"He is, but so are you."
She snorted and frowned.
"I am important only because Alaric decided I am important. That is all. Kai is important because he is your brother. We need to get to him and we need to do it now before word gets back of our still being on this continent. For all we know he could be waiting to see if it's even worth having a defence."
"You really think he's going to be happily sitting by and waiting for news that maybe we're here and maybe we're on the other side of the world?" His tone was condescending and she looked away from him, frustrated. "Etani, we can't risk you getting killed or injured," he said.
"Why Jaia?"
Jaia stopped and blinked, looking slightly confused and she watched him, curious at the expressions that passed over his face. He was trying to figure it out too.
She was only important because they made her important, without that she wouldn't be.
"Jaia, I'm not important unless you make it so. I'm just another creature in this world."
Jaia scratched at his jaw and then shook his head.
"You're important to my sanity," he finally came up with and she laughed.
"It's entirely possible that we could fabricate something, you know that."
"You can't fabricate Fae blood," he said flatly and she cocked her head to the side.
"What do you mean?" she asked, curious.
"It's impossible. It's been tried before, many times in fact but it's impossible. You can fabricate something similar to human, something similar to vampire and all the rest, but you can't fabricate Fae."
She hadn't known that and it shut her up immediately, though she was now pouting.
"Well you have no one to blame but yourselves for being in this situation. If you had only minded your own business right from the beginning," she didn't mean it and he gave a low growl, yet his eyes were laughing.
Lifting her brows in challenge, she pursed her lips and gave her best haughty stare.
"Come at me vampire, I'll put you in the ground."
"Challenge accepted, princess," he said silkily and when she grinned, he leapt off the tree.
Following after him, the fight began and while she overpowered him, his superior strategies had him winning and she was left to slink off in defeat.
Versalis had been waiting for them, knowing Jaia would get her down from the tree better than he could and she stepped up behind him, her chin on the top of his head and her arms draped down over his shoulders, linking just before his sternum.
"Why didn't you save me from abject humiliation Versalis?" she whined.
He laughed and his fingers curled around her wrists, holding her gently while turning his head to kiss her inner elbow.
"Even against two, my love, we would not win."
"I think he cheats," she said, seeing the man in question approaching out of the corner of her eye.
"Never," he said and dropped down beside them, smiling at her when she made a face at him
"So, let's talk about Kai," Versalis said gently
The plan they set out was simple, they would all pile through the portal, grab Kai and pull him into Faerie where he would get a hit of energy from Faerie as well as her blood. They would fill up as many bags as they could and then get him back, hopefully before anyone realised he was gone.
Best chance was everything would go to plan, worst was they would be caught but Etani thought she knew what the actual worse was.
Jaia was not immortal. Versalis was exceptionally difficult to kill, but Jaia was not and when she raised that fear, Versalis looked at Jaia and the two frowned. She wanted Jaia to stay behind in Faerie, but it would mean leaving the door open and that was a risk. Something could come through, or something could get to Faerie.
***
Chewing on her lip, the two vampires outvoted her and she let out a slow breath, knowing she had to go along with it, but she would be very aware of his presence and the risk he was in.
Her fears for him were a surprise to her, she didn't know why she felt so worried, but she did and it gnawed at her.
Knowing the best time to go would be during the day when Kai was likely to be in the safety of his room, they waited the night out in preparation.
They had no weapons to polish now, nothing to clean and so they waited anxiously, packing up their supplies when they were ready and dumping water on the fire.
Finally ready, she looked to the two and frowned, wanting to go alone but knowing she would be held down and the plan abandoned if she tried and Versalis seemed to be thinking along the same lines as her.
Letting out a breath, she bit the tip of her finger and drew a slow line in the air. Pressing on it, the two stepped through and she followed along behind, finding themselves in snow.
Shivering at the sudden change, the vampires turned to her and jerked, surprised by the markings that had formed over her body.
Giving a slight shrug, she looked around to gauge where they were, finally looking up at the sky and finding the border between Winter and Ceress.
Motioning them that way, they trudged through the snow in a straight line for the closest border they could get to.
They reached it three gruelling hours later and they stepped from knee deep snow onto soft, springy grass and warmth.
Stopping to shake snow and water out of her boots, she squinted while trying to figure out where they were. She had made it a point to never go this close to Winter when she mapped out the locations that she frequented and so she was a little lost for where to go.
Deciding her best option was to scale a tree and locate the city, she stripped out of everything but her pants and vest and started climbing, leaving the rest behind with the buzzing vampires.
She had been wary of them, but they seemed to be controlling themselves relatively well, only giving her a passing sly glance in contemplation of her blood. But so far no one had tried to bite her and she was glad for it.
Pulling herself up as high as the tree allowed without bending, she searched the horizon and found Ceress to be a relatively small cone on the horizon.
Frowning, she had to wonder just how big Ceress was and turned, looking the other way to see nothing but forests. If Ceress was just one quarter of Faerie, the world must be bigger than originally thought.
It was well known that Faerie was smaller than the human world, but no one knew exactly how much smaller because no one really knew how big the human world was.
Setting their course, she began her descent and looked down to see Jaia watching her, his arms crossed and looking fidgety.
"Are you alright?" she asked warily, really not wanting to have to fight him off. While he looked anxious and as though his skin was too small for him, he nodded and took her hand to help her drop the last several feet to the ground.
"How far do we have to go?" he asked.
"I think we will be walking for most of the day, but if we stick close to the border I think we can run most of the way. You two should be fairly full of energy," she saw him squirming and smiled slightly.
"Running will help burn some of it off."
Versalis approached slowly, carrying her boots and what few supplies they had. Accepting the boots, she pulled them on, tapping her toes on the grass to settle her feet.
"Run?" he asked.
She nodded and bounced on the balls of her feet, grinning.
"Try to keep up. I'm not slowing down for slackers."
Versalis's eyes narrowed and Jaia clenched his jaw in a grim smile. It would be interesting to see if she was faster than them or not.
Taking off, the two vampires streaked after her and she was pleased to see they could keep up with her. They ran like the wind, a blur of movement and muscles singing with the exertion.
It still took several hours to get to where they needed to be and she began to slow, the two breezing past before turning back.
Versalis had a wild grin on his face, his eyes alight with the freedom. Jaia looked as though he was going to cry at having to stop and she patted his cheek gently.
"Is this what you always feel when you run?" he panted, coming to her side.
"Generally yes, it's a wonderful feeling isn't it?"
Both vampires nodded and stretched while Etani worked on finding the exact location.
Settling herself in the spot, she noted that there was a scuff in the grass and shook her head, wondering what creature had been in the area.
Biting her finger, she opened the door and the three stepped inside into the darkness and cool of the dungeon.
The scent hit her like a slap to the face and she moved without thinking as twangs filled the room.
Turning, she drove her foot into Jaia's side and threw him across the room, just as arrows found her and Versalis, slamming them back against the wall and driving into the stone.
Jaia was just bounding back to his feet when someone hit him, a long silver knife against his throat.
He lifted his hands in surrender and looked to her and Versalis.
Versalis had been hit with at least five, all around his torso region and one in his neck.
Her movements had caught three in her side and another four in her chest and she wondered dryly why so many had been aimed at her. Her last thoughts were that someone must really hate her before the world went black.