8. Entranced by the Magic of this World, Forever Beholden to It
8. ENTRANCED BY THE MAGIC OF THIS WORLD, FOREVER BEHOLDEN TO IT
Though all I’d done was defend myself from an execution secretly sanctioned by the queen, she ordered me locked up in the dungeon again—as if I should have surrendered to her will and submitted to Selwin’s sword without protest.
That her subjects too often accepted her punishment, no matter how undeserved it might be, was a fact that gnawed at me—along with my mounting hatred for the woman.
Zako had warned me about the dangers of hate, how it poisoned the person harboring the emotion. At the time he imparted his teaching, I’d thought him exaggerating, ridiculous even. After all, under what circumstances would I possibly grow to detest another being? Life wasn’t ideal in Nightguard, I’d known that, and I wasn’t often treated with the respect and appreciation I so craved, but life wasn’t perfect for anyone. I couldn’t imagine anyone so terrible and cruel to elicit such an extreme reaction.
Now, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from despising the damn woman, and I really was trying, calling on every one of Zako’s lessons to get me through the turmoil muddling my thoughts. With nothing to distract me from myself, I was failing spectacularly.
After aides dragged Selwin off the field, guards came for me next. Another host of them circled an enraged Rush, veins bulging along his temples, at the edge of the dugout while his friends encouraged him to calm down, likely reminding him of all that was at risk with this stupidly barbaric Gladius Probatio, of how vital it was that one of them win the Fae Heir Trials.
Dragonfire, how I wished I could slice off the queen’s idiotic head and use it as a footstool! See how she liked that.
Despite my awareness that the fate of an entire world was at stake—and that the wellbeing of its residents was paramount—I still wished Rush had broken through the barricade of men to save me—my dislike of being a damsel in distress be damned.
At least he understood the rules of the game the queen was playing. I was learning as I went, like a child poking a sleeping dragon to find out what happened next. How could I play a masterful game of chess when all I seemed able to do thus far was run headfirst into danger of the queen’s making.
The guards, though I’d fully expected them to deposit me in the reputedly awful fae dungeon, once more locked me up on the human level. My father had perhaps intervened on my behalf to spare me from whatever torment happened on the floor below. But even if he had grown a set of balls and stood up for me at last, I didn’t believe for a moment the queen would agree to something that didn’t ultimately serve her goals. The woman wouldn’t rest until she towered above my corpse.
I’d have to hurry up to pay her the favor first…
This time, I found myself in a different cell at the very end of a seemingly endless hall lined with doors on both sides—dozens of rooms that housed the unfortunate humans snared by the alluring fairytale version of Faerie so very different from the truth.
My new room was even colder than the first. My threadbare blanket, the only bedding, had holes in it I could push my entire arm through, and did next to nothing to dispel my misery as I sat and shivered.
Worse, however, was how the hours ticked by and no one, not even Pru, came to check on me. I no longer had a window to dispel the darkness or to tell me how much time had passed. My stomach grumbled and ached when no one brought me food or drink, and eventually, more to forget my distress than anything else, I forced myself to sleep, curled up into a ball on a thin mattress with spokes sticking through one corner.
At least someone would have to come fetch me for my fight the next day.
But too much time slunk by, and the shuffles beyond my windowless door that signaled the humans heading off for their night shifts had quieted, resumed, and then silenced again. They were asleep in their rooms, which meant that beyond the near pitch darkness of my room, it was daytime—the fourth day of the Gladius Probatio.
Stiff after restless sleep and the unrelenting cold, I sat in the middle of my bed, as far away from the chill permeating through the walls as I could, and waited. And then I waited some more.
Again came the soft, monotonous footfalls up the hall from my room that marked nighttime. Another time they faded, and I did my best to sleep while my stomach clawed at me from the inside.
Had the queen left me here to die? Did no one who might care about me know where I was?
At the very least, Pru should have come. It was her assigned duty to care for my basic needs. I longed for the goblin’s droopy, ashen face, and her disapproving frown as if she were the absent mother I’d never known.
She didn’t come. Neither did Rush or Reed, not even Hiroshi, West, Ryder, or Roan. Certainly not the king.
Rush had assured me I’d be safe in the dungeon, that he’d somehow secure it. So long as I was a competitor in the Fae Heir Trials, he’d said, the queen couldn’t kill me without reasonable cause. But just because Rush had kissed me—making me feel a consuming passion I’d never before experienced—didn’t mean he was telling the truth .
The fae were notorious for their lies; everyone knew that—save the humans who believed the faes’ greatest fabrication of all: that they were incapable of lying.
They were masters of the art. Zako had warned me early on.
Rush was the queen’s agent. He didn’t deny it. And Lennox had nearly killed me when I should have been under the protection of whatever enchantment governed the Fae Heir Trials.
As the humans beyond my locked door returned for another day of sleep, my understanding shifted. This was the start of the fifth day of the Gladius Probatio. Contestants were supposed to fight every day, I’d heard Azariah say so. I’d won all my fights, so I should still be a competitor.
Yet here I was, a prisoner. The fights must be taking place without me.
I couldn’t rely on the protection of a spell that had already failed me once. I couldn’t depend on Rush to keep me safe even if those were the orders I’d heard delivered from the monarchs’ very lips. Nor could I expect Pru to find me when the queen had already threatened death to her entire lineage because of me.
Once again, I was alone.
Just as in Nightguard, I was an outcast in a world I’d never truly be a part of.
Zako was gone. And because of his connection to me, my only friend from my earlier life, Xeno, was locked up somewhere in this shithole with an innocent dragonling.
No one was coming to save me.
If I intended to get out of here alive, I’d have to do it myself.
Shaking off the cold though it encased my bones, I stood and gingerly explored the confines of my room. My sight could make out little of use, and then only if I were to bow my head close to the object I was examining. With hands outstretched, I took baby steps across the space, mapping out its dimensions, searching for any weaknesses.
I found none.
But if I gave up, I’d be done for.
As usual, surrender wasn’t an option.
I shook off my disappointment and began anew.
Once I completed my second examination of the cell as thoroughly as I could, given how I couldn’t see, or reach the ceiling even when I climbed onto the bed and stretched, I accepted the finality of my imprisonment. There was no way out of this room that didn’t involve someone unlocking the door from the other side.
That was, until I took magic into account. The concept was foreign to my thinking. Yes, I’d grown up with Zako performing minor spells, and with the red-haired witch Clara occasionally visiting Nightguard to fortify its protections. And I’d been surrounded by magnificent creatures and shifters whose magic was self-evident…
But I had never used magic. I had no chance of having any power. I was only half fae. My human mother, whoever she was, had guaranteed I’d never become a true threat to the tyrant queen.
Despite all that, there was no denying some … force had touched me in the arena to retrieve me from the brink of death. I hadn’t summoned it. I hadn’t even known it existed, running through the land beneath my feet. It had found me.
Perhaps it would find me again.
Out of options, and desperate for water, food, warmth, and freedom, I sank to my knees in the middle of the room.
I despised fear, recognized it for the weakness it was, and yet … as the minutes dragged on, fear became a constant companion. I detested that I was turning into someone I’d been intent on never becoming almost as much as I hated the queen herself. All it had taken was three days of the unknown, of wondering when and if my suffering would end, to claw away at my strength and resolve.
The floor was damp and cold. When I pressed my palms flat to what felt like large bricks, their edges worn by use and time, nothing happened. There was no zing, no tingle, no energy sweeping up my arms to vanquish my fears and gift me that tantalizing elixir of hope. Tears stung my eyeballs, but I fought to keep them from falling. I might break if I let myself give in to exasperation.
Instead, I pressed my forehead to the rough bricks, silently pleading for assistance. I ended up with a new scratch and nothing more. Again, no response. The floor was just a cruddy, rank surface that smelled like decades-old urine.
Struggling to keep the tears at bay, I spread myself out on the filthy floor like a star, trying to cover as much ground as possible. I lay there for five long minutes while my teeth chattered from the seeping cold, but once more I sensed nothing beyond myself.
“By sunshine,” I whispered just to hear a sound outside of myself. My voice croaked across a parched throat. “I can’t die in here. I can’t.”
Only I knew all too well that I could.
I pounded on the door with both fists and cursed the queen until I ran out of words foul enough to suit her. The door scarcely rattled, so thick and heavy was its wood. When I ran out of steam and the tears threatened to flow despite my refusal, I huddled on the mattress again, waiting for a better idea to arrive.
“Not like this. Please, not like this,” I murmured to myself over and over until I must have fallen asleep—for I woke to footfalls that stopped on the other side of my door.
Suddenly alert, I bolted upright and waited, wondering if the person was friend or foe. Since I had so few of the former, I was betting on the latter. The guards had confiscated my weapons, but I could still fight. I was a cornered, hungry animal, and I’d lash out as ferociously as a dragon with nothing to lose.
The door creaked on its hinges and my heartrate picked up. Dim light from the corridor spilled in, illuminating a swath of gray, dingy floor. The cone of light grew until it silhouetted a man’s figure.
I slid to the edge of the bed and lowered my feet, ready to spring into attack.
A glowing orb swept into my cell, illuminating the man’s face.
I stood with a squeak of rusty hinges. “Finnian?” I breathed.
The fae who’d aided in abducting me from Nightguard weeks before nodded, the thick braid he again wore sliding heavily against his back. He pressed his index finger to his lips before beckoning me to follow him out the door.
Reminding myself of the kindness I’d seen in his warm, caramel eyes, I nearly ran across the threshold. He stilled my momentum with a hand to my shoulder before pulling the door closed behind us, even the snick of the lock muted with his care.
“You must move like one of the humans or she’ll notice,” he said, so softly that I leaned toward him to hear.
I didn’t bother asking who she was or how she’d learn we were traversing the halls. Ears and eyeballs, with severed flesh and nerves dangling, bobbed beneath dim orbs that lit the hall only enough to keep from tripping .
Finnian clasped my wrist and walked, shuffling his steps as if his mind were controlled, as if he truly didn’t register the nature of his surroundings.
As if he were a human entranced by the magic of this world, forever beholden to it.
Advancing at that agonizing pace, my muscles twitched with the need to hurry by the time we finally reached the end of the hall.
“Remain calm,” he whispered. “Steady your heart.”
I nodded, hoping he couldn’t actually hear my heart beating. I focused on keeping my every inhale deep, the following exhale long and easy.
“Good,” he said, tucking me behind his larger frame, and turned right into another hallway. This one was better illuminated, the doors on either side farther apart. Each of these doors encased a small window, and I spotted frilly curtains lining the inside of a few. The “nicer” cells, then, likely for the most submissive and cooperative of the humans.
My stride hitched as I spotted a masculine figure at the end of this hall. Finnian glanced back at me and tugged on my wrist. Warily, I shadowed his every step, aware of how much taller he was than me, and yet every one of his footfalls was feather-light.
When we reached the man whose back was to us, Finnian slowed.
The man turned.
My eyes widened. Reed!
The stable boy leaned his head around Finnian’s shoulder to find me. His lips pressed into a hard frown when he took in the state of me. I had no idea what I looked like, but the thunderous pinch of his features suggested that every torment I’d endured showed on my face and body.
Finnian pointed to the left, Reed nodded, glanced at me a final time, and disappeared down the hall in the direction Finnian suggested. We took a right.
Several turns later, Finnian stopped in front of a tapestry. Woven beautifully, it portrayed yet another gruesome scene of a man in armor and a crown, presumably the queen’s father, killing dragons, their heads piled up around him. Despite my imminent escape, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth. What a waste of skilled artisan labor and fine silk. “What a twisted, sick fuck,” I muttered under my breath, unable to hold back my judgment on the infamous King Erasmus the Bloody.
Finnian looked around us, doing his best to appear nonchalant, and pulled aside the tapestry. He pushed open a door behind it and shoved me through it.
“Follow the pathway until you reach an unlocked door. Rush will be waiting for you on the other side of it. You never saw me or Reed.”
Before I could thank him, he closed the door behind me without making a sound, and plunged me into total darkness.