What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(73)

Cursing, I shrugged off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders as the first breeze blew through the crack in the doors. The white salt outside blew in, drifting over the dark stone floors and spreading between the feet of the royals in front of us.

Many of the royals led the way as they approached those slowly opening doors, well acquainted with where the sacrifices would be kept until the Tithe. I didn’t relish Estrella’s reaction, knowing she would condemn me as much as she despised the lot of us for the crimes we committed against the humans in order to keep the things locked up in Tartarus. I couldn’t expect her to understand, not until she had to partake in her first hunt, and she witnessed the kind of monsters that lurked within it.

Mab trailed behind us, Fallon at her side as the younger girl tried to escape her mother’s notice. She would undoubtedly hear of Mab’s dissatisfaction later on, when they were alone and she could give her an earful without appearing bothered to the Fae she considered her enemies.

I ignored her, knowing that I could hardly help myself when we were trapped within the Court of Shadows. Helping Estrella had to come first over helping Fallon, even if my mate would have wanted something different.

Estrella snuggled deeper into my jacket, wrapping it tight and covering her entire torso in it. Whatever she was, her innate power didn’t make her comfortable in the cold. Was she descended from a creature of the Summer Court? Something that lived on the coast of the Crystal Sea?

The thought had merit, and for a moment I wished I could trust Rheaghan enough to ask. But he was unpredictable at best in the way he loved his sister, often caving to her desires and ambitions in the interest of keeping the peace—in the interest of not losing the only remaining bond he had left.

Estrella and I followed behind Rheaghan as he strolled forward to follow the group ahead of him.

“What happens outside?” Estrella asked as I held her close.

Rheaghan rounded the corner first, the group of others far enough ahead that we lost sight of them in the blowing salt. Estrella lifted my jacket, using it to shield her face against the onslaught as I tucked myself against her back and guided her with my body.

I knew the way to the pens far too well for my liking. The rooms were carved into the side of the mountain where human Changelings were kept until they could be sacrificed.

“What do you know of the Tithe?” I asked, hoping to perhaps have a few moments to prepare Estrella for the coming reality.

I suspected her handmaid had told her something, giving her at least a basic idea of the reality that was coming. I had to hope so, because I couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t do something foolish to interfere if she wasn’t prepared. As much as I doubted Mab would have intentionally done Estrella any kindness whatsoever, Nila had been an excellent choice for Estrella’s handmaid.

Maybe she’d done it to use against her. Maybe she’d done it to test Nila’s loyalty. But Estrella could have had the misfortune of someone like Malazan as her handmaid, and I shuddered to think of how quickly Estrella would have slit her throat if given half a chance.

We came closer to the entrance to the pens, the first of the royals reaching it ahead of us. Time was running out to make her understand what was coming. While I might not have agreed with humans being chosen against their will, I would never speak out against it. Not when my mate was present, not when her life and her body could be used against me. As wrong as it might have been, I would have killed every last human in Nothrek if it meant saving her and protecting her from harm.

If that made me their villain, then I would gladly play that part.

“I know about the sacrifices,” Estrella said, the grimace in her voice reaching me even though I could not see her face.

We approached the much smaller doors to the pens, making our way inside and out of the brutal elements of the Shadow Court. Some areas were more lush; the Cove was as beautiful as any of the beaches of the Summer Court, but the area directly surrounding the capital was far from it.

Estrella dropped my jacket to hang from her shoulder as we stepped inside, shaking it off until the floor was covered in salt.

The pens were lower, settled into a pit in the center of the room as we all stood around the edge. Estrella glanced down, studying the humans who huddled in a mass in the center of the pit.

“What is this?” she asked, looking at me as she moved closer to the edge.

“This is where Mab keeps the sacrifices until the time comes for them to be given to Tartarus,” I explained.

They’d be taken care of to the best of the Sidhe’s ability, well fed and kept safe in the interim, even if they weren’t given the comforts they should have been. There were no beds within the pit, nothing but sand and rock walls to surround them.

How far we’d fallen from the old days.

Prior to Mab taking over the Faerie courts, prior to the war with the humans, those who were sacrificed to the Tithe had volunteered for the honor. They’d been human and Fae alike, beings who grew tired of living or were ill in ways the healers and witches of Alfheimr couldn’t help. Humans who were approaching death in old age.

It hadn’t been a perfect system, but it hadn’t involved the regular, ritualistic murder of seven people.

“They’re treated terribly in their final weeks of life,” Estrella said, shaking her head sadly.

Her anguish wafted off her in waves, to the point that I didn’t need our bond to sense her feelings. Her bleeding, broken heart would be the end of her one day, making her do things for creatures who didn’t deserve her loyalty.