, uglier, and I watched them with malice.

I recognized Eyvindr as he stepped forward to face them. His energy expanded out in a massive black haze that blocked out the light; it would turn his nails black and develop the markings on his skin as it leaked from his shoulder blades. In truth, I had forgotten his strength. He is ancient and experienced, and for a moment, I worried he might be enough to save them from this fate.

If he could, our own family would come after us. We would be hunted for an eternity, and I felt nervous at the thought. Perhaps this was another mistake? As he fought, more arrived to face him, and his magic was smothered in theirs. Screams filled the night air, and I shuddered. It was the second time I didn’t enjoy the sensation of death; the suffering and fear that came with it was overwhelming. Perhaps I was turning soft.

“What are they?” Eiríkr insisted; I had forgotten he was watching.

“Don’t look,” I murmured, turning his face away from the town as we continued on.

─── .✦········· ───

In the weeks that followed, we were hunted. Hrafn must have told the others that I went back for Eiríkr, and we were now as much enemies as the others had been. To evade our family we traveled south until we reached Fae territory, then redirected. The Fae are approximately our equals; they have prevented our expansion to the south for millennia. There’s no saying who would win in a fight between us, so I preferred not to run into one.

For days we tread the line between our territory and the Fae’s. I didn’t know if crossing the boundary would alert them to our presence, and I didn’t want to take the chance. But merely existing in this way was difficult. Nowhere was safe, and we couldn’t stay in any one place for too long.

Exhaustion was setting in, and I was beginning to run out of options when I at last made the decision to cross the border. I’m not sure what I expected in doing so; there seemed no visible change of the land, nor of the people, and no one came to stop us. Still, we moved with even more caution than before.

The first town we reached was well populated, and it was easy to move unnoticed among the humans. I left Eiríkr in a hotel room to sleep while I set out for supplies. Stealing is easy enough, and remaining hidden among unobservant humans is hardly a challenge. But it seemed Fae were present even at the very edges of their territory and avoiding them would be more difficult.

As it were, I rounded a corner in the streets to find a young man with short white hair, and I immediately knew he was Fae. The aura surrounding him was confident blue, and he walked alone without care. Fae are arrogant creatures; they think themselves invincible, and I felt contempt rising within me. I could attack him, rip him apart in the streets—watch his blood flow down the asphalt and away into the drains. It would only take a second..-

I almost moved in that moment. My own nature was overwhelming, and the control it took to stay in place was dizzying. Yet, to make a fuss such as this would draw unnecessary attention, I couldn’t risk it. Instead, I watched as he trotted down a set of steps and onto the sidewalk where his car was parked. It was a sickeningly pretentious vehicle, a black Mercedes with white wall tires.

He hesitated when he reached it, his hand resting on the door handle as he glanced up. His bright green eyes contracted as he instinctively looked in my direction, and I stepped back into the shadows. Had he sensed my malice? When I dared look back, his car was gone, and I let out a sigh of relief. If he had come any closer, I can’t be sure that I could have subdued the bloodlust.

Still, it was reassuring to see a Fae so close to the border, for it signified they were confident in their hold of the land, and our family might hesitate to cross into it en masse. It also meant I would need to teach Eiríkr to hide his presence, for although we do revive and gain strength each time we do, there are still ways to kill us where we will not rise again. If I were going to leave Eiríkr here, it was vital that he could hide from the Fae as they would undoubtedly kill him.

“Concentrate,” I scolded as he dimmed his energy.

“I’m trying!”

His aura was almost not worth dimming in the first place. If he could learn to pull the magic from it, it would appear human, and that was most important. Once he understood how to redirect his energy to prevent it from showing externally, I taught him to suppress his influences. Turn off his charm, negate influence of weather, and prevent plants from wilting in his presence. Those were far more challenging tasks.

At the end of each day Eiríkr curled beside me, and I cuddled him close. He slept peacefully in my arms while I lay awake for hours. I doubted this boy would survive long without me, almost as much as I doubted he would survive with me. We couldn’t run forever. Eventually, our family would cross into Fae territory in search of us; and if they didn’t find us first, I was sure our luck with the Fae would run out.

That was why I decided to leave him among humans. He would be safer with them. I had seen nuns in the town asking for donations to an orphanage. That was where I would leave him. Under the darkness of an incoming storm, I took him there, though he didn’t fully understand that I intended to leave him until the house was in sight.

“Go now; the humans will care for you,” I insisted, nudging him forward.

“You’re not coming with me…?” he asked uncertainly, and I shook my head.

“I can’t; they only accept young children,” I explained gently.

“Then I don’t want to go…” he murmured.

“You have no choice.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“You can’t.”

“But we’re okay. We can keep going-”

“You can’t stay with me,” I repeated. He didn’t understand that we weren’t okay. To run forever is no life. Moreover, I needed to leave Fae territory; to cross the border back and lead our family away before they ever realized where we had gone.

“But why not? I want to.”

I took in a deep breath, “I don’t want you to,” I lied, and he hesitated.

“…Did I do something wrong?” Eiríkr asked timidly.

“You mean you didn’t figure it out yet? That human you let go in Tesoro is the reason our family was killed. Our family is dead because of you. You’re weak and a burden. I’m tired of looking after you,” I stated as bluntly as I could manage.

His brow creased as he believed what I had said, and his bottom lip trembled as he tried to apologize, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Your intentions don’t matter, and I don’t care if you’re sorry. What you’ve done is unforgivable, Eiríkr,” I resented saying the words; I hated the way fat tears welled under his long lashes and the hurt on his face as he tried to keep a stiff upper lip.

“Go,” I growled, “Hide your aura, use your common name, and never tell anyone who you truly are or where you came from. There’s not a single person who would allow you to live if they knew what you were.”

“You’re lying… Y-You’re-”

“I’m sure you’d like to believe that, but you know it’s true. I’ve had enough of caring about you. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself.”

“But… I-I love you… please don’t go…” he whimpered.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before I spoke again. “Love?” I laughed humorlessly, “That’s nice. I don’t love you; if I did, I would say it. I don’t because you mean nothing to me, so there’s no need to waste the words. Now go. Live whatever life you can as a human.”

“W-what if I die? Humans don’t come back-”

“Are you stupid? If you understand humans don’t come back, then you only have one choice. Never die in front of them. Humans will kill you for being something else, and anything else will kill you for being what you are. If you want to live, you can never tell anyone. No matter who they are, you understand?”

He was quiet and I could tell he was struggling, but I kept my expression blank. “..I understand,” he whispered at last as the rain began to fall.

“Good. Now go. Before they turn all the lights out.”

Eiríkr did as I asked, and I waited nearby until a nun opened the door. Watching him go was harder than I had imagined, and as the rain soaked my hair, I cried in earnest. Everything I had said to him was awful. He deserved to know he was loved and that it wasn’t his fault the others were killed, but it was the only way I could get him to go, and I hated myself for it.

─── .✦········· ───

Leaving Eiríkr had been the most difficult thing I had ever done. Nonetheless, as blood trickled from my mouth and I gasped in pain, I had never been more glad to have done it. For you see, it was less than a day after hiding Eiríkr that I was captured by Fae, and when they were unable to kill me, they sent me back to my family.

“Tell me where my son is!” Katla hissed as she hit me again, and I chuckled to myself. She was rapidly losing her ‘favorite aunt’ status, and I didn’t care what she did to me. I would never tell her.

“I…” It was difficult to speak as I swallowed blood, “I- have no idea.”

I had been tied to a chair in a very ordinary room; and although I had tried, I could not escape the restraints. Simple rope is all they were, but without any way to cut them, it’s not as though I was strong enough to break them. Initially, I had also thought of breaking the chair itself. But that idea only earned me a blackened eye that had swollen shut and a paralysis spell to be written on the floor around me.

“Your games aren’t funny, Bridgett.”

“I didn’t realize we were playing a game, Kitty Kat.” Maybe I shouldn’t have antagonized her. She hit me harder for calling her that; Katla hated it whenever anyone called her Kat because she disliked cats to begin with.

“Perhaps a few more days will change your mind,” Katla muttered as she turned to leave.

I hardly even knew whether it was night or day. They had beaten and starved me for some time and were always careful not to let me die. If we don’t die, we can’t heal, and our true power won’t activate. Compared to humans, we aren’t all that different—a little stronger, perhaps—but our bones can be broken, and we bleed all the same.

Still, Katla didn’t scare me in particular; it was Mercurius that I feared. When he came into the room, his nails were charcoal, and the underside of his jaw was darkened. Black lines reached upward over his cheeks from his jawline, and he casually rolled his sleeves, folding the fabric with purposeful care.

He pulled over another chair and turned it around as he sat to speak with me. “Brigetta, how are you?” he began cordially.

“Could be better,” I responded with a broad smile, showing my teeth.

“I’m sure,” he mused, reaching out to brush the hair from my face. I could tell he was trying to use his charm ability on me, and I scowled; it wasn’t as strong as Venere’s. He would have to try better than that.

Mercury was a man with a deceptively pleasant smile and gentle features. Rarely did he raise his voice, and with his polite way of speaking, one could be forgiven for thinking him to be a pushover. However, beneath the shallow depths of feigned kindness, his true emotions are difficult to determine. He is a soft shell with a hard interior, and I have always found his indifference unsettling.

“Are you ready to tell me where my Eiríkr has run to?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sighed as if let down, and I can’t say it had no effect. My uncle looked very alike to my father, and it was the same deep, disappointed tone I faced when I misbehaved as a child. “You care about my son, do you not?”

“Not at all,” I lied without hesitation.

“And yet you would risk your life and endure this torture for him all the same. You’re a smart girl, Brigetta; I’m sure you’re aware Eiríkr stands little chance on his own. You left him in Fae territory. If he is discovered, they will kill him, and if humans find him first, they will kill him as well. His place is with us.”

“So you can kill him?” I sneered spitefully, “Eiríkr is more capable than you think.”

“If you truly believe that, then you should understand he has nothing to fear from us. Either he is strong enough to survive on his own and, therefore, strong enough to earn his place among us. Or you are deceiving yourself and know he is weak; in which case he will die regardless of anything we could do. So which is it? Do you believe him to be weak or strong?”

I held my tongue; the way he spoke made me question my beliefs, and I refused to give him an answer. Fortunately, he didn’t press it and instead continued sedately. “Furthermore, you care about your parents? Your brothers and sisters, your other cousins, is that not so?”

“Of course, I care about this family,” I hissed, irritated; this is why I hated talking to him. Every word he spoke had some double-edged meaning to cage you into a trap.

“So then tell me, why would you risk all of their lives?”

“What are you talking about?” I muttered at last.

“Eiríkr saw what happened at Tesoro and in our village. Should he tell anyone, we would face the consequences. Is that what you would like?”

“He wouldn’t say anything.”

“He’s a child; of course he will tell anyone who asks of us.”

“He won’t. Eiríkr understands he would be in danger if he said anything.”

Mercury sat forward, watching me with cold indifference before he spoke again. “Well, at least we know he’s alive and somewhere in the Fae territory. Care to tell us how far south we should search?”

I set my jaw. It was stupid of me to have answered any of his questions.

“Your defiance is pointless. Although I am glad of it, for I have long wondered what happens if limbs are removed. Will they regrow upon revival? Can they be sewn back on? Is the damage permanent?” The smallest spark of genuine curiosity in his eyes sent a chill down my spine. He was making a threat, and I knew it. “Your father wishes for me to release you, but he understands that you’ve come between my son and I. So, I’ll give you some time to think about what I have said, and when I return, I expect that you will tell me where he is. Or I will finally have answers to my other pressing questions. The choice is yours.”

As he stood, he tilted my chin up and leaned over to kiss my forehead sweetly, “Think well, Brigetta,” he whispered against my ear before leaving. His reputation for violence and manipulation was well intact.

I was left alone for some time; but in the darkness of the night, the door opened, and I tensed. “Hrafn,” I greeted my brother. His shape in the doorway was distinctive.

“You stabbed me and left me on the ground like a piece of trash,” he muttered.

“How long did it take you to recover?”

“Too long.”

“Sorry,” I laughed somewhat nervous, but it was good to see him regardless, “Why are you here?”

“To tell you to give up. Just tell them where our cousin is and let this be done.”

He was probably sent to interrogate me as well. “No,” I answered simply.

“Our uncle will hurt you.”

“And Father will do nothing to stop it?”

“Father sent me to talk some sense into you.”

“What a frivolous task! Is our family truly so weak that we’re afraid of a child?”

“Eiríkr knows too much; no one leaves this family alive. You know those are the rules.”

“It’s a stupid rule.”

“Brigetta, please.”

“Your concern is touching,” I said sarcastically. His silence thereafter was uncomfortable; I knew he cared. “…Can I ask for a favor?”

He hesitated, then carefully stated, “I can’t let you go. You know that.”

“That’s not what I’m asking… I’m asking that you kill me permanently. I won’t give up Eiríkr, but I don’t want to face Mercury. If I could do it myself, I would…”

It was a terrible thing I was asking of him, but something I knew he would agree to. He understood just as well as I that the torture would never end if he didn’t end it for me. Still, I think I regret asking him of all people. I’m not sure if he’s strong enough to recover from it; I just hope he understands it’s what I wanted.

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