Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
Rosalina
T . Tom Sawyer from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . U. Ursula Brangwen from Women in Love . V. Vin from Mistborn . W. Wendy Darling from Peter Pan . X …
Fucking X! I always get stuck at X. There’s got to be some literary character I’ve read who starts with X. Surely, one of Tolkien’s orcs. Or wasn’t there a prince in Game of Thrones —
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the helmed man growls and grabs my shoulders, giving me a small shake. “Are you even listening?”
I sigh and drag my gaze up to Kairyn’s black helm. There’s a shining silver streak down the front, repaired by Spring steel from when it had cracked in the storm by Sylvanita Lake. It doesn’t keep the helm from looking any less cruel though. It’s like peering into a void, all light disappearing beneath the carved feathered brow.
“You messed me up,” I say dully. “Now, I have to start over.”
A. Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings . B. Bridget Jones from—
Kairyn grabs my chin, the leather of his gloves warm against my cool skin.
It’s hard to feel warm six hundred feet under the sea.
“How many times must we do this, Rosalina?” Kairyn sighs. The usual timbre of his voice takes on an exhausted tone. “Tell me what I want to know, and we can stop these little visits.”
“Why would I want to stop them?” I ask, unable to bring any emotion to my voice. “After all, you’re such good company compared to the fish.”
I tilt my head toward the walls of my prison. Three of them are made of glass. No Spring steel bars needed here. Even if the air wasn’t infused with the Nightingale’s magic-sapping concoction, there’s nowhere to escape to. Just miles of ocean on every side.
It’s been three months since I was captured and brought aboard Kairyn’s airship. I’d recognized the turquoise ocean from my brief visit to Summer a year ago and had known we were somewhere off the coast of Hadria. They transferred me from the airship to a massive, floating barge. The contrast between its harsh, dark metal and the brilliant sky and ocean had been stark.
That was the last time I felt the sun. They’d taken me down, down, down into the depths of the prison barge. I’ve lived every day since then in this cell with one metal door and three glass walls, wearing the same pair of tattered white trousers and shirt they gave me when I arrived. There’s a thin mattress and a contraption to use as a toilet, and the fish outside and that’s it.
I turn away from Kairyn and stand by one of the glass walls, staring out at the blue sea. I was lying, of course. The fish are far better company than him. We’re so far down that only the faintest glimmer of daylight can penetrate, but it’s enough that I’ve been able to track my days here by scratching a little line on the floor with my nail. If I wasn’t a prisoner, I might even find the view spectacular.
The deep blue sea spans out all around. Fish of every hue swim back and forth in front of my three walls. I’m never alone; they seem to swarm here, as if wanting to keep me company. I don’t even mind the strange ones: the ones with scales black as oil and eyes that glow like gemstones. I wonder if the Below has an ocean, too.
Kairyn comes up beside me. He visits me nearly every day. I call them visits because the word “interrogation” sets my heart racing.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Rosalina,” he says softly. My name in his mouth makes me want to gag. I can still feel his vines wrapping around my body, squeezing the breath out of me. “I know how lonely it must be here. No freedom. No magic.” He gives a long exhale. “No mate bonds.”
A shudder trembles through me. Every day, I fight so hard to keep his poisonous words from affecting me. Whether it’s with stupid word games or imagining I’m somewhere—anywhere—other than here, I can do it. I can keep his darkness from seeping into me.
But every day, it gets harder and harder. As if the sea is swallowing me whole.
I sink to my knees.
Kairyn drops down beside me. “It’s all right, Rosalina. I’m here. You’re not alone.” Carefully, he moves a strand of matted dark hair away from my eyes. “This can all be over, little Dandelion. Just tell me what I need to know—”
It gets harder. But I won’t stop fighting for them. For myself.
With a roar, I throw my body against Kairyn’s, sending him backward. “Go to hell, you monster!”
I clamber over him. He’s so much bigger than me and stronger, and he could call an entire unit of guards in at any second. I won’t win my freedom by doing this, but that doesn’t matter. I just want him to feel the pain he’s caused me, caused my mates, just for a second. Just to remind him he’s not dealing with a dandelion.
He’s dealing with a fucking Queen.
Pinning his shoulders down with my knees, I wedge my hands under his dark mask. There is no greater shame for a royal of the Spring Realm than to reveal their face to anyone other than their fated mate. A shame he forced upon my own mate. A shame I will make him endure.
I push as hard as I can, but three months of consuming only rationed bread and water has made me weak. The helm inches up with agonizing slowness. Kairyn bucks beneath me. “Get off, you bitch!”
A strong chin emerges, and a desperate excitement rises. I want him to suffer as I’ve suffered.
“Get off!” Kairyn jerks his torso, throwing me to the ground. He staggers to his feet. His whole body shakes as he places his hands on his helm to wedge it back over his chin.
I draw my head back and spit. A glob of spittle lands right on his bare skin before he can slam his helm back over it.
We stay there like that for a minute: his armored body shadowing me upon the floor. In the three months I’ve been imprisoned, he’s never hurt me physically. Never used torture to get the information he wants. I wonder if this is the moment he breaks.
“Emperor, are you all right?” a guard shouts from outside the metal door. “We heard a scuffle.”
“Stay out,” Kairyn growls back. “Stay out!”
He takes a heavy footstep toward me. Then another. I shuffle backward until my spine is pressed against the cold glass, trapped between the sea and a madman.
“I was tasked with keeping you safe,” Kairyn says. “Tasked with finding the answers to my questions. If I can’t accomplish this, then you will be sent to someone who can.” He takes another step closer until I’m completely engulfed in his shadow. “Trust me, Sira does not keep her guests in such fine conditions as I.”
Sira, Queen of the Below. The arch-nemesis of my fae mother.
“So, I ask you again,” Kairyn breathes, “my three questions.”
I close my eyes. B. Bridget Jones from Bridget Jones’s Diary . C. Chani from Dune .
“Where is the moonstone necklace?”
D. Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice .
“Where is Summer’s token?”
E. Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games .
His voice rises in pitch, growing raspy, near hysteric. “Where is my brother?”
I flick my eyes open and stare at him, bent down only an inch in front of my face. “Rot in hell, asshole.”
He pounds his fist against the glass, right beside my pointed ear. I flinch. “Where is the moonstone necklace?”
“I don’t know.” I give him the same answer I always do. In the first few months, I realized they were infusing my food with some sort of truth serum to stop me from lying. Well, the joke was on them. Just because I had to tell the truth didn’t mean I was going to tell the truth they were looking for. They’ve stopped bothering with the serum now, having realized I wouldn’t fall so easily into that trap.
And this is the truth—I don’t know where the moonstone necklace is. Caspian took it from me, and I have no idea where the Prince of the Below is. But I do know I have to do everything I can to avoid it falling into Kairyn’s hands. Whoever wears the moonstone necklace can wield the Bow of Radiance, the most powerful of all the divine weapons.
Kairyn slams his other fist on the opposite side. “Where is Summer’s token?”
“Not on me,” I growl, another truth. After Ezryn killed the Turquoise Knight up at Queen’s Reach Monastery, I took Dayton’s necklace back. How was I to know I wasn’t going to see him again? Now, I keep my gaze focused straight on Kairyn so as not to shift it to the flimsy mattress they call a bed. They didn’t know I had his necklace when they imprisoned me here. I’ve hid it in a slit within the mattress for safekeeping.
“Where is my brother?”
This question, I know, is not for Sira. This is all Kairyn. He must assume I know where Ezryn would have gone after we were separated in the throne room. Joke’s on him, again. I can’t predict Ezryn’s movements any more than I can predict the trajectory of a shooting star. So, this answer I give from my heart. “I wish I knew.”
Kairyn’s asked me these three questions nearly every day, and I’ve given him the same three answers.
What else can I do? My heart, which should be erupting with the mate bonds tying me to Kel and Farron and Ez, is silent. I have no idea where any of them are. Where Dayton is. Where Caspian is.
It’s just me and the fish.
Kairyn pulls back, but his helm is still focused on me. He’s deciding something. He’s lost his patience with me. Will this be the day I’m sent down to the Queen of the Below?
I drift my gaze past him to the schools of fish outside my window. I suppose I’ll come to miss even this tiny bit of light when I’m rotting beneath the surface. The brilliant colors swarm past the glass in frantic motions.
I blink. There’s something else out there, in the deep water. Not a fish.
A girl.