10
Jeryn
Grabbing my vial pendant in a chokehold, I stalked into the apothecary. Suspended over one of the castle’s indoor pools, glass walls comprised this vacant part of the medical wing. I strode without pause to a hutch displaying various bottles, including samples of universal Willow Dime—the same herb that had poisoned Princess Briar due to her allergy—as well as Spring bundleberries, Summer ferns, Autumn wheat kernels, and Winter pine.
An upper shelf held newly mixed restoratives. Among them stood a cruet filled with a clear liquid, its contents indispensable.
I should know. I’d created it.
Although I had brought my own supply, I’d recently drained my vial after meeting with Rhys in that shark-infested throne room. Replacement doses were currently unobtainable, being hefted onto Winter’s ship with the rest of my belongings. I should hold off until returning aboard, yet the images of those sea creatures festered in my head. Them, and other haunting visions.
My gaze skewered past the translucent walls and into the corridors. Confirming the vicinity was deserted, I released my pendant, snatched the cruet, uncorked the top, and let a droplet fall onto my tongue. It sat there for a moment before sliding down. I swallowed and shut my eyes as the bitter taste of herbs dissolved on my palate. Instantly, the blood rushing through my veins slowed its pace, the clamminess abating as well.
One spare portion for the vial, in case I required it and couldn’t locate my coffers on the ship. Then I returned the vessel to its shelf.
Hanging above a table, a paper lantern flung light across the space. The sunburst painted on its surface matched the ones Summer inked onto its prisoners. Quite a misuse of the court’s reserves to brand fools on the ankles, wrists, and neck. An escapee could conceal those places beneath a pair of shoes, a set of gloves, a scarf.
Winter did not mark them that way. If that were the case, my kingdom would do so where it counted—between their brows. That way, pursuers would know where to look. Or if necessary, where to shoot.
Unsheathing the scalpel knife at my hip, I approached and traced the symbol with the blade’s tip. Such thin material. Such a delicate facade. Even so, the black painted symbol blazed across the lantern like a force to be reckoned with.
The fixture caused another image to solidify in my mind. Her hands chained overhead. The way her body had strained. The extension had displayed every dip and curve, from her slender fingers, pert nipples, and taut thighs to that bobbing, tattooed throat.
Her smutty chemise had left little to the imagination. The hem had barely concealed the shadowed vent between her thighs, which had parted and quivered under the ministrations of my knife. Damp heat had emanated from her slit, the flesh bare and the temperature of her pussy scorching my knuckles.
Each time she’d swallowed, the sunbursts had shuddered. Each time that had happened, my skin had tingled with urgency.
I recalled how my knife had skated across the fabric of her clothing like a line about to be crossed. When the material had trembled, a perverse temptation had crept down my fingers. Nick her. Toss the knife. Or run the deadly point to other sensitive places that would make her shiver. Each choice had been equally tempting.
Would those hands have grappled the chains? Or would she have devoured me whole?
Potentially, the second, based on that raunchy little stunt when she’d hijacked the moment by smearing her tits and cunt against me. Then against the hilt of my knife. The slip and slide of her genitals across the handle had threatened my fucking grip on the weapon.
Telltale warmth still brimmed from the hilt, the residue of her body heat radiating against my palm. I should sanitize it. I should scrub it clean. I should come to my fucking senses. Instead, a slight floral essence wafted from the handle, an indication of how she smelled. Perhaps tasted.
My thumb stroked over the hilt before I registered my actions. Condemnation, I choked the weapon in my fingers. Another inch of pressure, and the object would crack.
She fought dirty. She knew how to fuck up her enemies.
The woman was fire. Never mind that her shallow pants and flaming irises had tested my endurance. She’d been whittling down those reserves for a while. But with all that heat rising from the beast’s flesh like toxic fumes, and with the pressure of her cunt rutting against my knife, I’d scarcely retained my composure.
What. The. Fuck.
What was wrong with me?
One goddamn enigma after another. And I fucking hated enigmas.
Not least of all, her lack of voice. I had speculated whether she’d been faking this, but enough people had confirmed otherwise by now. Despite our shared history—the memory she didn’t know about, from a time when she’d possessed working vocal cords—the woman had since lost her ability to speak.
And yet. Twice now, I’d understood her audibly. First, during our fight in Autumn’s forest, when she had screamed. Then in the quad, when it had sounded as if she’d spoken aloud. As though every whisper, growl, octave, and flick of her cursed pink tongue were accessible like a distinct frequency, the way certain fauna transmitted noises to one another ultrasonically.
How the fuck was that possible? There had to be an explanation.
Meanwhile, she must have concluded I was simply adept at reading lips. And she would be right. Occasionally, medical practice required that skill.
On to the next matter. All this time, I hadn’t taken notice of another pertinent detail until now. Only when she’d been trussed up, had I belatedly registered the slender stomach, which I’d traced with my blade. Her womb had a shrunken appearance that exceeded normal parameters. I knew what dosage had caused it, had seen it before in Autumn, when a born fool had been burned alive in the maple pasture not minutes after my arrival.
Such doses rendered prisoners infertile. Summer used this method to control its captive population.
For some reason, my knuckles curled. Although the preventatives came from Winter, an image of the beast being force-fed that treatment didn’t appeal to me.
As for the tattooed collar, I’d dealt with the guard who marked her. Considering the altercation I’d interrupted in the tower, the man’s punishment had been overdue. Despite the irony of all I’d done to her, witnessing his insolent hands on the beast had turned my vision red. Shaving the flesh from his knuckles had merely been a prelude. I’d given explicit orders for no one to go near my property. As a result, the guard now lacked any fingers to touch her with, much less other ligaments. I’d taken care of that shortly before polishing off the rest of him.
And while I didn’t care to offend Queen Giselle by torturing one of her subjects, I hardly gave a shit what Rhys thought. The guard’s wailing had been worth insulting the Crown.
The door flew open. Boot heels hammered into the room.
“Sire, there’s a problem,” Solstice reported.
That meant one of the captives was causing a disturbance. One rebellious little female came to mind.
I continued tracing my knife across the lantern’s sunburst. “Which one of them?”
“The mute one.”
Naturally. My hand stalled. I flicked my attentive gaze to the side, my silence commanding her to speak.
The First Knight’s words became airborne. “She’s escaped.”
Two words. Only two words.
Blood rushed to my head. Escaped. Again. For a second, every sensory perception dissipated like a vapor, and every rational thought broke down like scaffolding. But before the shock could immobilize me, it gave way to logic. This time, she had no weapon, nor allies like Poet and Briar to aid her flight. Most importantly, she was restrained.
Across the lantern, I sketched my blade over the fragile outline of the sun. Envisioning the ink around her neck, I thought of her pulse beating against the place where she swallowed.
My timbre came out dispassionately. “She won’t get far. Not restricted by those bindings.”
A pause. “She has no bindings, Sire.”
“What?”
“The mute. She removed them.”
Now my head lifted, a muscle in my temple jumping. Slowly, I drew out the words. “What do you mean, she removed them?”
Briefly, Solstice went quiet. “Sire, I-I don’t know,” she testified. “One moment, the fool was there, and the next she wasn’t. We found the ropes discarded in the tunnels.”
My wrist twitched. The tip of my blade sliced through the sun.
“I assure you, Your Highness. We had Summer’s army enforce the knots,” Solstice hurried to explain. “They were secure, beyond anything veteran ship captains could have unraveled. I have no idea how she managed it. No one has that skill.”
Incorrect. Apparently, someone did.
Slowly, now. I slowly buried the knife into my sheath and straightened. “Show me.”
***
The tunnels began at an intersection and then spread in three directions, the arteries reeking of gutted fish and piss puddles. Solstice marched at my side while listing the details. The prisoners waited in the ship’s cargo hold, the troops had swapped the ropes for irons once aboard, and whatever the fuck else she was saying. I strode ahead, unable to process more.
Summer and Winter’s troops brooded in the hub. The former knights grimaced in frustration while the latter stared as if dealing with a gaggle of toddlers, each squad blaming the other for the captive’s disappearance, thus achieving nothing.
I materialized from the shadows. Everyone shut up.
The units bowed and split apart. I strode toward them while swatting my hand, dismissing the genuflection. Yet another tedious waste of energy.
Stalling among the soldiers, I reached out. One of them surrendered the castoff ropes, dropping them into my palm. The cords slumped there like dead snakes. Pathetic. Pointless. That’s what she’d reduced them to.
We’d always planned on switching to manacles once aboard. But given Summer’s proficiency in tying knots that rivaled chains, the bonds still shouldn’t have been a problem. They never had been before.
I slit my gaze. No signs that a dagger had been used. Rather, she’d loosened the ties manually. In the half-light, while unable to see what she was doing. The woman might as well have accomplished this impossible task with her eyes closed.
If I’d had the capacity, I would have grinned. Fools were rarely impressive outside of the inexplicably gifted virtuoso.
Sand drifters could dismantle knots. This, I had known. Yet against the expertise of these knights, I hadn’t expected a malnourished and reckless prisoner to shed the restraints. To outwit an armed force.
“You shitheads,” Indigo of Winter grunted. “You said the ropes were—”
“Our ropes weren’t the issue,” a Summer knight blustered. “If your first-in-command had kept her eye on the fool, this wouldn’t have—”
“Silence,” I enunciated.
The drawn-out murmur slithered across the tunnels. The party fell silent, eating the rest of their words.
The throb in my temple intensified. Another unprecedented side effect of this incident.
Solstice approached. “We’ll alert the Crown and have the drum sounded.”
I contemplated that unfavorable prospect. “That will incite unnecessary panic.”
Indigo grumbled. “No drum? Your Highness, that’s insanity.”
Was it, now?
I tossed the ropes to the ground, useless things. Then I rounded my full height on the warrior, strolled toward him, and cracked his head against the wall.
The man growled in pain, spluttering as I calmly pressed his face against the foundation. Blood oozed from the man’s ear, crimson staining his uniform.
Regardless of his combat skills, Indigo had always been outspoken. While I valued candor, I didn’t tolerate it at the expense of respect. Lately, this man had been failing to hold his tongue more times than I could count. It was becoming irksome.
I cocked my head. “Do you know why I did that?”
With the knight’s lips mashed between the wall and my palm, he couldn’t answer. Therefore, Solstice took her cue. “Defamation,” she supplied.
My first-in-command glowered at her comrade, and the retinue mirrored her expression, grimaces distorting their features. They regarded Indigo with offense not for the slight—it took more than a petulant tantrum to motivate me—but its content. In The Dark Seasons, to call anyone’s sanity into question bordered on blasphemy. Addressing a Royal as such amounted to slander and prosecution.
Squashing his skull harder into the facade, I inquired, “Now when you say insanity, could it be that you’re referring to me and not the prisoner?”
Pebbles dislodged from the sediment as he managed to grit out, “Of course not, Your Highness.”
“Because for a moment, it sounded like you were questioning my judgment. But that couldn’t be,” I insisted. “No knight would make that error to my face.”
These soldiers and I had built a formidable alliance. So long as they guarded Winter, its people, and the Crown, I treated them as equals. Break that pledge however, and I would respond differently.
The troops knew of my capabilities. Evidently, Indigo had forgotten.
I stared. The man cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Much better. I released him and moved on, asking about tracks, to which a Summer knight confirmed the floors were forged of stone throughout. To the matter of fool witnesses, the ones who’d given sound answers claimed not to have seen anything.
Prongs would change their responses. As would saws and spikes.
I glided a finger along my blade hilt. “Ask them again,” I instructed Indigo. “Make sure they answer.”
Knowing which instruments I preferred, the man pressed a cloth to his bloody ear and bowed. “Sire.”
“And Indigo?” I said, delaying the knight.
As he waited, I clarified, “Not the children.”
Often, I found myself lenient toward the small ones, drawing the line and exempting them. They were necessary for growth studies, but those procedures were harmless. I had structured it that way, not condoning anything harsher.
This had been my motivation in trading for children with Rhys. Unlike every other born fool, youths endured better treatment in my court than here.
After Indigo left, a Summer knight broached, “The alarm drum would illustrate the king and queen’s will, Your Highness.”
“It would advertise their idiocy,” I revoked. “Giselle has done nothing to earn that affront. And the last thing her deficient husband wants is another stain on his reputation.”
“The mute is famished,” Solstice advised the troops. “She’ll be scared, sluggish, and disoriented. Her options in these passages are limited.”
Disoriented, yes. Sluggish, perhaps.
Scared, debatable.
Nonetheless, I inclined my head for them to go. Summer swapped glances, deliberating amongst themselves before agreeing. They would alert Rhys if they couldn’t find the captive within thirty minutes.
They disbanded. Solstice remained for my protection, which I refused with a click of my head toward the tunnel. “Just get her.”
The First Knight nodded, then sprinted to join the party, her armor clanging down the west tunnel. My troops did not need to be spoon-fed instructions. Although I had given orders that no one should handle the prisoner but myself, present circumstances required me to retract that command. Technically, at least. It would appear uncharacteristic to do otherwise.
I had made certain to sound unruffled. Yet they would not find the beast. It had taken me a year, plus Summer’s intervention, to corner her.
Regardless, I would not let them get to her first. So help me, they would not lay a finger on the little beast. For I intended to snatch her myself. When I’d said no one would touch that woman except me, I had not been exaggerating.
Alone, I inspected the corridors. Thinking. Assessing. My first-in-command had admitted to a mishap, that the mad female had succeeded in diverting Solstice with a chipped whelk and skulked away.
A born fool equipped to know her way around a knot. A defensive one. A protective one. Memories from the quad resurfaced. While chained like a specimen, the beast had threatened me regarding her fellow inmates.
I won’t let you take them.
Seething, I spun and backtracked. The fool would not depart toward the tunnels’ exit. No, she would make for the entrance. Like Poet and Briar, she would attempt to be a hero.
Chances were, the female hadn’t gotten through the courtyard yet. I emerged, prowling from the tunnels and noting the sentinels whose pace lacked distress. Either she hadn’t made it past them or hadn’t tried yet.
The dense area provided ample shadows amid the crawlspaces. I ignored the salutations and stalked down the connecting paths, my arms striking fronds out of the way. Yet the longer I searched, the sharper my eyes tapered.
Clouds swirled, the elements growing agitated. Although dawn would be approaching soon, an incoming storm brewed.
A warning sound pounded through the kingdom. Whereas Spring rang a tower bell, Autumn used a large horn, and Winter preferred a looming clock, this court sounded a massive drum to alert its citizens. Rigged in the patrol tower, the device inundated Summer with a percussion loud enough to raise the dead.
A steel-plated legion swarmed the castle’s bridges, parapets, and colonnades. Thirty minutes must have passed. The Summer attendants had kept their word and reported the flight of a prisoner. King Rhys would turn purple over this. Spittle would fly, in which I’d be subjected to the same cumbersome bullshit I had endured in Autumn.
After traversing the courtyard, I reconsidered my efforts. I could make for the tower, after all. Or …
I thought back to this area, when the prisoners had been assembled here. I’d watched her from a distance, saw the female tilt her head as if sensing an entity. An intangible perception, probably primitive. From my position on the walkway, I’d seen her turn, wheeling toward the beach below.
I followed that trajectory. My attention fixed on a point beyond the stone ledge, a few feet down the precipice. An hourglass shadow made haste scurrying down the bluff, a rampant descent toward the shoreline.
Fuck! Tireless, troublesome creature!
It appeared, she wasn’t rescuing her fellow inmates. Or she’d realized that was impossible with everyone on alert.
Tearing off my fur and flinging the vestment aside, I swung my legs over the rim. I would seize this defiant little beast by the scruff and then exercise my full, fucking patience on her.
Yes, she was fire. However, I recalled wrapping my fingers around her throat, dousing that flame before it grew strength. Because that was the thing about fire: it needed air.