‘So that’s your brilliant plan? Giving them exactly what they want? Me?’, Ian asked unbelievingly his eyes wide from the shock of what his uncle had told him.

  ‘Absolutely. You are of our blood and very much able to free yourself ones you are with them. Your powers will guide you. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to sail into the open sea and wait for you out there.’, his uncle said seemingly resolved to do just that. Leave him, Ian, to fend for himself in the clutches of the order of the holy cross.

  ‘And in the off-chance I manage to escape on my own… how am I supposed to meet you in the open sea?’, Ian asked rubbing his face his hands in a gesture of complete exhaustion. He couldn’t believe his uncle would do that to him.

  ‘Come on. That’s easy. You simply ask the sea to guide you.’, Ron answered in Sean’s stead.

  ‘Brilliant. You two know, that I don’t know a first thing about my so-called powers? Hell, I don’t even know what they are! And you two tell me to trust in myself and go to the last place I ever wanted to be in my whole life. Risk my damn life.’, Ian near shouted.

  ‘Yes, you will do just that. And though it would have been better for you to have more training, we don’t get that luxury. You know your way around a sword. Ron told me that you’ve inherited our family’s battle instincts. The rest will come to you when needed. You just have to rise with the stakes.’, Sean answered matter-of-factly, seemingly bored with his nephew’s insistence.

  Shaking his head he added ‘I really don’t know why you are so shocked. You are thirteen and a Sidhe. My father simply left me in the dark ice grove when I was your age. Your mother was sent to Scathach to be trained as a warrior-maiden. I don’t know which was harder. Everyone gets their own challenge and this is a fabulous opportunity that presented itself.’

  The ancient demi-god, that was his uncle, devilishly grinned ‘And since we can’t directly harm them without breaking the accords… well they laid a claim on you… let’s see if they are able to claim what they wish for.’

  The knights came early next morning. Ready to force their claim it seemed. Grimm faces. Swords ready to be drawn. Sean met them on deck. Ian stood beside him with a grave expression. His uncle he now knew would really send him away. A part that had trusted him crumbled into nothing. He was alone again. Like he had always been. Everyone left him. No matter what they claimed. Looking at the knights and then back at the Sidhe he didn’t even know why it had surprised him. His mother, a Sidhe herself, even if she had never told him about it, had always told him to never trust anybody because everyone had their own motives and goals. And trust only led to heartbreak and becoming a pawn. He had been a fool. Looking now at the bleak future ahead he straightened his back and waited for the deal to happen.

  ‘We will do as you ask. I will give you my nephew, just like you have asked. But know if he ever frees himself of you, you cannot ask for him a second time for then he is Sidhe and no longer human.,’ Sean Mac Lir told the head knight looking straight into his eyes.

  Sir Lorenz knew he should have felt triumph but he didn’t a cold feeling sinking into his stomach.

  Those words had sounded far too much like a curse of old and the part of him that remembered his grandmothers hushed voice when she had told him the old legends of the Sidhe. Suddenly he was again the small boy hiding from the shadows the fire had painted. Fear. He recognized. And the recognition made him angry. Anger was a much easier feeling to cope with. And looking for a victim to release some of the tension those two emotions had created he looked at Ian, who stood in front of him his eyes cast down but his posture straight infuriatingly unbroken. That could not be out of an impulse he tugged the boy close to him, resting one of his arms heavy on the boy’s shoulders. Gleefully he felt the recruit tense up, his eery stoic behaviour crumble. ‘Good.’, he thought ‘Better you learn your place early, dirty Fey blood. If you were not a rare seventh son of a seventh son, I would rather kill you than touch you. But as it is you might be the weapon my lord needs to stand and all those haughty supernaturals. I will see to your obedience myself.’

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A cruel smile grazed his lips. ‘Come on, boy. You see how much you are worth to your so-called relatives. But what else is there to expect from creatures old enough to be the stuff the fairytales are written about them. Old devils. Not as bad as demon vermin, but not by far. Let’s try and make an upstanding knight out of you.’, he said in his mind already planning a torturous training regime to make him obedient and forget his accursed fey blood. The boy would curse the day he was born before long. He turned to take the boy without so much as a good-bye to the arrogant Fey prince he feared and despised with all his heart. Happy to have had the last word.

  They had nearly left the ship when a voice behind him said ‘In your own interest, be careful what you wish for and who you are insulting. Old magic remembers.’

  The head knight turned to see who had spoken and immediately wished he hadn’t done that. Ian, too was forced by his turning to look back. Both the Sidhe prince and the Kelpie next to him had dissolved their glamours. The eery white horse and his master shone in a blindingly bright light. It was Lorenz’ first time to see a high Sidhe without glamour. And like his grandmother had warned him the true form of a high sidhe was not for the mortal eye to see or mind to comprehend. Beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Whilst the boy in his arm straightened his back again, seemingly finding his resolve again, in the head knight the sight planted the seed of madness. A deep part of Lorenz knew he would never get rid of this picture in his head.

  And as he shuddered, he heard a laughter so haunting, he knew even though he had thought he had won instead he had lost. When he turned, he eyes found Ian’s black eyes that now looked to him as if he was gazing into the abyss.

  Leaving with the knight felt wrong on a visceral level. Ian felt like losing his father all over again. Like when he had felt when his mother had disappeared. He knew his uncle expected him to break free and join them, but that seemed like a mere pipedream to the thirteen-year-old boy. He was scared out of his wits. Again, he had no choice but cope with the cards he had been dealt.

  The head knight had laid his heavy arm possessively around his shoulder. Ian wanted to shake it off, but he knew he mustn’t. His shoulders tensed with his instincts screaming at him to run, but he couldn’t the man was much stronger than him. Bile rose in his throat but before could puke on the gangway, he heard his uncle’s voice ‘In your own interest, be careful what you wish for and who you are insulting. Old magic remembers.’ They turned around, rather the knight turned and his arm around his shoulder forced him to turn, too.

  The boy couldn’t believe his eyes. Both his uncle, the Sidhe prince and the Ron, the Kelpie next to him had dissolved their glamours. The eery white horse and his master shone in a blindingly bright light. They were beautiful. And despite feeling their power and danger they radiated; Ian knew on an instinctive level they had done it for him. They hadn’t left him, even though they had had to let him go temporarily, they were there for him. His friends, his family, had let him go because they really believed him to be capable to return to them and they would have fought claws and tooth if they had thought otherwise. His resolve returned and he straightened his back.

  The young Sidhe could feel his power rise in response to the magic in the air as well as to his change of attitude and when he felt the Knight’s gaze on his face, he turned around only to see the buff man, who had before easily suppressed him, tremble. The barest hint of a smile tugged on his lips, when he held the man’s gaze, watching his damaged spirit break a little further.

  When they turned again to leave, they could see the knights that had accompanied their commander as a show of power on their knees unable to even stand in the presence of the unveiled Sidhe prince.

  Now the smile on Ian’s face developed into a full-fledged grin, even if he didn’t know how he was to do it, he would escape.