Chapter 14

Vela galloped alongside a forest, her hooves bringing us closer to the tree's edge. But each time we got close, Tamlin would tug her away with the reins, holding her back—and I knew why, just how I knew that it wasn't normal for them to cover every flower in their garden with a white sheet, and keep it that way. The next time he went to tug her away, I grabbed his hand, stopping him. He slowly released the reins and Vela immediately cut left, entering the forest as she slowed to a canter. I wanted to see where she wanted to go; I wanted to give the forest a second chance.    The trees flew by one by one, and Vela began snaking, her movements jolting. I felt myself slip from the saddle and Tamlin's arm snaked around me, pinning me to him and holding me in place. Just as soon as she turned a corner, she halted, letting out an alarmed whinny. Tamlin's arm was a fierce grip to keep me from falling, his breath a gust of warmth against my ear.    "Vela?" Tamlin asked as he loosened his hold from around my waist.    Then, a sentry stepped out from in front of the mare, blinking, mouth gaping as he stared up at his High Lord.    The sight of a Spring Court sentry in the woods made me freeze, and I reached out and gripped Tamlin's arm fiercely. It wasn't the same sentry. It wasn't—but the bile in my stomach still boiled with nerves.    "My Lord," The sentry fell to a knee, his eyes not once falling on me.    "Where's your group?" Tamlin barked, his arm trying to loosen from around me. I let him go, and he slid from Vela, his feet a thunder in the earth as he landed.    "S-sir?" The sentry raised himself, all colour lost from his face. "My group?"    "You're platoon, Hale, where's your other soldiers? What happened?"    "S-sir, I think..."    My eyes spotted something through the trees and my mouth fell open. I didn't think before I slid off of Vela and ran through the trees toward the glint of gold, catching the flickering sunlight through the leaves above. There was so much blood. His legs had been torn open from what looked to be deep, deadly claw marks. He was gasping for breath, hands clawing at the grass beside his hips.    "Ellaena!" I heard Tamlin thunder from behind, but I knelt in front of the wounded soldier, his white-blond hair spilled around him.    "Help," He croaked. "It hurts. Help me."    I pulled my eyes from his legs, the blood already staining the skirts of my dress. "Are you o..." But the words died on my tongue as my eyes met his. Green. Bright green. A knife-sharp slash of lips across a long face. His mouth opened and I stared into it, at the pink tongue, moving as he formed another word that I no longer heard.    Soft as a flower petal.    Except he did not smell of meadows—he smelled of blood.    My blood, all over him, and he relished it, hadn't he?    I had not been conscious to witness whatever sick enjoyment this one before me had taken. My mind became so consumed with fear and fury that I couldn't pull my hand from his breast plate, staring at the face that met mine when he turned me around in that forest near my father's home.    And now here he lay, his eyes widening as he at last saw me. Then his gaze met something past my shoulder, and that's when I felt the hands on my arms, large and warm and pulling me back, out of the memory of that white-hot pain.    "Ellaena," He growled, turning me around.    "It's him," I whispered, stumbling away. "It's him, Tamlin, it's him. It's him!" I was screaming now, on my feet.    My rapist would not look at me, his eyes were dark with fear, staring at the High Lord.    "I thought you had him locked away," I sobbed, my hands running up my arms.    Tamlin raised from the floor of the forest, the light in his eyes vanishing. His gaze was so... empty, filled with a coldness, a darkness that startled me.    I knew that look on my own father; it was one of hopelessness. I could tell that deep down, he had known this would happen, that I would discover this sentry's release. His jaw set in stone, his gaze focusing on some distance as silence stretched all around him with my revelation.    "I had locked him up when you were here. Now he has been put on a new duty, by his request."    I couldn't look at the sentries pale face, but my eyes focused on the shine of his breast plate as I drew in a trembling breath. Here, alone in the forest with all of them.    "I... I know I'm nothing to you," My eyes flickered, resting on his chest, unable to meet the coldness of his gaze, a coldness I could not understand.    I heard him emit a low growl in response and I finally looked him in the eyes, "But why? I thought..." I closed my mouth. I didn't know what I thought. That he would execute this sentry himself? That he would banish him from his lands, for my sake? My sake? I was insignificant next to his kingdom of Spring, his army, his force he was continuously working to gain love and trust from.    He drew in a breath, and released it. Then he turned from me, crouching in front of his sentry, but unmoving as the sentry dared whine for help again.     The seconds passed as I watched the rise and fall of his shoulders, and I realised he would not be answering. I could still see the emptiness in his eyes, and I wondered at it.    So this was the ignorance Feyre had felt when she challenged this High Lord. He ignored anything she had to say, locking her away. But I was not Feyre. I did not have the same meaning to him. I didn't know what I meant to anyone—only what I meant to the sentry who now lay wounded, bleeding into the grass.    Tamlin called for Hale and Vela, still in ignorance. Then, he stood and turned toward Hale, asking him to pick up the sentry on the forest floor. He came to walk past me, and I turned to stare up at him. He stopped, glancing down.    "Will you ignore me, then?" I said softly, my eyes brimming with tears. "I just want to know why. I just thought that... I don't know. That I was safe here now."    His green eyes blazed with fury. "Nothing I say will save me now, will it?"    "But you haven't said anything. I just thought that—maybe I shouldn't have come back here."    He turned to fully face me, eyes finally softening as a tear spilled from my cheek. "You are always welcome here," He muttered.    "But my safety here is of no concern," I glanced toward the sentry, allowed free after what he had done. Was his offence so popular among Fae that it was so easily dismissed?    "Your safety here is of every concern," His voice was a rumble as he took a step toward me, and when I looked back at him, there was a fire in his eyes. Then, his throat bobbed and he shifted, reaching and grabbing for Vela's reins as he said, "You left, and you had not decided on a punishment. He expressed remorse, and begged to prove himself worthy again so... I had mercy, and tried to trust him. I did not think you'd ever be in a situation endangered by him again. I did not think you would ever come back."    The sentry laying on the floor pained me immensely, that he was free, that he was given a second chance. My gaze locked onto a fern at the base of a tree as I drew in one hot breath after another, my nostrils flaring.    After he told me, the light in his eye faded again, and he turned, leading Vela toward the sentry.    My eyes brimmed with tears as I glanced at the bloody mess, now being hoisted into Hale's arms, Tamlin grabbing his legs and throwing him over Vela's back, and with some rope from the side of the saddle, tied his breastplate down.    I couldn't breathe—I wanted to go home, I wanted to leave; where did I belong? My hope for belonging here was now dashed.    When would I learn to never allow hope again?    "I made the wrong choice, didn't I?" Tamlin's voice cut through my tears and I focused on him, now right in front of me. "Well, get used to it. No choice I ever make will be the right one; nothing I do will ever be as lovely, or as honourable as the others," He snapped, and just as I opened my mouth to croak a response, Vela let loose a low, haunting whinny as she began to back away.    Tamlin's head yanked around with a snarl. "Hale, what happened to him? What was that?"    Hale blinked back at the shrubbery, his hand trembling as he grabbed for his sword. "My L-lord... a wraith. There were three of them."    "And no one told me?" He roared, then turned around, grabbing me again and throwing me into Vela's saddle. His hand grasped my arm, his eyes full of fear. "Find Lucien and Elain, and get back."    "Ta—"    But before I could utter his name, my body shaking with fear and revulsion at what lay behind me, strapped to the horse, a hooded creature burst through the treeline, and Tamlin was turning, shifting, forming into something different—a terrible beast, twice the size of a lion, antlers like an elk.    And then Vela had turned, snorting with alarm as she took off, sanking through the trees, leaving the High Lord and Hale behind with whatever monstrosity I had just seen.