EL BK5 | Chapter 44 - One Sad Fairy Living up to His Name. (Patreon)

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Charles Walsh

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The day we left Hohenblut castle to return home the sky was gray and the ocean seaweed-green. Achaicus stood on the dock as rigid as a statue, his face stern while the loose strands of his long hair fluttered about. He didn’t even blink when they touched his lashes. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he was facing the chopping block. But, maybe he was with how Ilaya was speaking to him.

“Return to your brother.” Her voice was the snap of a whip and I cringed for Achaicus. She wouldn’t say out loud that he had disappointed her, shamed their lineage for a hundred years, or something like that. This seemed like the sort of thing Fae would curse generations for.

Things had gone a bit sideways after he broke up with Saskia. I didn’t know it was such a big deal until Achaicus was shaking my shoulder in the middle of the night. 

“Charles. Wake,” he spoke softly but with an underlying urgency that jolted me awake.

The book I’d fallen asleep cradling fell from my hands and clattered on the floor as I sat upright like a mummy rising from its tomb. “I’m awake,” an intelligent answer to give when I was in fact, not certain I was.

“You need to pack your belongings. Go to the garage and load them into my car.”

“Why? What’s happening?” My feet found the slippers beside the bed as I struggled to pull off my nightshirt and pull the new one on at the same time.

“Not yet. But we may have to leave swiftly,” Achaicus turned away without explaining further.

“Am I supposed to pack the books as well?” I called after him. 

It was super helpful that he didn’t answer, leaving me to haul my pants on. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was Halle he was worried about. No one could touch me because I was under Nathaniel’s protection back home, while the girl was only under Achaicus’s and he knew it. My suitcase bulged as I shoved clothes and books in. The thing only closed with a foot on top holding it down. I should have folded things but I didn’t know how much time I had. 

Achaicus drifted past in his night robe, then back again as he pulled on his pants before making a third pass as he buttoned his shirt. Out of the three of us, Halle was the most put together. Wide awake and alert, she stood like a guard dog having heard a whistle, hand on the sword at her waist, stance slightly wide the same way everyone always told me to stand when preparing to spar. 

Together we walked swiftly through the hallways into the garage. Our reflections curved over the polished surfaces of museum level cars lining the space until we reached Achaicus’s black car. Parked between a variety of other colorful vehicles it looked like it could have eaten, the vehicle was almost blocked in, and our escape left a scrape on the side of someone’s dark blue car beside it. 

Unfortunately, Achaicus’s grandparents were already waiting for us by the time we reached the docks. 

Seated atop enormous Fae horses, massively out of place all lingering between empty houses and down the ramp to the ship, they glared down. Guards flanked them on all sides and when Ilyana dismounted, Achaicus flinched. 

“Switch seats with me,” he demanded, as tense as a cat over water.

He exited out the drivers side without even checking that I would, and I clambered over the center consul, hitting my head in the process, to save the car. The man didn’t even shift out of drive, just let the car stall so that it shut off. That couldn’t be good for the engine, could it? Grappling to work the old gears I hovered with my foot on the brake, ready to peel off at a moment's notice.

“We should defend our master,” Halle leaned forward over the center console to better see what was happening. 

Achaicus stood tense and miserable as his grandparents told him to leave, but it didn’t look like it would come to a fight. “I think he wants us to stay in the car,” I assured her.

“He looks uncomfortable,” she insisted. 

He would be more uncomfortable with us in the way, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I just pressed the button to engage the child lock in case the girl got any ideas to leap out and pretended I couldn’t hear the scolding Achaicus was getting…

“If the girl was not to your liking, you shouldn’t have allowed yourself to be seen with her so often,” Ælferic was saying. 

“The embarrassment you have brought to our reputation, and theirs, will not fade easily,” Ilayna agreed with her husband. “Moreover, we cannot renege on what we had promised Niftrik for her dowry. That payment was for a Klein son, now we are empty handed.”

Achaicus didn’t answer immediately. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and he began to tremble as he glared down at the wooden beams beneath us. His chest was still, holding his breath, before he at least spoke. “I didn’t think you would betrothed her to me.” 

“I suspected you didn’t think at all. Now go. While we are kind enough to allow it.”

With that, she turned her horse away. Ælferic followed a moment later and the guards folded in behind them. Passive aggression if ever I saw it. 

*** 

Achaicus didn’t speak to us for most of the journey home. Confined to his room under self imposed imprisonment, he didn’t even come out for meals. I banged on his door with my fist while Halle hovered in the hall behind me, and when Achaicus predictably didn’t open his door, I used a little spit of magic to open it. Enough was enough, and I was starting to worry he’d jumped out the porthole.

Inside the room was dim. The sharp smell of wine wafted into my face as I fumbled for a light switch and when I found it, the sight was much what I expected. One large Fae man face down on the couch, his hair loose and hanging down until it puddled on the floor. Pale red tears ran down the wall on the other side of the room and stained the carpet below. He hadn’t even bothered to pick up the glass from whatever he’d thrown. Glass or bottle? 

Glass, I decided, given the bottle was still in his hand. 

“Achaicus?” I called, skeptical that he was even still alive. 

“Go away,” he replied softly. His voice sounded like he’d been chewing on the broken glass.

Rubbing the back of my head, I half turned back toward Halle. She looked about ready to shove me through the doorway to get into the room to check on her ‘master’. “Wait out here, I’ll get him cleaned up,” I closed the door in her face, ignoring her protests. 

If Achaicus had any thoughts about that he didn’t share them. Listless he groaned when I tried to sit him up. “I want to be alone,” he complained with a snide snarl.

“Yeah well, I think too much ‘alone’ isn’t working for you.” 

“I’ll command you…”

I might have believed it if he looked like he could, but he didn’t so I ignored it. “Come on, up we go,” I hoisted him to his feet.

He smelled like a wine barrel and was as heavy as a rock. Eric hadn’t been wrong when he complained about Nathaniel laying on him, Fae were heavy. 

Stumbling side to side, both with the sway of the ship and with the uncooperation of Achaicus, we crossed the room. The bathroom was the goal. We half crashed into the doorway before I managed to shove him through into the shower fully clothed.

“Stop it…” he complained.

“Later…” It was a distracted answer as I tried to guess which tap was hot and which was cold. 

The pipes hissed when I turned the knob and cold water sprayed into the tub. Achaicus gasped and was suddenly more alert. 

“You have a death wish!?”

“Nope, not particularly,” I assured. “Just need you to sober up enough to eat something before you waste away.” 

He tried to escape the water but slipped back into a seated position and decided to stay there while the water warmed. “You are a horribly trained Pet,” he muttered, resting his head back against the edge of the tub.

Suddenly I knew why Eric hated it when he was called a ‘Pet’. “Right, well, I’ll go get you something to eat.” I moved to leave, but he spoke again.

“Wait…” his voice was exhausted, “Stay?” 

I did, against my better judgement, and we sat in silence listening to the patter of water raining down on ceramic. Mist swirled in the air until the room was a hazy box of steam. If I was imaginative I could have pretended we were back home in one of the bathhouses, but now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Achaicus in one of them before. More often than not it was Eric and I in the sauna after training, sometimes Nathaniel as well, and Markos, but never Achaicus.  

‘The Fae woman was ugly,’ Ronové’s thoughts invaded mine. ‘He shouldn’t be so upset.’ 

She wasn't ‘ugly’, as he’d put it. The woman just looked a little bit more human, that was all. Although she was still slightly too freaky for that to be true. It was more like she was a different kind of Fae, and nicer as far as I was concerned. Claire would have liked her. 

‘Ask him if he really said that to her face,’ Ronové egged. 

‘Shut it, I’m not asking him that,’ I replied only because I had to.

‘Ask him.’

I ignored that. “So, how long until we get back?” 

Achaicus didn’t react past a small shrug of his shoulders and I supposed this return journey was unplanned. Maybe that affected things? Still, I got the impression that he didn’t care, not that he didn’t know.

‘Ask him.’ 

‘No.’

“The weather’s been pretty good,” I tried to encourage the fairy to talk. 

“The seas are calm,” he agreed like I’d asked him to collect seaweed. 

‘Ask him, ask him, ask him, ask him, ask him-” Ronové’s request built in my head until I couldn’t deal with it anymore. 

“Did you really tell Saskia that she was too ugly?” I blurted out tactlessly. Brilliant Charles, way to kick him while he’s down, I scolded myself.

Unaware of the internal war within me, the Fae looked over. His eyes brimmed with sorrow and somehow even brighter green than usual, drowning in regret. “...No, of course not. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known…”

Silence from Ronové. I guess he was satisfied now at least, but I was only confused. “Sorry, I thought that was what Ilyana said,” I apologized. I shouldn't have asked. 

“She did,” his voice became thin until it was just a whisper. “Saskia lied…”

“Why?”

Achaicus tried to speak, but no sound came out before he began to sob. Through the flow of water I couldn’t say I saw tears, it was just the relentless trembling of his shoulders and the hicks that gave it away. His hair pooled around him in the water and I felt an awkward surge of regret. Like this wasn’t something I was supposed to see. A monstrous creature that could rip me apart, reduced to tears. 

I swallowed the discomfort and pretended I didn’t notice while I waited for him to calm. I was half way through counting the tiles on the wall when he spoke again. 

“She could have told everyone…” his voice was so quiet I strained to hear it. 

“Told everyone what?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. 

“All she wanted was a family, but I can’t give her that. She left me, and then she lied to protect my reputation…”

I didn’t press him on it. I knew Fae with a lot of power were infertile and I figured telling him they might find a cure soon wasn’t going to help him right now. 

***

The rest of the journey back I spent babysitting Halle and Achaicus. The girl was just as dull as Calla, while the Fae was a mess. At least I didn’t have time to get sea sick. 

The cliff Leúchtend sat on against the ocean came into sight on the horizon long before the castle itself did. Hidden under a barrier of illusions, it materialized all at once like a mirage in sea mist when we were close enough. It’s gleaming surface obscured by thin clouds was just as bright as I remembered it. 

On the dock a tiny figure stood waving frantically, Claire I was sure. How she knew we were coming I had no idea. Markos stood beside her, I could tell just from his broad silhouette and past them a row of mounted Fae assembled in a long line. As we grew close enough to make out more detail, I noticed a dark hair among all the white and knew it was Eric. He sat on a horse in front of a Fae man, Nathaniel no doubt. 

“Nothing like a big greeting party,” I commented. “How did they know we were coming?”

“Lord Ælferic must have sent word of our return,” Achaicus answered. He didn’t look any less miserable to be home. 

Disembarking from the ship, Claire was the first to throw herself at us only drawing up short at the sight of Halle behind Achaicus. A flicker of wary suspicion crossed my sister's face and she withdrew back to Markos. His eyes tracked Halle without emotion until Achaicus introduced the girl. 

“This is Halle, I took over her contract while we were away,” the lackluster tone of his voice made it sound like he’d died rather than gained a Pet. 

“We expected potential hostility,” Markos answered, and I realized only then that Calla wasn’t with him and neither was Hadrian. 

What had Ælferic said in his letter?

The nicker of an impatient horse turned my attention to Eric and Nathaniel. They looked tense as well. Magic tickled up the length of Eric’s right arm while Nathaniel held him in place around his waist. 

“Are you alone?” Nathaniel demanded with no greeting. Good to see his cold authority hadn’t dimmed any. 

“We are unescorted, save for the crew to get us here and our own guards,” Achaicus sighed. “There’s really no need for any fuss.”

His brother glared down wordless. 

“You’re back early,” Eric spoke for him.

“We were sent back…” Achaicus mumbled, letting his shoulders sag with defeat. 

Sent back was a little bit of an understatement. Fled for shame was more like it, but I didn’t say it. Back under the protection of Leúchtend and on familiar ground, I felt the tension beginning to drain and was suddenly light headed. Red sparks spotted in my vision as I wondered what Ronové was doing. 

‘Good to be home isn’t it, Charlie boy.’

“It is…” I answered aloud without meaning to. 

Days or weeks of living under even scarier Fae were catching up to me.

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