Seth found himself staring at the halfling girl buried beneath the human archer’s limp body. For once in the two and a half years since Ellinna had been taken, Seth was not thinking about her. He was not even thinking about Kat, who was still leaning against a stone wall, the iron arrow still jutting out of her arm.

Seth felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked to see Cassius with a solemn look on his face. The male looked as if he had been in a fight as well. Blood, that was not his own, was smeared across Cassius’s face. From the horrible smell on him, Cassius had fought a hollow.

His friend did not have to say anything for Seth to know that Ellinna had not been in the cell. Whether it was an empty cell or if the hollow was what had been inside, did not matter. Once again, the Prince of Kilian had been one step ahead of them. But something told him the Prince did not intend for them to find the female he had saved. The blow of the mission’s failure did not feel as heavy as he thought of that wild halfling girl.

Seth had not been able to look away as she fought the human archer. Her small weak body moved so fast and her strikes were much stronger than should have been possible. While he had smelled no magic on her as she fought. The air had seemed heavier and darker. Like a dark spirit had been hovering over her — fighting alongside her.

He had so many questions. Seth had not understood why they were guarding a female halfling. Let alone why the Prince himself had ordered her execution in the face of a possible prison escape. Those questions were quickly answered when he saw her fight.

Seth did not let himself think about what could have happened if the female had decided not to trust him. With the amount of iron in the air around them, his magic was weak. It had been taxing enough fighting off the human guards. He honestly did not know if he would have come out on top if he and the female fought.

That was genuine fear in the human archer’s eyes when she attacked him. The image of her launching herself at the human played over and over again in Seth’s mind. Just who exactly was this female?

She had moved with such grace and strength when she fought, but there was no sign of magic in her. If she had any, surely she would have used it. The question of if she had even gone through her awakening yet made his stomach drop.

Kat had not. An Etherie who had not gone through the awakening was vulnerable to so much. They did not have the immortal lifespan or the healing abilities that a full Etherie would have. Nor did they have their full magical abilities, if they had any magic at all.

Seth hated the thought of Kat getting hurt, but he also knew nothing he could say would make her change her mind about fighting by his side. There were so many similarities between the two females. Both were fierce and determined, but so young and helpless when it came to fighting against magic.

Being here, seeing how just this one prisoner was being held and treated... it was too much. Since he laid eyes on her, his blood had been boiling, his magic raging inside of him, threatening to lash out. Seth had seen and witnessed a lot of injustices in his life, but this was too much.

Seth's feet started moving on their own, not towards Kat, but towards the halfling female. She was still laying under the human's body. The arrow, meant for Seth, was sticking out of the archer's neck. Seth knelt beside her. Blood, from the human, freckled her face and arms. Even unconscious, there was something strong and wild about her.

"What happened?" Cassius's shadow fell over Seth's shoulder. The male still wore the dark cloak of the royal guard, pulled over his head. His blond hair was completely covered by his hood. Cassius's green eyes shone in the moonlight. He tore his gaze away from Kat's direction before giving his full attention to his friend, and leader. A solemn look was etched across Cassius's face. Seth knew that Cassius took this failure as hard as he did. Cassius was Seth's best friend. The male was usually all smiles and jokes. Now he looked more like his silent twin brother as his eyes narrowed on the female before them — the human still laying atop her.

Cassius said nothing as Seth shoved the human off of her. The iron in his uniform bit into Seth's palms, causing him to hiss in pain. Cassius grabbed the man by the feet and pulled him the rest of the way off, while Seth gently moved the female out from under him. Her body weighed almost nothing. It made his gut twist at the thought of just how malnourished she must be.

Cassius unceremoniously dropped the human's feet and the archer groaned in pain. Seth cocked an eyebrow in surprise. He had been so focused on helping this one small female, that he had not even noticed the human was still alive.

"Seth?" Cassius hissed in annoyance as he kicked the human's legs out of his way. The human whimpered in pain. Cassius's dark face was twisted in disgust as he stared down at the man.

"Who is she?" Cassius asked Seth, not taking his eyes off of the human archer. It was as if he expected the man to jump up and attack them at any moment.

"I don't know," Seth breathed. He had been asking himself the same question since the moment he found her in that cell. She was northern, that much was for sure. Probably a refugee from the capital city, captured and taken here like so many others had been.

Seth looked back at the dying human. The worthless man might still be of some use before they killed him. He had seemed to recognize her when they fought.

The archer's breathing was labored. His hands were covered in his own blood as he desperately pressed them to the wound in his neck, trying to stop the bleeding.

"You are making it worse," Cassius muttered under his breath. The human's eyes narrowed at him, but he stopped pressing the wound so hard. Sure enough, the arrow still lodged in his neck slowed the bleeding enough on its own. Seth had to admit the irony of it was quite amusing. The very thing that was killing him was the only thing currently keeping him from bleeding out.

The human looked between Seth and Cassius with wide eyes. Cassius knelt beside Seth and leaned over the human. His friend sniffed at the man, like a wolf. Pulling back, Cassius made a show of sucking on his fanged canines. Seth smirked. The human was trying to scoot away from Cassius, wincing in pain with each movement he made. Seth let out a low growl that made the archer freeze. His eyes shooting not to Seth but to the female. As if even knocked out she was more of a threat to him than two full-grown fae male warriors — pissed off fae male warriors at that.

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"What did she mean by twenty-five?" Seth slowly asked narrowing his eyes. It was one of the only things the female had said since Seth found her. He knew by the way she said it that the number had been a taunt. It had meaning. The human shut his eyes and locked his jaw. Unwilling to give them any information at all. Seth balled his fists to keep from ripping out the rest of the man's throat and finishing the job the female had started.

"This arrow," Cassius drawled as he leaned over the human's body and touched the end of it just enough to make the human wince in pain. A devilish smile crept across Cassius's dark face as he smiled at the man's pain. "Is the only thing keeping you alive," he finished his sentence. Cassius’s smile was truly feral.

"Painful way to die," Seth added. Cassius got to his feet and began circling the human. The human narrowed his eyes at Cassius and then at Seth before his eyes landed back on the female. It should have irritated Seth, but it just made him want to know more about her.

"Go to hell," the human spat.

"We are already there," Cassius snapped back, “a bit colder than I expected it to be," he added.

Seth stifled a chuckle at his friend’s joke. "Here is the deal. You tell me what I want to know, and I won't pull this little arrow out of your neck," Seth said. He got to his feet, the female still protectively held in his arms.

The human's eyes lit up a bit as he realized just what Seth had said and what it meant. The human had spent enough time around Seth's kind to know that Etherie, especially fae, did not lie. They would twist their words so they meant something else entirely, but they never lied. It was almost impossible for an Etherie to lie.

"What did she mean by twenty-five?" Seth asked after giving the man a moment to think. The man's lip curled as he again spat at them.

"I'm not telling you monsters a damn thing," he snarled.

Cassius reacted so quickly, even Seth had a hard time following the male's movements. In an instant, Cassius was by the human's side. He grabbed the front of the human’s iron armor, pulling him up off the ground. The human’s eyes went wide as he realized the iron was not burning Cassius’s hand.

“How?” He gasped looking from Cassius to the halfling girl as if he was making some connection.

Seth knew that the touch of iron no longer burned Cassius. Like any Etherie with little to no magic, Cassius no longer possessed enough magic for the iron to detect. It did not burn his skin, the only way iron could hurt him now, is if it got into his blood. A place very similar to this one had taken all but the last drop of Cassius and Callum’s magic a long time ago. It was why both of the twins hated humans so much. Seth did not blame them.

Cassius shoved the man back down to the ground. The archer shouted in pain.

"Answer my friend's questions," Cassius snarled. His voice was low and guttural, barely understandable.

"Twenty-five. I would have been her twenty-fifth kill," the man quickly answered. Cassius released his grip on the male. The human let out a breath of relief.

"She killed twenty-four of you?" Seth asked the question more to himself than anyone else.

Cassius whistled his approval.

Looking down at the female cradled in his arms, Seth could not believe it.

"Where did your Prince flee to?" Cassius asked.

Seth did not stop him. He knew they needed to track the Prince if they had any hope in finding Princess Ellinna. If they had learned anything in their last three years of searching. It was that Prince Thidal was responsible for her capture. If anyone knew where Ellinna was, it was the Prince.

"I will not betray my country," The man spat back.

Seth began walking away. His own thoughts far from the problem of continuing their mission. It had been so long since he left the southern kingdom in search of Ameron's missing Princess. Every lead he followed had been a dead end. The Prince had been one step ahead of him each time. This was the closest he had come, Seth could feel it in his bones, and yet he still failed. His heart ached at the thought of Ellinna locked away somewhere, afraid and alone.

"Seth, I don't think the human will be of much more use," Cassius mused as he flicked the arrow in the side of the human's neck.

The man's eyes widened in fear and horror. "I will talk!I swear I will tell you what I know!” The man stuttered in a desperate attempt to save his own life.

“Oh? If you won’t tell us about your Prince, how could you be any help to us? What can you tell us that we don’t already know?” Seth asked as he turned back to the man.

“Liquid iron. The Prince had certain prisoners poisoned with liquid iron in small amounts over weeks and months,” He sputtered.

“Other than being a sadistic bastard, why does this information help us?” Cassius snarled. Seth knew his friend was two seconds away from killing the human just for telling them that.

“She was poisoned,” The man stammered, “for years,” he added.

“You are lying!” Cassius roared. If Cassius still had his magic, Seth knew he would have been ripping through the human’s mind for the truth.

"I swear! It is the truth! I swear it on my life," the human pleaded.

"Your life is not worth much," Seth answered. Cassius sneered down at the human before yanking the arrow from the human's neck in one jerk. Unlike Seth, Cassius had made no promises to the human male.

The human cried out in pain, coughing up more blood. His hands moved to quickly press against the now open wound. Blood still seeped through his fingers. The human tried to say something, but his words were cut off from the blood filling his throat.

Valen, the only non-fae member of their small group, seemed to materialize out of thin air beside him. The witch had many talents in bending glamour, as the witches called it, to her will.

“Kat is lucky that she is only a halfling. It will take me longer to heal the wound because it was inflicted by iron, but she will be just fine,” Valen reported, her eyes glued to Kat who Cassius was now gently helping to her feet.

Seth looked sidelong at the witch. If he had not known any better, he would have sworn she was trying to comfort him.

Valen looked down at the female in his arms. “Do you know who she is?”

Seth knew by the way Valen asked the question that she knew something about the female that he obviously did not. Seth could sense Valen’s magic twisting violently around them as if reacting to a perceived threat.

“No,” Seth admitted, carefully eyeing the witch’s reaction to the halfling girl. “Do you?” He asked, a bit hesitantly.

“I have my guesses,” she mused as she moved to get a better look at the girl. Valen grabbed the female’s hand and studied it.

“What do you know that I do not?” Seth mused.

“I know that this one should not be alive,” she answered.

Seth thought back to the strange way the human archer had looked between Cassius and the female when he realized that Cassius was not burned by iron. His lie that she had been given liquid iron for years, that she had been held here for years was outrageous. Something was not adding up. The female had no iron burns on her skin when he freed her. Yet there, where Valen rubbed her finger on the girl’s wrist, was scarring. The same scarring that Cassius and Callum bore on their wrists. The distinct pattern of iron burn, that had long since healed.

“She is not a halfling, is she?” Seth said. It was less of a question and more of an observation.

“No, she is not,” Valen mused, “and yet she lives with no magic in her blood,”

“None?” Seth’s eyes squinted in disbelief as he looked at the witch.

“I don’t detect even a single drop,” she answered.