Not Quite Human

Chapter 8

The First Breeze was a festival celebrated by both courts - a rare occasion where all fey, good or bad, gathered to welcome the new year together. Neil couldn't help himself. He was excited. Thoroughly, embarrassingly excited.
Damien was back too, and in surprisingly good form. He'd even brought Neil a few souvenirs from Fiory, and had been notably free of his usual superiority. Neil decided the occasion called for his best formals. First impressions counted, after all - even if technically he'd already made one. He twirled in front of the mirror, decided the suit was doing him considerable favours, and adjusted the spell on his pet stone so it concealed only his wings. Looking entirely human among a gathering of fey seemed counterproductive.
He heard the gate screech open and headed downstairs to where Nerezza and Damien were waiting.
He hadn't expected a chariot.
It was pulled by creatures that looked like horses - red, winged, with bones where feathers should have been and a dark, smoky substance pooling constantly at their feet. Pin boars, he realised, recalling Nerezza mentioning them recently. He leaned forward, hand outstretched, curious.
Damien shoved him aside. The pin boar snapped at the air where Neil's hand had just been.
Neil blinked. He stared at the creature for a moment. "Why would anyone want their chariot pulled by something that tries to eat you?"
"Because they're faster, vlakas," Damien said flatly, pulling him into the chariot with considerably less care than the situation warranted.
Neil decided, magnanimously, to be the better person and not let it ruin his mood. He couldn't really argue, given that he'd narrowly avoided becoming pin boar feed. The chariot lurched and their surroundings blurred - a few disorienting seconds - and then they were there.
Neil stepped down and stopped.
There were fey with green skin and webbed feet, swaying in garments woven from leaves. Others had large, round insect-like eyes and a strange grey complexion. Stone women stomped past with expressions of fierce indifference. Snake fey like Nerezza moved through the crowd with an unsettling, fluid grace. And Damien - Damien had changed entirely. He was a full foot taller, horns curving from his head, his eyes swirling with something that looked like a contained storm, his skin several shades darker. Neil stared at him, genuinely lost for words.
The venue, Venire, was something else entirely. It had been gifted to the fey by Daimao, king of the Abyss, and it showed. The trees were black - a deep, crystalline black, almost translucent, as though carved from the darkest glass. Small lights hung from the branches like sparse, luminous leaves, casting the whole place in a soft glow. Nightinglows of every colour sat in delicate cages suspended in midair, their songs weaving through the noise of the crowd. In the centre, fey moved and danced to the birds' music, the atmosphere charged with something that felt older than celebration.
Neil was still taking it all in when another chariot screeched to a halt beside them.
Damien went rigid. His hand dropped to the sword at his side. Neil followed his gaze.
From the chariot stepped King Abbadon - Damien's older twin, identical in almost every way except for his eyes, which were a deeply unsettling red. Behind him came a tall, slender man with jet black hair falling to his waist: Hissana, Abbadon's companion, who looked, if anything, rather uncomfortable to be here. Abbadon moved toward them with the easy smirk of someone who enjoyed making a room tense. The two brothers regarded each other in silence, neither willing to be the first to look away.
Nerezza made a sound of distinct irritation that suggested she would not be above causing a scene herself if either of them started one first. Damien, wisely, turned and walked. Neil followed close behind, more than happy to put distance between himself and a king rumoured to have had his heart replaced with a piece of coal. It might have been unfair to dislike someone without direct cause - but the rumours had been very specific.
He was still following Damien when a voice stopped him.
It was beautiful. Extraordinarily, impossibly beautiful - the kind of voice that didn't just reach the ears but found something deeper, pulling at him from the inside. He turned toward it without deciding to. The voice was singing in a language he didn't recognise, something velvety and ancient, and it didn't matter that he couldn't understand the words because his feet were already moving, drawn forward by something that bypassed thought entirely.
He blinked.
He was alone. The festival noise had faded entirely. A tall, hooded figure stood a short distance away, her face hidden, only her mouth visible - curved into a slow, sinister smile. Neil moved toward her instinctively, meaning to ask for directions back, when something seized his wrist in a grip like a vice.
He twisted. He tried to reach for a spell, but whatever was restraining his hands felt like fire against his skin, draining the energy from him before it could form. His vision blurred at the edges. He felt himself lifted and thrown over someone's shoulder, then tossed into a chariot. He tried to fight - made it barely two steps before he was yanked back by his hair, the man behind him laughing as Neil struggled, until the pain finally convinced his body to stop.
He let himself go after that. Fighting unconsciousness hurt more than surrendering to it, and his body had made the decision for him anyway.
The last thing he registered was the lurch of the chariot, carrying him further and further from the lights and the music and the singing birds.