Blue Blood

Fae Hallow

"Mmmf . . . " I scrunch up my nose as I squeak out a yawn. What happened? Where am I? Why aren't I dead yet? I go to rub my face but something holds my hand back. I groan and pull a little harder but it doesn't move. My eyes shoot open and I look to what's keeping my hands from reaching my face. A brown vine snakes up from my wrist to my elbow. Little white flowers spring from its corse spirals. Shit.

I pull a little harder but stop when something pops painfully in my shoulder. I squeeze my eyes shut and hold back a yelp. If I ever see a wyrm again, it'll be too soon.

Alright Magnus, slow down a little. Let's think about this rationally. It's obvious that someone knocked us out but they didn't kill us. Are they planning to use us as slaves? Who even are the people that took us?

I look around the room, trying to get a hint at what we're dealing with. The room is an adequate size, a bit bigger than the average room. The windows are dusty and wide open. Golden sunlight flitters past the vines and flowers grow up the walls. A warm breeze blows through and the floor seems to sway. Am I in a treehouse? A small chandelier hangs above my head. The bed I'm on is soft and sinks in with my weight. My body begs me for just a few more moments of sleep.

I try to sit up and immediately regret it. Pain shoots up my back, chest and stomach like a bow. I take a few sharp breaths and growl. Okay, this is not going to work. But I need to get up and I need to find Rody. I should just put a bell on him, maybe we'd get separated less or at least it would be easier to find him. Alright, alright, focus. I need a plan. First course of action: loose these vines.

I look around the room for anything useful and find a fork on the side table next to me. If I can't break through, is a fork really going to do anything? Well there's nothing else even close to sharp in here and somethings better than nothing. I squirm my arms around trying figure out how I'm going to be able to grab it. I try to bounce the bed closer to the table but the most it does is scrape against the floor loudly. What am I gonna do-

The door opens without warning and a young girl pops her head in. "Oh, you're awake. Are you hungry?" She asks politely.

"Where am I? Who are you? Where's Rody?" I boom at her, trying to show that I mean business.

"Hah, straight to the point, I like it." She steps into the room with a silver tray in hand. Her long braided hair almost touches the food on the tray making me scowl. She sets the tray on the table where the fork was and sits on the side of the bed. She swipes a strand of hair behind her pointed ear and goes to touch my forehead. I quickly snap my teeth at her, missing by a centimeter. She quickly jerks back and frowns.

"Don't touch me." I growl.

"I was just going to take your temperature." She defends quickly. "Sheesh, no wonder you survived the cave, your a feral animal." She grumbles rubbing her hand.

"Answer my questions." I demand. "You're in no position to make demands right now, Magnus." She scowls. "How do you know my name?" I growl, fists clenched tight at my sides. "Roman told me, he told us lots of stuff." Anger and fear bubble up in my stomach wondering what that might mean. She reaches into a pouch at her side and pulls out a pinch of green powder. "What are you-" without letting me get another word in, she throws the powder at my face. I cough and hack and curse. "What did you just do to me!?" I gasp. "Truth dust. A fairy specialty. Now, let's talk about you shall we?" "I'm not telling you anything, you fucking eat with wings!"

She purses her lips and bobs her head. "Oh really? Are you sure about that?" She teases. "No." I blurt out. I didn't mean to say that. She smiles and pulls out a pen and paper. "Alright Magnus, got a last name?" "No, I was an orphan." "Hm, tragic." She writes something down on the paper and twirls the pen in her hand. This is just fantastic.

"Alright Magnus, how did you meet Roman in the first place?" I swallow hard, trying to keep back the word vomit but it's no use. "We were children. He was riding in a carriage with his parents down the streets. He was rich and royalty so I felt I had to meet him. I chased after their carriage and grabbed onto the back. I opened the back curtain and came face to face with Roman. His eyes were big and he smiled. He greeted me and wouldn't take his eyes off mine for a second. We started talking as his parents tried to figure out what to do. There was a light in his eyes that I didn't want to live without. The carriage eventually stopped and the guards threw me off . They raised their swords high and just before they hit, Roman commanded them to stop. He hugged me and begged his parents to let me live and to bring me home with them. I was shocked. We had just met and he already showed me more kindness than I had ever received in my life thus far. He cried and cried until finally the queen ordered the guards to bring me with. From that day forward, I promised myself that I would dedicate my life to try and repay the kindness I received that day and the rest is history."

"That's sweet, real sweet. So Roman IS a prince?" She says with a smile. Tell her no. "Yes." I bite my tongue hard and swallow the blood that follows it. "What kind of training do you have?" "All of it." "Vague, I like it." She snickers. "Have any other friends we should be worried about?" "No, we're alone unless you count a horse." I retort. She scoffs, "Alright, one more question, are you here to kill us, Magnus?" "Depends." "On what?" She leans forward on her elbows.

"What you've done to Rody."