Faetality |✓|

Chapter Eighteen, Part Three - Step Into the Light

Slowly, Oberon shook his head.

"Westley is Unseelie, Tamsyn. Though we are friends, he is not welcome in my land. Even I cannot go against our rules."

"But you help the Fae to escape from the Otherworld," I pointed out. "Isn't that breaking the rules? So why not bend just one more?"

For the first time in our short conversation, Oberon cracked an extraordinarily small smile that I had the feeling was usually few and far between.

"That is a question your mother would ask," he replied. "When she was alive, I would tease her for being Dark Fae with a Light heart. The joke doesn't appear nearly as funny as it once did."

"Look," I said quietly. "I know you have rules, but I'm drowning here and I don't know what to do from here. I really need one good thing to happen so I can restore some type of faith in the Fae. Please..."

"I know how many lives have been lost in my sister's vain, private wars," said Oberon in a grave voice. "And it is a number far too many. This is why the Seelie stay out of Unseelie affairs. It is the only way to keep the balance, Tamsyn."

"Do you know what she did?" I replied in a cold voice, eyeing a hot purple snake that chose that exact moment to slither its way across the ground between us. "She killed a member of your Court for evil, selfish reasons that I still can't wrap my head around. So tell me, how does that fall under keeping the balance?"

A brief silence reigned between us as I stared fiercely at the Hunter King. Where was this so-called friend of Westley's? Because at the moment all I could see was a coward.

"Acheron was a close friend. Believe me when I tell you his death did not go unnoticed."

"So you knew?" I asked in a half-whisper of disbelief.

"I sent him," was his grave reply.

"Then please tell me you didn't know what he was gonna do..."

"That would be a lie, and something I am not prone to doing,"

Gawd! Already I found his dignity and aptitude for fairness to be excruciatingly insufferable.

"Where I am from, suicide for a valiant cause is considered honorable. Acheron accepted his death for a noble cause."

"And what cause was that?" I replied, trying very hard to remain patient. I had to remind myself just who it was that was currently carrying the weapons around here.

"Titania rules her Court with an iron fist of fear. That is not the Seelie way. Acheron gave his life to show you this. It was his willing choice."