Is it Marikoth’s curiosity holding me here? Assuming Marikoth is not a figment of my imagination, Finn quickly amended.
But he knew Marikoth was not. He was very real and very separate from Finn. There was something about him that disturbed Finn greatly. Marikoth was … wild? Untamed? A little mad? Maybe all of those things.
But I think he knows the way out of here. And I need to get out, Finn thought..
Marikoth was studying him again with those strange yet compelling, crimson eyes. “Why save Tyreon? But, then again, why did Tyreon open the Wall for you in the first place?” Then with another wave, Marikoth spoke more to himself than to Finn, “Unless my good brother has realized that you drained some of his land’s life? He probably thinks it was me. Interesting. I suppose using you as a cat’s paw is a reason to let you live. But… there are so many reasons not to.”
Finn swallowed. He had been right. Marikoth was mad. Who else would so calmly talk about killing someone in front of them? It was like he thought that Finn was so weak, so negligible that there was nothing Finn could do against him. The hot coal in his chest from the other night with Christopher lit, but this time it was more than a coal, it was a fire. It shocked Finn by how much stronger it was, but Finn wasn’t sure what he could do with it. He couldn’t let the Fae know about it. He had to continue to look feeble and innocent. In a way, both were easy as they were true.
“Why would you k-kill me? I’m just a servant! I’m no one!” Finn cried. The breathlessness and weakness of his voice did not have to be feigned.
Marikoth laughed, “You’re a terrible liar! You’re no one? With the ability to drain life from beyond my brother’s Wall? How absurd!”
Finn winced. Hadn’t Christopher said much the same thing to him many times? His eldest stepbrother and this Marikoth seemed similar somehow. They were both intelligent, frightening and fragile in some way.
They’re both outsiders, Finn thought. They don’t fit in at all.
“You’re on the Fae side of the Wall, you know,” Marikoth murmured. “Right now, you’re unconscious and dying and you’re still telling lies when there really is no need to any longer.”
Finn stared hard at the cabin and the woods out of the doorway. Everything seemed so real. He frowned.
“Then why am I here? Seeing this--” he began.
“This is a dream. Your dream actually,” Marikoth said almost wearily. “It’s not real.”
Finn’s mouth was so terribly dry, and his side ached. It was more than his side actually. His veins hurt as if acid were coursing through them and not just blood. Yet, despite this pain being quite anchoring, the walls of the cabin grew translucent for a moment. Finn’s eyes widened. The walls then snapped back into full reality.
This is a dream! He’s not lying about that! Finn thought. My dream. But I don’t have control of it, do I? Can’t I wake myself up?
“You’re in the Empire of the Eclipse Throne, which is dangerous enough on its own,” Marikoth repeated. “But that is nothing compared to the magical poison racing through your veins.”
Finn risked looking down at his hands. There were black lines under his skin that tracked his veins and arteries.
“I don’t understand,” Finn whispered. “If this is a dream… how are you here?”
“Magic.” There was a faint mocking in Marikoth’s voice. When Finn didn’t react, he sighed. “I am able to be here because you are close to death. Think of this as less a dream than a doorway, and you have one foot over the threshold. And I am all about death.”
He thought of what Marikoth had said about Death Magic earlier. “You use Death Magic?”
“Yes, clever boy. I am the only user of Death Magic alive. Or… I thought I was,” Marikoth added the last slowly.
“I don’t use Death Magic!” Finn cried quickly. “If that’s--that’s what you’re thinking!”
“What do you think you were doing when you stole life from the Empire? Do you think your ability to drain life is normal for Fae? How deep in denial are you?” Marikoth asked casually with a grin threatening to break out across his face.
Finn felt a hole open in his stomach. Not only was he a half-blood Fae, which meant he wasn’t fully part of the human race, but now Marikoth was telling him he didn’t fit in with the Fae either. It wasn’t just his human blood that set him apart, but his magic that did so, too.
“I don’t understand how I could be a Death Mage,” Finn murmured.
“I know the how, but the why is curious to me,” Marikoth answered. “Perhaps Fate is finally tired of waiting and will bring the doom it has threatened for so long.”
“What Fate? What doom? What do you know about me?” Finn asked.
“Do you really want to know?” Marikoth asked.
Finn opened his mouth to say, “Of course!” But then he stopped himself. Did he want to know? Did he truly want to understand what connected him to a being like Marikoth? Because there had to be a connection if they both wielded this incredibly rare magic.
“No,” Finn whispered. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Scuttling back into denial again, I see!” Marikoth laughed. “I understand all too well. I tried to deny what I was for so long. Longer than you’ve been alive. I finally accepted it, and the freedom I’ve found is… incredible.”
Somehow from the look in his eyes, Finn did not think it had been incredibly good. Maybe incredibly bad was a better fit to that bleak expression that flitted across Marikoth’s face.
“If this is a dream how do I wake up?” Finn asked, changing the subject.
Marikoth focused on him again. “You shouldn’t wish to, because once you do you’ll die.”
“Rohan will find a way to help me!” Finn got out as he lowered his hands to his lap. It was exhausting just to keep them lifted up.
Rohan will help me. I know he’s doing everything he can, Finn thought, but then his mind treacherously whispered, But will it be enough? Will it be in time? If we truly are on the Fae side of the Wall, he’ll be in danger himself!
He looked up at Marikoth once more, convinced that these insidious thoughts were from the Fae and not his own. But there was no evidence that Marikoth knew what he was thinking or was adding to his desperate thoughts. In fact, the Fae made a “tcha” sound of disgust and shook his head.
“So certain of him, are you?” The Fae’s lilting voice went dark. “When you know next to nothing about him? When he’s a lord and you’re… a nobody?”
“Rohan doesn’t care about that!” Finn snapped, even knowing as he said it that his defensiveness would indicate that he feared otherwise. “I know his character.”
“Every royal cares about it. Because if they didn’t--if there wasn’t a distinction between noble and peasant--then they would lose their power,” Marikoth scoffed. “It’s not like being noble means anything when you’re human. You’re not chosen for your wisdom or your magic or how good you look with a crown on your head. It’s who your parents were and that means nothing. So they have to keep a tight line on who is let into the club”