The Fae Prince

Chapter 8: Mountain Trails and Palace Hallways

Saturday
3:15am
Roughly 35 hours until Samhain

Haley

Cassiel follows me out of the Denny's, calling for me to stop.

"No, Cassiel! I refuse to go back in there after-after that!" I scream, flailing my arms wildly as I march to my unknown destination.

"Haley!" He yells, "At least wait so that I can get our food and we can eat it out here. That way we can both get the proper energy we need and I can keep you warm so you don't freeze to death."

"I'd rather freeze to death than become a faerie and live with the likes of creatures like Maeve and Finan," I say, stopping to look up at the traitorous starry sky that reminds me of his hair.

I hate stars.

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," Cassiel says, his voice dark and gruff, "Just wait here, please. Don't do anything stupid."

"No promises," I mutter, crossing my arms.

Grumbling to myself, I sit down on the frost covered curb. I wrap my arms around my waist and gently rock back and forth in an attempt to keep myself warm while I wait for Cassiel. I think of running, but seeing the snow coating the ground and the trees stops me from doing it. I'd make it a quarter through the night before I froze to death.

"Haley."

My head snaps up when I hear someone whisper my name. I look around nervously, but I see no one near me. Did I imagine it?

"Hello?" I ask, standing to my feet and turning in a circle.

"Haley."

The same voice whispers again and I jump. Definitely not imagining it. Everything in my mind screamed at me to run, but I knew Cassiel would be the safest option.

"Haley," I turn to see Cassiel walking over to me, two steaming plates in his hands.

"Cassiel," I bring a hand to my chest and shut my eyes in relief, letting go of a sigh.

"I got our food," he lifts the plates slightly with an unsure smile, "Wanna sit?"

I take another look around us before turning to him with a grimace masked as a smile of my own, "Sure."

After finishing our food, Cassiel, Maeve, Cathy, he-who-shall-not-be-named and I got back into Cassiel's Jeep and were driving on a highway that would take us to the Mackenzie mountains. To get to Elphame, Cassiel said we would have to drive through the Mackenzie mountains for a couple of hours and then we would hike to a cave only Faeries could find. The cave would then lead us to Elphame when we walked through it. Simple as that. He also explained how the courts are separated.

There are four courts separated by seasons; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each court houses different creatures. The spring court houses sylphs, the summer court houses salamanders, the autumn court houses pixies and dwarves and the winter court houses winter faeries that aren't mermaids. Mermaids are winter faeries, but they live in the sea under the rule of Queen Cliodna. There are faeries that appear as humans, like us, but those are only the powerful ones.

Cassiel also explained that while faeries do have malevolent natures, that nature is overshadowed by their personality. Over the centuries and the evolution of faeries, that nature has only become a primal instinct the same way human's have the fight or flight instinct. However, he did explain that it is more prominent in some faeries because their personalities bring it out of them. All I thought about was stabbing he-who-shall-not-be-named's eyes out when he said that.