Born Of Nothing

18

Tears filled my eyes as I stared down at my hands. “I’m so sorry, Fen,” I said on a shaky whisper. “I’ll never understand why people have to hate one another.” After a long moment of silence, I lifted my gaze to Fen and was surprised to find him glowering at me. “What do you know of hate?” His words were clipped, raw emotion surfacing in his voice. Part of me wanted to cower at his rising temper, while another side grew angry that this man clearly assumed me to be a naïve child. Compared to him, maybe I was, but it didn’t stop me from giving my perspective. I wiped the moisture from my eyes and threw aside my ingrained teachings regarding the importance of secrecy about my people. “My family has centuries of experience with hate and fear,” I asserted firmly. “My ancestors were the handmaids for Queen Guin, and when she closed off Faery from Earth, her human companions were sent home. Not long after their return, the Wild Hunt began to seek them out to be killed. Few survived, but those who did passed on the knowledge of the Fae and their magic, along with a heavy dose of hate-filled propaganda. For centuries my people have feared and resented the Fae. “We recently discovered that the handmaids’ murders were unsanctioned by the queen and were not any indication that the Fae wanted us dead. However, the information seems to have come too late. My people have ingrained in each other that the Fae are evil and cannot be trusted. They’re apprehensive to let go of those teachings.” I didn’t see any of the outrage or insult in his features that I feared I would find, nor did I see any compassion. Instead, Fen studied me as if I were a test subject in a clinical experiment. “If you were indoctrinated with the same beliefs, how is it you are now friends with Rebecca?” Squirming in my chair, I offered a sheepish smirk. “I wish I could say it was out of my deep love of all creatures great and small, but that wouldn’t be the truth. The fact of the matter is, when I met Rebecca, I thought she was entirely human. By the time I discovered she was becoming Fae, my impression of her had already been formed.” “The knowledge did not change the way you felt about her?” “No, quite the opposite—it’s changed the way I see my people. Everything I’ve learned about Rebecca and the men of the Hunt has been inconsistent with what I’d been taught. Once the foundation of that wall began to crumble, the whole thing came down. How do I trust anything that I was taught when the fundamental principles were wrong?” His chin lifted slightly as he continued to assess me. “I believe many people would have turned their backs on the new friend rather than alienate themselves from their families.” “Yes, that’s what my mother’s done. She’s horrified that I remained friends with Becca and has threatened me to stay away from both Becca and Ashley. They’re my closest friends, and as much as it hurts me to upset my mom, I refuse to walk away from my friends because of some stupid, smallminded prejudice.” I held his eyes determinedly, hoping he would see that I was not like my family. His gaze intensified until the air around me felt electric, and gooseflesh rose along my arms. He tilted his head to the side just a fraction, eyes still boring into me. “Some things are worth the risk of defying authority, others are not. If you take that risk, you must be prepared to accept the consequences. There are always consequences.” OceanofPDF.com 9 I had cursed my ever-putrid luck when I opened the door to reveal Cat standing alone. Between her demure personality and the glare I had sent her on our last meeting, I doubted she would have the confidence to visit without Rebecca present. Not only had Cat come alone, but I had been surprised to find our conversation … intriguing. I was not often wrong, but I begrudgingly admitted that there may have been more substance to the young woman than appearances would have suggested. When I asked about how she knew of hate, I had not expected more than inconsequential musings. How was I to know there was a brotherhood of humans who not only knew about the Fae, but were united in their hatred of our kind? In my time, it was common for the Fae to view humans as inferior for their lack of magic, but the human race was ignorant of our existence and could not form a reciprocal opinion. People may think flies annoying, but the fly hardly had any opinion regarding people. Since my exile, so many things had changed, including human knowledge of the Fae. For now, those people had kept their knowledge to themselves, however many in number they were. Would that always be the case? Was Guin truly ambivalent about this race of people? What had Cat witnessed from her family that made her willing to walk away from them? Did she fully comprehend what she was risking? How could anyone grasp such concepts until after facing the effects of those consequences? I did not get the impression that Cat was simply a rebelling child seeking to test her boundaries. She recognized a fundamental flaw in how she had been raised and had the fortitude to reject those teachings. That took uncommon strength and self-awareness; however, the true test of character would lie in how she handled her family’s response to her rejection.

“Tell me, how is it you discovered that Rebecca was Fae?” I asked, moving our conversation into shallower waters as I went to sit in the chair opposite her. “The first time I discovered she could see the Fae, I still didn’t realize she was actually Fae herself. My people can see through a glamour, so it’s easy to identify a Fae when their skin is green, or they have some other noticeable feature. The Seelie, who look just like humans, are much harder to discern. Becca and I had been at a pub when we witnessed a Leannansidhe luring a human man out to feed on him. I had been terrified. When I looked at Rebecca’s face, I could tell she had seen through the creature’s glamour and was just as scared as I was. She explained that the necklace she wore enabled her to see the Fae as they were, and I had no reason to doubt her statement. It wasn’t until sometime later that my people discovered there was more to her power than a simple necklace.” “And your people—how are you able to see through a glamour?” She sucked her lips into her mouth, and I could see her wage a silent debate before she slowly turned in her chair and lifted her long red curls to expose the back of her slender neck. There on the delicate area just below her hairline was a small symbol inked into her ivory skin. “Much of what my ancestors were taught was the use of rune magic. This symbol, the truth rune, gives us the Sight and enables us to see through glamours. We certainly are not immune to all magic, but this helps us at least know what we’re dealing with. It’s hard to protect yourself in a world of magic if you can’t see the dangers around you.”