Chapter 11 #3
“I had my guard check my borders for other witches. They found no sign of anyone else who might have crossed through the wyrding, but that does not mean more won’t yet come. So tell me, who might try to rescue you?” Ainmire asked.
Despair was bitter in his mouth. “No one.”
“Try again. A truthful answer and your friend will be given bedding for tonight. It gets cold below.”
The funny thing was Cillian had never felt bothered by the cold when they were growing up.
Bran wasn’t sure if that was the case now, though if it was, the Fae lord’s offer was a useless one.
But Bran would bargain for Cillian’s care and comfort before he’d ever bargain for himself.
“I’m the last of my coven because you sent the lights to kill my mother. ”
He spat the words out, wishing they were bullets that might pierce Ainmire’s heart and kill him the same way they had killed a part of Bran.
The grief was still too raw, too new, for him to choke back behind an emotionless wall of stoicism.
Bran didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, glaring instead at the detritus of food on his plate.
“I have sent none of my people to foray into the mortal world with the lights to lead the way.”
Bran snorted his disbelief, picking through the statement. “Sure.”
Someone had, but Bran wasn’t going to give up the fact they had walked into the Shoppe and walked out with his little sister. The less he gave up, the more he’d get to keep.
“You are free with your words.” Ainmire shifted on his chair, and Bran flinched when fingers curled over his chin and forced his head up.
He had no choice but to look at the Fae lord, fingernails digging into the palms of his hands as he met that dangerous gaze.
“But I rule here, by the grace of the Dagda, and I’ll rule more than the lands given to my House centuries ago when I bring Cillian to our king. You would do well to remember that.”
Bran felt as if he’d been doused in ice water. “What do you mean?”
Ainmire smiled, nothing kind in his eyes. “Consider him a tithe, if you will. Another pet to add to the Dagda’s collection who serve at the pleasure of the Summer Court.”
Bran wrenched himself free of Ainmire’s grip, leaning away. “Like the witch in the hall? How does she serve you?”
“However I like. She knows her place and bows to me gladly. You will learn yours.”
The words I’d rather die were on the tip of his tongue, but Bran choked them back. “And what happens if I never do?”
“Then your bones will find a place in my mother’s garden. Eventually.” Ainmire settled back in his chair, and Damarus poured him another glass of wine. He never took his eyes off Bran. “One witch and a surprise, but no incursion that my people can find. Why did you come?”
“We got lost.”
“A lie. You witches guard your forests the way a wild cat guards her kittens. You know those paths better than the mortals who no longer believe in your kind.”
The truth in that statement made Bran swallow. “The same way they no longer believe in you?”
“You don’t know your history.”
“I know you Fae are the enemy and always have been. I know you want our world, and we’ll never let you have it.”
Ainmire laughed, low and rough, before getting to his feet. “Your world was ours. And it will belong to us once more in due time.”
He reached for the table, coming up with a flat, square-shaped wooden box that hadn’t been there at all during dinner.
Bran tensed as Ainmire opened it and pulled out a metal collar.
A silver crest with embossed wolves was set onto the front of it, bracketed by a cluster of tiny emeralds.
Bran was on his feet in an instant, nearly knocking over his chair. “No. I won’t wear that.”
Ainmire smiled icily as he came toward Bran. “Do you think a witch can have permission to walk around without being claimed? Without being owned?”
“I did what you told me to.”
“Do you think I trust your intent? You will wear the collar, or Cillian will suffer in your place. What will it be, witch?”
Panic clawed at his mind as his eyes locked on the collar held in Ainmire’s hands.
He didn’t want to wear it—absolutely did not want to become what that other imprisoned witch had been broken down into—but he couldn’t be defiant if it meant Cillian was hurt or worse.
He dragged his gaze up to meet Ainmire’s eyes, hating how the Fae lord smirked at him with such dark intent. Swallowing, Bran could only nod.
“Good choice, pet,” Ainmire said in that silky voice of his.
Bran still took a half step back before steeling himself for the inevitable. Ainmire opened the collar, the tiny hinge making no sound as he fit it around Bran’s neck. The metal was cold, the fit disquietingly perfect. The snap of the lock clicking into place rang loudly in his ears.
Ainmire touched his fingers to Bran’s chin, forcing his head up. “You look better like this.”
Magic sparked over his emerald ring, and the collar grew warm.
Between one breath and the next, a barrier cut Bran off from Nature and seemed to suffocate him, emptying his lungs.
Bran reached for the collar, gasping for air as he stumbled away from Ainmire, nearly falling over the chair.
His fingers touched the collar, and an electric shock jolted from his fingertips all the way up his arms. He cried out and yanked his hands away, crashing to his knees.
He pressed a hand to his chest, clawing at the shirt because he couldn’t claw at the collar.
Shiny black boots walked into his vision, but he barely paid any attention to them.
All his focus was on the way his magic felt tangled and out of reach, Nature missing from his fingertips, an emptiness inside him that hadn’t ever been there before.
Then a hand settled on his head, fingers gripping his hair tight.
Bran had no choice but to look up at Ainmire’s face, hating the satisfied glint in the Fae lord’s eyes.
“You will learn your place. Your kind always do. Damarus?”
“My lord?” Damarus replied.
“See the witch to his room.”
“I’d rather have a cell,” Bran croaked out, the collar around his throat impossible to ignore, but he refused to cower, even if that was all he wanted to do in that moment.
“Your room locks, and I hold the key, so consider your wish granted.”
“And Cillian? You’ll give him a meal like you promised? Something cooked and not rotten?” He went for specificity because he could see the way his words could be bent when the promise had been to just feed Cillian.
Ainmire seemed to find his attempts to navigate their dance of words amusing. “A meal will be brought to Cillian, as promised. If you want him fed in the morning, you will join me for breakfast.”
Bran wanted to do anything but that, except he had no choice. “I want to see him.”
“You may earn a visit if you behave.”
Bran hated the cruelly amused look in the Fae lord’s eye as he dangled the choice like bait between them. There was nothing Bran could say to him that wouldn’t make his and Cillian’s predicament worse.
Ainmire let him go, and Bran got dazedly to his feet.
Damarus escorted Bran out of the dining room and back down the long hallway, to a small room on the first floor that didn’t look like the cell it was until he stepped inside it.
The door shut and locked behind him, leaving him alone without magic for the first time in his entire life.
It wasn’t gone—just out of reach. Muffled. Impossible to touch.
Living without it would drive him mad.
Bran stumbled toward the window, wanting fresh air, and found it wouldn’t open. He banged his fist on the glass, yanking his hand back with a hiss when fluid lines curled across the pane, magic in their shape. He stared at it, hand throbbing from the fiery shock he’d experienced at the touch.
It was a witchmark, one meant to contain.
Placed there, most likely, by a witch on behalf of the Fae.
Shaking his head, Bran sank down against the wall beneath the window, gripping his hair and giving it a hard yank.
The momentary pain helped him focus, to get himself centered again, but the fear didn’t leave him.
He curled a hand over one shoulder, breathing raggedly, hyperaware of how close his fingers got to the collar.
If this was how Ainmire and other Fae controlled witches, Bran could see the appeal of promising anything so they could feel their magic again.
Bran silently promised himself he wouldn’t ever bargain like that.
It was going to take everything he had to keep it.