Chapter 14 #2
When she stopped in front of him, Cillian had to look down slightly to meet her eyes. She stared back, gaze searching, and whatever she saw in his face, in his eyes, amused her. “You do not remember me, do you?”
Cillian arched an eyebrow, trying to muster up the same disdainful tone. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
She smirked, long-nailed fingers dragging up his arm.
He would have pulled away, except Damarus was at his back, with that damned knife of his, and Cillian had no choice but to allow the touch.
Etain’s fingers reached his ear, tracing the shape of it, before cupping his jaw, studying his face.
“Even in this mortal skin, you are the same in your eyes.”
Cillian stared at her in confusion. “I’m not whatever it is you people think I am. I didn’t grow up here. I grew up with Bran.”
“With a witch, yes. It is astounding you consider him a friend. Perhaps even a lover?”
“They care for each other,” Ainmire said. “The witch bargained his presence at my table for Cillian to eat.”
“Pets do not eat at our tables,” Etain tsked.
“I had my reasons.”
“Yes, I stand before it on behalf of our king.”
They were, Cillian realized, talking about him.
He didn’t know why.
Etain finally released him, stepping back. She never looked away, though, her attention focused on him like everyone else. “Was there anyone else with them in the wyrding?”
“No, my lady,” Damarus said. “My lord sent scouts to patrol the border with the wyrding, but it does not appear to be an incursion.”
Etain pursed her lips, still looking at Cillian. “Our king will not be pleased.”
“That we came alone?” Cillian asked.
“That you are here. Alive.”
Considering what had chased them through the forest in Pelham and what they’d hidden from in the wyrding, Cillian rather thought that was a minor miracle.
“What do you mean?” Bran asked.
He shouldn’t have spoken. Cillian realized that as Ainmire gripped Bran by his hair and forced him to his knees with a show of strength that could have broken bone but didn’t. A kindness, maybe, but Cillian didn’t see it as such, not when Bran’s face was twisted with pain.
“Ah,” Etain said, interest in her voice, in her eyes, directed right at Cillian. “Perhaps it is love. And with a pet witch, of all atrocities.”
“Bran isn’t an atrocity, and he’s not a pet,” Cillian snarled.
Etain moved cat-quick, her sharp nails digging into Cillian’s skin when she gripped his chin and dragged his face down close to hers. “There it is. Your rage that once brought winter, hidden in this mortal skin of yours. We thought we’d killed it.”
“Cillian?” Bran gasped out.
Cillian glared at her. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
She smiled, her beauty nothing more than false advertising for the cruelty beneath. “You will.”
Etain let him go and stepped back, her vicious gaze flicking up and down his body.
Cillian looked past her at where Bran knelt, hair still gripped in Ainmire’s hand, those wide hazel eyes looking right at him in a pale face.
His fingers twitched as if to maybe use his magic, but Cillian didn’t see any hint of it.
He didn’t know if Bran could fight against all the Fae around them, and Cillian didn’t want to see him die for his efforts. He wouldn’t survive that.
“What do you want?” Cillian asked, finally dragging his attention back to Etain. For all that this home was Ainmire’s, she seemed to be in charge right now. What had Ainmire said these new Fae were? Sent from the Dagda? Their king?
“Hold him,” Etain ordered.
“No!” Bran cried out as a pair of Fae stepped forward.
Etain turned, gesturing sharply with her left hand, glittering motes of pale pink light following her fingers. “I tire of your outbursts. You will be silent. Pets do not speak unless commanded to.”
The scream Bran let out became muffled as his mouth was sewn shut, black thread conjured up from thin air cutting through his lips to seal them together. Blood trailed down his chin, dripping on the clothes Ainmire had put him in as he clawed at his face, horror in his eyes.
“Don’t hurt him!” Cillian snarled, lunging at Etain, but her Fae reached him first with a speed he couldn’t match.
Hands grabbed him, hauling him away from her.
The pair of Fae forced his arms behind his back, Damarus’ knife kissing the back of his neck, over his spine.
The sting of a cut was negligible, as was the trickle of blood running down his back.
Bran was more important, and he was still screaming, the sound ragged even through his sewn-shut lips.
“My Lady of Threads and Illusion, I would like the pet to live,” Ainmire said in an offhand way, as if he didn’t care one way or another what she decided. “He provides incentive.”
Etain drew her arm back. “You gave it a long leash. Shorten it, or I will.”
Ainmire inclined his head, expression impassive. Cillian jerked against the hands holding him, Damarus’ knife cutting deeper, the sting turning into a burn. Cillian didn’t care. “Leave Bran alone.”
Etain turned to fully face him again, clearly amused, judging by her soft laugh. “Truly, I had never thought to see the day you worried over a witch. You never cared for them in the past.”
“You keep talking like you know me. You don’t.”
“Oh, but I do. We thought you dead, yet here you are, exactly as you were, only wearing mortal skin and consorting with the enemy. Such traitorous actions will surely see you dead once more. Perhaps this time it will keep.” Etain tilted her head a little, a lock of her long hair falling across one shoulder.
“The Dagda will decide your grave, as he did before.”
She raised her hands, fingers curled like claws, a glimmer in her eyes that was all magic. Cillian tried to lean away from her, but the hands holding him tight and Damarus’ knife ensured he stayed within reach. “Don’t touch me.”
“I am the Dagda’s trusted right hand, and I will see you delivered to the Summer Court as you are meant to be.”
Her fingers touched his face, and an electric shock coursed through him, burrowing deep. Cillian opened his mouth to protest, but the words died in his throat as she sank her fingernails into his skin, tearing downward, a searing wave of magic eating through him like acid.
Cillian screamed, he knew he did, but he couldn’t hear it over the wild pounding of his heart drumming in his ears, the world beginning and ending in his bones, in his skin.
Etain unraveled him like one might a piece of cloth, one thread at a time, peeling him open, tearing him apart, and Cillian could do nothing to stop it.
Something wrenched free of him, something anchored deep in his being. The world fell out from beneath his feet, and he fell with it, down into a body that wasn’t his.
Couldn’t be his.
He tasted blood when clarity returned, his senses so much more than they had ever been before—sound and smell mingling like a migraine in his brain.
He couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped his mouth, hot face pressed to the cool wooden floor, the hem of Etain’s gown fluttering inches from his nose.
Cillian blinked slowly, voices distant and thick, like he was hearing underwater.
Hands gripped his arms, his hair, dragging him to his knees so he could look up at the Fae who’d flayed him down to the very center of his soul.
Everyone’s touch burned him like a brand he couldn’t escape.
Etain was blurry in his sight, but he still saw the smile she gave him, saw her reach for him, and he flinched.
It made her laugh.
“Welcome back, Winter Prince.”
Whatever else she said, he didn’t hear it through the pain gouging its way into his body.
The Fae guards dragged him out of that room and to another, the wooden floor becoming cool tile.
The hands on him were exchanged for others, but Cillian barely noticed, his wavering sight locked on the mirror in the bathing room he’d been taken to.
Cillian didn’t recognize the Fae staring back at him with his own blue-gray eyes.