Chapter 16 #2
Suddenly, a wave of winged creatures bursts from the doorway, their screeching cries splitting the air. Their wings flutter in a frenzy, and their black eyes gleam with hunger. The swarm grows, multiplying as they rush toward me, closing in from every side.
I scream, but no sound comes out. The hand around my throat tightens again, dragging me toward the void. My body thrashes in its grasp, but the darkness is too strong.
And then, suddenly, everything stops.
The hand vanishes, and the creatures, all of them, disappear into the shadows, swallowed by the swirling blackness. A gasp escapes my lips, and I fall to my knees, the sudden absence of pressure in my chest like the first breath after being underwater for too long.
The void is gone. The creatures are gone. The sensation of being dragged toward the darkness fades as quickly as it had come.
I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision, the taste of fear still sharp in my mouth. My hands tremble as I reach up to touch my throat, feeling the bruises left behind by the shadow’s grip. But when I look around, it’s not the endless dark I see. Instead, I’m back in the cage.
The illusion. It’s over.
Still, I feel the phantom touch of the shadow’s hand on my throat, the screeching creatures in my ears, and the overwhelming dread that follows me now, clinging to me like a second skin.
Ashen curls against me, his warmth a silent comfort, grounding me in the midst of this chaos. I hold him close, drawing strength from his steady breathing, but in the stillness of the cave, a sound breaks through. Soft, hesitant, barely audible at first. A sob.
Anethesis.
I freeze, my heart lurching as I hear him. His voice trembles, raw with emotion.
“Princess,” he struggles to find the words. “You cannot possibly know the magnitude of the gift you grant us. We are so very thankful.”
I exhale slowly, the breath leaving me in a quiet, bitter sigh. My gaze drags up from the cold floor of the cage to meet his. His one good eye is wide, glazed with what might be gratitude, but it isn’t enough to move me.
“We are done then,” I say, my voice hoarse but steady. “I am free now?”
“There is a last task,” Anethesis responds. “The final portal home, and then your work is done. You will be set free.”
“When?” I demand, my throat tight with a desperate need for answers.
“Soon,” he answers, his tone distant, almost reluctant. “We must ready ourselves for what comes.”
The words are like a slap, sending a chill through me that has nothing to do with the cold of the cage. What comes? I stagger to my feet, my legs unsteady beneath me, and I lurch toward the bars of the cage, gripping them so tightly my knuckles whiten.
“What do you mean? What is to come?” I grit out, my voice breaking.
But Anethesis doesn’t respond. Instead, his fingers move in their familiar, graceful dance, the air around him stirring. With a fluid motion, he rises from the ground, weightless, the very air bending to his will. I watch, powerless, as he ascends, his figure fading into the black abyss of the cave
“Anethesis!” I scream, my voice a ragged echo in the silence, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even glance back. “You promised!” I shout, but the words are swallowed by the emptiness.
Slowly, the heat drains from my limbs, and I collapse, sliding down the bars to crumple upon the floor.
My body trembles with the weight of exhaustion, the anger, the confusion.
My hands still grip the bars, my knuckles aching with the pressure, as if holding on to something, anything, will keep me from losing myself entirely.
Have I truly been such a fool?
Falling for another Fae bargain.
I press my forehead to the bars, closing my eyes as I try to stifle the bitter laugh that rises in my throat.
This will never be over. It can’t be. Not with him.
Not with any of them. They take what they want, they break you, and then they disappear into the shadows until they’re ready to take more.
I feel it deep in my bones, knowing that Anethesis will take far more than I ever imagined. My freedom, my soul, maybe even my child. And I... I will have no choice but to give it to him.
I don’t know how many days pass in the cage.
The world outside is a blur of darkness, no sunlight to mark the passage of time, no moonlight to guide me.
The only certainty is the stillness, and the occasional drip of water, echoing through the vast emptiness.
It is haunting, relentless, as if the very air is too heavy to breathe.
The food they give me is delivered with the same cold detachment.
I never see their faces, not that I care to.
The wind carries it to me, like scraps tossed to a wild animal, meant to keep me alive but never treated as anything more and yet, I devour it with a hunger that feels beyond me, a gnawing need that has nothing to do with my own body. The baby inside me demands it.
When I ask for more, they never refuse me. They may view me as nothing more than a means to an end, but they need me alive, need me well. I know this. I feel it in the weight of their eyes, watching from the shadows.
But food doesn’t satisfy Ashen.
I feel him weakening. Each passing day carves something out of him, and my heart aches with every breath he struggles to draw.
Sometimes, when he's too tired to hold himself together, my hand slips right through him. There’s a cruel comfort in the certainty that, if nothing else, we’ll go together. All of us.
A soft kick presses against the inside of my belly and despite the weight of dread anchoring me, a smile tugs at my lips.
On another day or another night, I’m not sure which, I sit in my cage, the hours stretching on in a dull, endless haze, when I hear a sudden crack from below.
I jerk upright, and my gaze drops to the darkness beneath me.
There’s nothing there at first, just the glimmer of the water's surface, reflecting the faintest hint of light.
Then, a hand grips the bar, sending a jolt through my chest.
Another hand appears, followed by a shimmer of bronze.
“You,” I snap as I meet the blue eyes of the Golden Son. “What are you doing here?”
I glance down through the bars and see the air pooling at his feet as he levitates next to the cage, the ink of his Ithranor rune peeking from beneath his sleeve.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says.
I let out a dry laugh. “Are you now?”
He nods slowly, seeming equal parts confused and offended by my response.
I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. “I do not need your help.”
“I know, but you will receive it, anyway.”
I scoff. “For someone so eager to help, you have taken your time. Where was this help when they threw me in this cage?”
“I couldn’t stop them. If they hadn’t dragged me away from you when they did, I’d be ash like the rest of them.”
I glare at him. “What a shame.”
He exhales harder this time, shoulders rising and falling. “I’m trying to make this easier.”
“Why?” I snap.
“Because we shared a past. A torment. A memory, you and I,” he says, low. “And I thought…”
“Don’t think,” I cut him off. “Not for a second. You and I are not the same. You’re a murderer.”
My gaze drops to the red ribbon around my wrist. The memory bites.
But instead of silence or shame, he laughs. A mirror of my own cruelty.
“Oh, but we are the same, Amara,” he says. “Yes, I have killed. But so have you. When you summoned your beasts. When your husband cut through my men like animals. You weren’t innocent that day. There’s blood on both our hands.”
He grips the bars tighter, his face pressed against the cage, his mask scraping the steel.
“Those were my brothers. My sisters. My Legion. Some I’d known since we were children. Some ran barefoot from the fire in Rethmar, like I did. Don’t think for a second you were the only one who lost someone that day. We were just fighting on different sides.”
“And nothing has changed,” I say, curt and cold.
“Really?” he replies, tilting his head as though trying to see through me. “Did you not try to heal me? Is that something you do for your enemies?”
I snort. “Unfortunately, yes. From time to time. It is my weakness.”
“No,” he says gently now, his head shaking. “It is your goodness. That has become... clearer to me these past weeks.”
I don’t like the way he looks at me. Eyes too soft. Voice too warm. I prefer him cruel. Condescending. The version I can hate without guilt. The version I can imagine strangling across a table without hesitation.
“I know what the Ithranor have planned,” he continues, his voice steadying, the exhaustion momentarily forgotten. “I know exactly what they need from you.”
“The portal,” I say, my tone sharp, unwilling to be fooled. “It is the price for everything. Perhaps even what you bargained with them for.”
He nods, and his eyes dim like the sun slipping behind a cloud. “The Sundered Kingdoms. The throne. House Ithranor will turn the tide of this war. We’ll defeat the Mordorin. Once and for all.”
“That’s what you desire?”
He doesn’t answer at first. Just stares. Lips parted. Words caught on the edge of his breath. His gaze pins me, sharp enough to make me blink first. I look away.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “That’s what I desire. It is what my brother died for.”
“Then enjoy it while it lasts,” I say, voice tightening. “Because when I’m reunited with Daed, we will…”
“There will be no reuniting, Amara,” he cuts in, the words spilling from him like a cracked goblet pouring water.
I frown. “We cannot be apart. Daedalus and I…”
“Yes, you can.” His voice sharpens. “And you will. If you open that portal.”
His eyes drift upward, his jaw clenched. When he finally forces the next words out, they scrape.
“You’re not meant to survive it, Amara.”
A short, stunned laugh escapes me. Disbelief. Another lie, surely. But when I search his face, I find no deception.
Only regret.
And when he realizes I see the truth written there, he nods.
“You’ve been tested,” he says. “To see how long you can last. How much pain your body can take. They need you to stay alive, just long enough to keep the portal open. Long enough to bleed you dry.”
I shake my head fiercely. “If I open the portal, he promised we’d be released.”
The Golden Son’s shoulders draw tight. He inhales like it hurts. “He didn’t mean your freedom.”
My chin falls. Water wells behind my eyes, the weight of it makes everything blur. My hand drifts to my swollen belly.
A kick. Small, but there.
“But my baby…”
“They want to return to Meranor, Amara,” he says. “They don’t care who dies to make that possible.”
These bastard Fae. All of them would see me dead for their own power. Their greed.
I may be able to see through their glamors, but I am still so blind.
Blind to their finely tuned deceptions. Their silk-spun lies. Their perfectly measured truths. They plot and kill as easily as they breathe, all smiling mouths and silver tongues, hands slick with blood they pretend is wine.
They call it sacrifice. But it is murder.
I glance at the Golden Son, at the shadow crossing his face. At the sorrow in his gaze. It is genuine. Perhaps. But it changes nothing.
“You knew,” I whisper, and my voice no longer trembles. “You knew, and you still let me believe…”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
His mouth presses into a hard line. He does not deny it.
I turn my back to him, my fingers curling over my stomach as my child kicks again, stronger this time, as if sensing the storm inside me.
If Daed cannot find me, then I will free myself, for there is one thing the Ithranor cannot bind: my will.
My power was never theirs to use, and I will burn this realm to cinders before I let them harm my child.
Let them lie. Let them plot. Let them come.
Because I’m done being their sacrifice.
It’s time I became their reckoning.
I spin on my heel, ready to tear another shred from the Golden Son, but a gust of wind slams through the cavern before I can.
It knocks the breath from my lungs as I’m thrown to the ground. The current barrels past me, shrieking before hurling the Golden Son against the cavern wall.
His body hits with a crack that echoes through the darkness, and he slumps, pinned by nothing but the crushing force of the wind. He groans, straining against it, muscles trembling.
Ashen brushes against me as I sit on the floor of the cage, a low, worried purr vibrating from his chest. I reach for him, stroking his spine to soothe his worry, then I lift my gaze to the mouth of the cavern.
Anethesis drifts toward us, his jaw tight, face twisted in rage.
“Ronin,” he says. “I am so very disappointed in you.”
He clenches his fist.
The wind crushes harder against the Golden Son, pinning him deeper into the rock. Stone splinters. Rubble rains down into the lake below with heavy splashes. The Golden Son can only groan, helpless beneath the unseen force.
Anethesis sighs. His voice softens, but there’s no kindness in it.
“I’m sorry, Princess. I did promise to keep you safe from him.”
He clicks his tongue, almost thoughtfully.
“We will have to discipline him. Harshly.” A pause. “Such a shame when friendships take an ugly turn.”
Before I can demand what that means, Anethesis slices a hand through the air. The wind obeys.
Ronin is ripped from the wall and flung into the distance, vanishing like a discarded thought.
Anethesis bows his head in mock civility. “Rest now, Princess. There is so much to do.”