As the young female’s skin.
The sharp point of her nose is only a touch softer than the point of her ears. Round cheeks and plump lips soften her face. I wonder what she might have done to spend her final years locked in Alyssium’s prison. What horrible crimes she committed to be sentenced with such a fate.
“Malaseah,” I whisper, brushing closed her eyelids. Her lashes tickle the pads of my fingers, sending a shiver through my spine. “May Sarrow see you home.”
To my right, a member of the Fae Guard steps closer, watching me carefully. They oversee our rituals with little respect for the dead, especially when it comes to the prisoners. The Guard has no sympathy for their suffering, and I should probably feel the same, given what pain these prisoners might have caused others in their long lifetimes. But every soul deserves safe passage through the strata of Sarrow and into the After. The last thing we need on Alyssium is one more shadow haunting us.
Which is why I whisper a final blessing to the Fae as I finish tending to her. The last goodbye her soul will hear if it lingers.
Sometimes, I feel them hanging beside me—waiting. Not quite ready to go.
I move from one body to the next, placing pine needles between their hands and closing their eyes. Melisande works behind me, setting a stone on their tongues and securing a cloth over their mouths.
The four burial rites are a blessing to each of the four gods of our constellation of realms. Gifts to ensure their souls find peace in the After.
As I quietly work, I wonder about the lives these Fae lived. The magic that once stirred inside them. I wonder what they did to be sent to this cold, dead island. Or how they saw their final moments. I doubt they knew a human girl would be the last to hold their hand. One who doesn’t know their name or what sins mark their souls.
Shadows cast off the spires of the prison, stretching as night settles. I pull my cloak tighter, working faster and trying to ignore the pebble digging into the heel of my sandal.
Boots would have been a better choice against the biting cold, but the soles have grown slick this winter. One step on a wet boulder would have sent me toppling into the sea. And as evidenced by the bodies around me, being cold is better than being dead.
After all, the cold, I’m accustomed to. Warmth is just one more luxury I’ve learned to live without when there isn’t any magic on Alyssium to breathe heat into the ground. Chilling rain is followed by dustings of snow. Storms sweep the land even at the warmest peaks of the season. There’s no escaping the never-ending winter months.
Cold is Alyssium.
And Alyssium is home.
At least for the past few days, the rain and snow eased. Dirt is visible on the ground. The branches are dry, and the constant dampness has abated. It’s a breath of relief, even as the steely gray clouds are already churning.
A horn bellows in the distance, and I glance at the sky, at the warning. Tonight’s incoming storm will be brutal.
“Let’s go. That’s good enough.” Guards begin to rush our preparations.
For immortals, they’re awfully impatient and temperamental. Especially toward humans. Apart from needing us to retrieve bodies from the prison so they don’t get trapped inside, Fae have little use for us.
We’re smaller. Weaker. A flicker of flesh and bone in their long lifespans.
If it weren’t for the fact that the Arch to the Mortal Realm closed, and our village is all the humans left to assist them with their prison, I doubt they’d care about our fate at all.
The Ley Court certainly doesn’t act like it. We might be part of Lyrichia—part of King Malachi’s kingdom when the door to ours has long closed—but we’re a wasteland of death and mortality.
Father always says not to speak ill of the Guard, and especially not the Crown. They’re the only reason storms, famine, and sickness haven’t wiped out our village completely. But it’s difficult holding my tongue as corpses pile on the shore, and we’re left to clean up Fae messes. Dying twice as fast alongside them.
“And yet, here you are, living,”a whisper travels on the breeze.
Alyssium in my ear.
“For now,”I grumble back in my thoughts.
For an island with no magic, this pile of stone and dirt has a lot to say.
Not that the island is actually speaking to me. I’m just that lonely. Or maybe my mind has officially run wild.
At eighteen, in an especially dark moment, I called out for anything—anyone—and the island whispered back. It became a friend when there was no one to hear me scream, and it’s whispered to me ever since.
I rub the bottom of my ribcage, soothing the scars that still ache where the obsidian belt wrapped around me. Six years have passed, and I still feel the weight of it. I still smell the blood.
Shouting comes from the edge of the funeral camp as a guard rushes into the forest that surrounds the shore. Torchlight moves between the branches, dimming as they venture deeper. All around me, backs straighten, and panic swells. Humans nudge closer while Fae circle, guarding us.