“Tell me, Anya, is there any way around this wholeclaimingthing?”
Anya hesitates. “This next trial is going to test you. A lot of the Chosen will not survive to see the sunset, let alone the night that is to follow. However, there is a clause that would allow you freedom. But the likelihood of achieving it… is near on impossible. No Chosen ever has. I’m sorry, I wish I could give you more hope, but I am a realist. And I think you are, too. Both of you. I can’t give you false hope.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Anya,” Akari says with a sad but frank smile.
Before Anya can respond, a horrendous gong sounds. It reverberates painfully through my very bones and rouses those who were catching up on some extra z’s. More than a few Chosen scream, but it’s drowned out by a second gong that follows the first in just as horrible a sound.
“You best relieve yourselves now,” Anya says loudly to be heard over the noise. “It’s almost time.”
We do as she says, the gong ringing ten more times before the last thrums into an almost haunting silence. The women are all awake now, eating, toileting, and whispering amongst themselves.
I grab Akari’s hands and turn to face her.
“Whatever happens today-” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I know.” Her lips tremble as she forces herself to smile. “And the same goes for you.”
I smile back and tighten my grip. If what Anya said is true, and I have no reason to doubt her, this could be the last time we were together. If we didn’t die, our lives would be forfeit to whichever fae male claims us. Although a big part of me strived for that minuscule hope of freedom, the realistic part of me knew it was hopeless. It wouldn’t stop me from trying, of course. I was no pushover. But I was also only human. And this was Faerie. The rules of survival were unfamiliar and, apparently, near-impossible.
“Chosen!” A female fae sweeps through the tent flap like an avenging goddess of death. The wicked grin she wears only adds to the effect. Her eyes travel over the miserable lot of us, and she sneers. “It’s time for Hunting!” A chorus of hoots and cheers echo from outside the tent as if the entire clearing heard her announcement. I guess, with their superior hearing, they probably did. “Line up!”
More fae file into the tent and start shoving us towards the opening. Their energy is wild, euphoric even; their movements are almost too quick to follow. I’m pushed not so gently towards the front of the tent before tripping over my feet as I am ushered out. We walk quickly back towards the field we had stood in the previous day when the male fae had walked amongst us. I turn to find Akari, but realize with a sinking heart that I have lost her in the crowds.
We are herded into a stumbling mass of terrified women that never seems to stop moving, as if we are the ocean’s waves.
“Chosen!” A booming and commanding voice sounds throughout the clearing. We all seem to turn as one, but I can’t pick out the speaker from the line of fae surrounding us. “Those of you who received no stones need to make their way towards the front.” The front? Where the hell was that? We were faced in all different directions with fae crowding us in on all sides. As if realizing the confusion, the speaker tries again in an exasperated tone. “Can someone with visual powers please-” A plume of blue flames shoots into the air from my right. A dozen women scream, and I’m pushed to the left as those closest rear back. “Thank you, Garza. Now, could the Chosen with zero stones head towards the flame? That’s it. Come now, we don’t have all day.”
Separating us takes an age, and I find myself at the front of the line for those who received stones. Our group is much larger than theirs, yet nearly a thousand women remained unchosen by any of the males. They are forced to line up in rows of trembling women.
“Alright, alright, simmer down! Simmer down!” The commanding voice from earlier has piped up again, and I spy the speaker from my new vantage point at the front of the queue. He’s not the most striking fae, but his beauty was undeniable. His ears were quite tall, and his hair was an odd neon green, while his eyes were a citrus yellow. “It’s time to introduce the Chosen to the Wild Hunt!”
Chapter Thirteen
The fae surrounding the field fall into a frenzy, their noises animalistic as dozens set off blasts of power, from showers of ice to whipping vines from the trees at their backs. Women scream at the display, and I’m shoved in the back as someone behind me tries to get through to the front. I snort when I recognize Platinum as the bony culprit.
She sneers at me but promptly turns her face away, folding her arms across her chest like a stubborn toddler.
“Nice to see you too,” I mutter. I don’t know if she chooses not to hear me or whether she actually doesn’t, but her back remains ramrod straight and facing away. She’s pushed into me again, but doesn’t acknowledge me in the slightest. I swallow my snarky remark about her digging her bones into me. She just isn’t worth my breath right now.
“I think we owe the humans an explanation, my kin!” the male calls, his mouth curled into a sinister sneer. “So, what is The Wild Hunt? It’s a tradition! It is a trial to comb the weak from the strong! It’s the game we live for! It brings our Courts together as one! I like to think of it as Christmas, which a human once told me about. Before I snapped her fickle neck.
“What does this game have to do with the stones, you ask? Everything! Every male has the chance to put forth a claim for a human female every Hunt Eve, though many choose not to take part. One Hunt, one stone, one human female. These males then get the chance to hunt you!” Mystomach, already in knots, sinks like a stone as I put it all together. “We use portals, just like the one you came through from your…unexceptionalworld.” The male grimaces, as if Earth is the most horrid place he has ever seen. “But on a much smaller scale. These portals will send you to different areas of the vast Wylden Forest. You then have 12 hours to run and hide before your males set off for their Hunt.”
Gods, this was bad. And humiliating, if I am to be completely honest. Like foxes in a fox hunt, our odds were not in our favor. A 12-hour head start was going to get us nowhere, not with the heightened senses of the fae, not to mention their familiarity with the land and abilities to wield amazing powers. And that’s not even mentioning the other creatures we may come across during the trial.
As if reading my mind, the speaking male’s eyes glint as he continues.
“But beware, pretty Chosen ones! Fae are not the only dwellers of the Wylden Forrest! No! Many vicious beasts call this remote land home. And they love the taste of human flesh.” Goosebumps prickle my skin from head to toe as I picture ferocious, fire-breathing dragons, hulking werewolves with drool dripping from their hungry maws, and giant ogres with their stinking flesh and colossal fists. “They will scent you the second you enter the Forest…. And this is where the unChosen amongst you find their usefulness!” He gestures energetically towards the smaller group of women who had not received a single stone amongst them. “You all get to sate their hunger!”
There is a moment of horrified silence before the unChosen start screaming and making a run for it. They were offering them up as pigs forslaughter, to satisfy the monsters within the forest before they sentusthrough. Because we were less expendable. We werewanted.
A woman darts towards me, her eyes desperate as she reaches out her arms. I reach for her, but she suddenly freezes in place, just a finger’s breath from my hands, as if frozen in ice that isn’t there. Her terrified eyes blink, and I recoil in shock, but the rest of her remains completely immobile.
“Not so fast, ugly one,” a horrid female with aqua hair coos. “Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the real fun now, would we?”
I’m fucking stupid. I know it before the words are out of my mouth.
“She can have one of mine!”
