There’s a ripple of magic, and the ground shakes briefly as a ring of holly sprouts around them. Glittering fairy dust settles around them, sinking into his skin. It itches like a thousand little ants racing under his skin, invasive in a way Osmond has never had to think about before. But he holds his ground, tightening his grip on the prince’s hand as the magic settles, moving from a painful sting to a light buzzing.

“You are one of the most clever humans I’ve met,” the fey prince admits, respect clear in his tone, “but you are still human,” his hand tightens in Osmond’s grip, “and not quite clever enough.”

Before he has time to react, the fey hauls him up, with far more strength than his lithe frame would suggest. Kicking and spluttering, Osmond is easily manhandled into being slung over the front of the prince’s saddle like a sack of monster-hunting potatoes. Hardened leathers, fine silks, and gemstones bite into his stomach as he thrashes, trying to push himself up so he’s at least not getting a nose full of frost from the side of the ice elk.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

“You said you would tell me where Tristram Blackwall dwells,” the fey prince responds easily, resting a cautionary hand on the top of Osmond’s blond curls. “So, I will have you guide us to him yourself.”

Osmond slaps the hand, pushing himself up awkwardly to glare at the Unseelie, “That’s not what we agreed—”

In a split second, he is forced back down, hissing at the sudden burst of pain and swirling colors of his fuzzy vision. A cold hand digs into the back of his neck, claws lightly grazing his flesh, holding him in place like a misbehaving kitten.

“I would quiet myself if I were you, little Dandelion,” the fey advises, leaning down to whisper in the shell of Osmond’s ear. Osmond flinches from the cold breeze of his breath, feeling frost cling to his fingers and snow dusting his hair as the temperature drops threateningly. “I promised to not harm any Iron Blood or their servants, but you belong to neither of those categories.”

Nails bite into the back of his neck, tiny pinpricks of red sliding down his face, and Osmond’s breath stutters as he stares at the crimson blood slowly painting the side of the white elk. All feyers have gray blood, a side effect of the Joining process. It was such a stupid mistake. If he had just tempered his pride…

It is pointless now. He’s walked right into the fey’s trap, had specified enough to keep everyone but himself safe. He had been banking on the fairy not knowing he wasn’t a real feyer; his medicines practically make him one, and he thought it would be close enough.

Numbly, he watches the Unseelie prince reach for his belt and unhook a beautiful horn of seashells, pearls, and ancient twining wood. The Echoing Horn, the tool that summons and ends a Wild Hunt.

Above him, a sound unlike anything he has ever heard rings out, low and haunting, hanging in Osmond’s ears long after the fey removes it from his lips. “We hunt a new quarry,” the Unseelie prince declares, “and we have picked up an interesting little weed.”

There’s a round of mocking laughter as the other fairies mount their steads, an eclectic array of mutated and elemental copies of beasts.

Osmond tightens his grip on the elk’s frozen fur, unable to look up even if he dared, the Unseelie prince’s hand still placed firmly on his neck, keeping him in check. Humiliation burns in Osmond’s chest. Never has he felt such shame. He thought he knew better, and got reckless and desperate. All his life, he had been warned never to make a fey deal—now look at him.

‘Still,’ and he casts his eyes to his family, bloodied from the battle. Osmond pauses at the sight of his youngest sister, tears glittering in her eyes as she sharply turns away from him, unable to look at his treachery. His heart violently twists, but… ‘At least they are safe.’

The horn echoes out once more, or perhaps it had never stopped ringing. Either way, the Unseelie prince turns away from the Castle of Dale, a war cry rising up around him. “Let us hunt!”

The Wild Hunt marches through the winding streets of the small town below Dale Castle, moving at a pace more suited to wandering tourists than that of a murderous fey army. Osmond tries not to look up, to keep his gaze instead locked onto the cobblestones, but his eyes eventually drift up, macabre curiosity winning out.

The town is a mess; buildings are aflame, and panic is everywhere. Dozens of trees twist up walls and break apart homes, flowers and grasses spring forth from the ground, twining around arms and ankles, locking the citizens in place, forcing them to be held as a captive audience as the Wild Hunt marches past.

Osmond can’t bear to meet any of their eyes; he knows the hatred and betrayal that will shine within them. There is a bitter taste on his tongue, the knowledge that even if he somehow manages to live to see the end of this Wild Hunt, this castle, these people, will never be his home again.

“Osmond?!”

His head snaps up, startled by the sudden call of his name. There in the crowd is a squadron of feyers. They are battered and bruised, probably having been dispatched to help defend the town, they all look exhausted.

“Oi, fairy bastard! What the Hel are you doing with him?!”

“I’m fine,” Osmond is quick to reassure, flashing a weak smile to prove his point.

That somehow only seems to rile them up more, some of the townsfolk even joining in on the jeering. “Unhand him, fey devil!”

“Release the young master!”

“Count yourself lucky the Duke General hasn’t killed you yet!”

“Put him down before we make you!”

This is spiraling far too out of control. Osmond’s deal prevents the fey from directly injuring the people of Dale, but that doesn’t mean there still aren’t plenty of things the fey could do to make their lives worse than being trapped in Helheim. “Stop! You need to—”

Osmond stops talking as the hand still delicately placed on the back of his neck tightens, a wave of cold washing through him. It locks his jaw and startles a gasp from his lips. He fists his hands tighter into the saddle as the fey prince leans down, looming over him in some twisted, taunting threat, “I will do whatever I want with him.”

“Don’t you dare touch him, you pompous pixie asshole!”

“Then, would you care to take his place?”

The protests fall silent, confusion smothering the anger. The crowd shifts uneasily, glancing at each other in bewilderment before the fey prince leans up, grabbing everyone’s attention as he tugs Osmond up with him, easily showing off the power he holds over his life.

“If me having this little Dale infuriates you so much, then take his place,” he announces, giving Osmond a little shake in case someone thought he was talking about some other helpless, captive Dale. “I am not so cruel as to rob your land of one so dearly loved.”

‘No!’ Osmond thinks, desperation crawling up the back of his throat. “You promised—” and again, the fey’s hand ever so slightly squeezes, just enough to make his next breath a little harder.

He continues on as if Osmond hadn’t spoken at all. “Just come forward.” With a careless wave of the prince's hand, all of the vines and weeds keeping the audience locked in place wither away. “And I will let him go.”

The “in exchange for your own life” part goes unsaid, but by the uneasy stares and whispered mumbles, it is clear enough.

“Stop it,” Osmond demands, twisting his fingers into the fine silk and leathers of the saddle under him, needing to do something with his hands before he takes all the pent-up rage and frustration out on the prince himself. “You have what you want. Leave my people out of this.”

The fey almost seems amused by that, and finally, finally, he lets go of his neck so Osmond can flop back down over the saddle, slumped in defeat in his awkward position slung over the saddle like a rag doll. The elk soon starts walking again without any visible direction, and the other Unseelie fall in step a second later.

“Worry not, Dandelion,” and there’s that infuriating nickname again. Osmond is tempted to tell him his name just to get him to stop. It sounds so wrong to his ears, grating in a way he can’t fully understand—and that’s putting aside the fact that the fey prince only calls him that when he is, for some twisted reason, pleased with Osmond.

“I have no intention of trading you away,” he soothes as if Osmond would ever have such a ridiculous concern. “Humans are so very selfish, after all. I knew none of them would accept my generous offer.”

The eyes of townsfolk and feyer alike shift away, and suddenly, they are the ones unable to meet Osmond’s gaze. It shouldn’t hurt. He knows the rules of the feyer by heart, taking his place would be almost as damning as a fey deal. And for the nonfeyer citizens—why would they risk their lives for a sick man they had never met before?

‘Why should they care if the stain of the great Dale feyers’ name was finally removed?’