Come Away

Chapter 33 - Sacrifice

It doesn't take long before everyone's eyes fall from where the black mist faded into the sky, and land on me.

The mortal girl who just stabbed the King.

Whoever lifted me off the ground steps around to face me. It's the male faery who danced with me earlier. I'm surprised to see his eyebrows raised and a look of awed respect on his face. Glancing around at the sea of faces, my surprise quickly sours when I realize not everyone feels the same about what happened. Narrowed eyes and tight scowls meet me at every turn. I start to shove through the crowd, terrified that they'll attack me at any moment.

"Roisín! Run!"

I don't know who screams at me, but that's all the motivation I needed to start sprinting. Rough hands close around my arm and I throw them off, glancing back to see several guards forcing their way through the confused group of faeries.

"Shut up and move!" I scream, my adrenaline mixing with my building frustration.

The faeries closest to me all give me a look that says, "Well what's gotten into her all of a sudden." But they shift away from me coolly and I squeeze through the last of them, stumbling into the clearing between the us and the forest.

Cináed is leaping from the stage and tumbles back up beside me, and we keep running without missing a step.

"Vera has Darren in the forest." Cináed says between gasps. "We will travel to the nearest portal before they all close again." His forehead is bleeding down the side of his face, and purple welts are growing along his neck from when Naoise tried to kill him.

The scene behind us gets louder the further away we get. I know if I turn around I'll see a lot of guards chasing us down, and the crowd of faeries watching in eager anticipation.

The tree line is only a few yards away when I hear the most bone-chilling cry. My body spins around before my mind can force it to keep running.

I know who that cry belongs to before my eyes find the source. Even though Cináed promised my brother was safe, a part of me knew he wasn't.

"Roisín!"

Darren's face is twisted in fear as he stands with a handful of other mortals on the stage. Cináed tries to grab my arm but I claw his fingers off.

"Keep running, Roisín!" He yells. "I will go back for him!"

The fastest guard reaches where we've stopped. When he swings his arms out to grab me, I duck under his legs and leave Cináed to deal with him as I start running back to the stage.

With the distance between us, and the deep indigo sky shrouding everything in shadow, I can just make out Orla standing center stage, addressing the crowd below.

"We must cleanse our lands of this plague!" She calls in a shrill voice that I've never heard her use before. "The mortals have infected us! Confused our minds into believing their lies!"

I can hear her audience echoing back with equal fervor. Red colored will-o-the-wisps appear around the stage. Their hovering light casts an eerie glow over the swaying faeries who are screaming for mortal blood.

Two more guards are closing in on me, the tips of their spears glinting white from the full moon above us. That's when I see Cináed come sprinting through the night and start to fight them off with only his fists. Three more guards close in, and they're all so busy trying to catch Cináed they clearly forgot about chasing me. I don't have time to make sure he's okay, especially because I know this is a distraction so that I can get to Darren faster.

I reach the side of the stage while Orla's speech continues. "In honor of our great ancestors, in honor of our King who was betrayed by his soon-to-be mortal bride, we offer these mortals as a sacrifice!"