Chapter 6
Daisy
“Come on, you stupid human,” said Curvy Woman.
I’m Revana, she murmured, pulling Daisy roughly down the dark tunnel on the left. Gorlan said to tell you how gross that spit was, and he does not appreciate it.
“I can’t see, you fucking idiots. How am I supposed to walk?” Daisy gritted out, resuming looking at the walls and thinking of the horrors that might await there. Then thinking of her captors and how hard it was to stop herself from falling to the ground and sobbing.
Kayla and Revana hoisted her up, carrying her. It was not at all comfortable, so Daisy grunted and squirmed until they had her in a better hold that didn’t yank at her shoulders so much.
Don’t take it personally, Kayla said. About Tarian.
He disappears into the creature he needs to be to survive this court.
He has to battle harder than we do to keep the twisted magic from infiltrating his mind.
It’s not an easy feat when you feel it as often as he does.
The royals—the princess, especially—plague him.
We are sitting down to a game of chess, Daisy thought in that way Kayla had described.
Her body twisted weirdly, and it looked like she was trying to moonwalk in the air, her legs dangling as the females carried her.
Why the hell couldn’t she think quietly like (apparently) a normal person?
I would expect him to play his part correctly, so that I might play mine.
You can think more freely now, Revana thought. Anyone powerful enough to possess the mindgazer magic won’t be in these tunnels. And if they are, they are easily spotted. Tarian said you have a distinct eye for human fashion—
He sounded very impressed by that, Kayla murmured. He loves human fashion.
If that is true, Revana went on, you should be able to notice the finer attire here. Those who wear it have gold and status. They will be more powerful, more prestigious, and crueler. Try not to gain their notice.
Only the more powerful half of the court has the mindgazer magic, Kayla said.
Yes. If you see someone with less quality attire, you may be safe in assuming they cannot hear your thoughts. Soon, hopefully, you’ll learn to block your thoughts. Tarian thinks the chalice magic should make you powerful enough to do so, even against the royals.
And your crew? Daisy asked.
Are an exception, Kayla said. An exception the true nature of which no one knows.
To them, we are the Thornborn, a rough and hardy group of kin that exists on the outskirts of fae society.
They live in the wylds on the borders of this kingdom and the mountain ranges of the Topaz kingdom.
We found some of them working here, as hired muscle, mostly.
They took us in when the gods stripped us of all that we are.
A pale blue glow interrupted the darkness, and a putrid smell hit Daisy like a wall.
Her stomach churned. It was a combination of damp stone and mold, stale body, and decay and rot.
She shut down her senses as the glow grew into a dim magical light that washed over a cramped space filled with strange contraptions.
They appeared to be intended for physical suffering, and she wanted to inspect each one, curious to see what they did. How creative fae got with torture.
Beyond, the area opened into a narrow hall two stories high. Cells existed on each side, and darkness waited through the rusted bars. At the top were more cells, and one had long, spindly fingers curving around the bars.
“Lovely,” Daisy murmured. Her stomach fluttered.
She’d never been kept in a genuine dungeon before.
Zorn had tossed her into a jail cell or two and left her there for a couple days to sleep on the floor and use a bucket for waste, but that hadn’t held a candle to this.
It hadn’t had the smell, the splatter of dried and cracking blood, the pockets of midnight with strange species wasting away inside.
It hadn’t had an utter lack of safety like this.
Zorn had trained her, but he’d never hurt her.
The new Tarian and the dungeon masters of this place presented a different situation.
She let out a very slow breath as fear threatened to overwhelm her.
There is no point wasting one’s last moments to fear, she said to herself.
But these weren’t her last moments. Not by far. She’d need to endure this. If things went bad, death wouldn’t quickly embrace her; first would be pain. Incredible, horrible pain.
She pulled in a deep breath and let it out again.
Her goal was not to break. No matter what happened, she couldn’t break.
Survival meant keeping an intact mind. Pain was merely a device to alert a person that they were still alive.
If it came to it, she’d have to remember that pain was living.
Living was protecting her family. She could do this.
A stooped figure with wispy white hair falling down to its mid-chest waited along the wall. Wrinkles sagged along the arms and overlapped at the neck. Its face was lost to shadow, even though the rest of its body was visible in the dim lighting. That shadow had to be magically created.
“Prisoner,” Kayla told the creature in a rough voice.
The creature shook, as though it were being electrocuted, before raising a bone-thin arm and pointing down the tunnel into the blackness beyond.
“No!” Revana barked. “This is a human. They require a window or they will wither. His Highness Tarianthiel Drystan Windryker’s orders. He needs it alive for the court games.”
The creature started to shake again. Its voice came out like a wave of insects skittering over a dusty stone floor. “But if it lives, it will kill us all.”
“Even if that weren’t preposterous,” Kayla replied fiercely, “if you don’t do what His Highness asks, you’ll be dead long before a human can bring down an entire court.”
The creature stalled for a long moment, and then the shaking elicited a new finger point, this one aiming higher. Somewhere above, a loud click preceded the whine of hinges.
The females didn’t react. They turned Daisy, still carrying her, and headed for a set of narrow, curving steps.
That has to be the chalice magic, Revana said, her mental voice uneasy. That creature has been lost to the blight for some time. It senses Daisy’s danger. The chalice’s danger.
Kayla’s fingers tightened on Daisy’s arms with unease. We need to let Tarian know. He hasn’t prepared for that.
Do fae not know much about humans, then? Daisy asked, collecting each scrap of information she could.
Most fae know almost nothing, Revana said, looking to the right as they reached the top of the stairwell.
They took her left, though, to an opened cell door down the way.
They’ll think you are weak and useless and, because of that, that you can die easily.
We’ll use that for as long as we can. Once you start killing fae in the games, we’ll need to pivot.
If she started killing fae in the games.
There was that small issue of magic. They had some.
She did not. And while in the human world she could get around some of it, she had no idea about fae magic.
She didn’t know any of the nuances or how to combat it.
She was flying blind when up against life and death. It was far from the best-case scenario.
They walked her into the dank cell. A barred window at the top of the high ceiling let in a sliver of bluish moonlight.
A flat stone slab lay at an angle with manacles attached to chains.
The females walked her to it before turning her and pushing her against it.
They fastened the manacles and pushed the stone so she was essentially lying down.
Toilets? she asked with very little hope.
Kayla shook her head, lips pinched. She didn’t elaborate.
Food? Daisy tried. Water?
One of us will deliver it when it is safe, Revana replied. Remember, do not eat what they give you. They won’t push. You’ll be hungry and thirsty until we can get you out of here. We just need to get some things ready. We can’t release you to the main floor until we can hide your thoughts.
Kayla reached into Daisy’s shirt with a regretful look before pulling out her knife. If we leave this with you, they’ll take it. We’ll keep it until it’s safe for you to carry it.
Daisy let her gaze drift away from the two females as they finished up. She closed her eyes when the heavy metal cell door clanged shut. Silence replaced their retreating footsteps. They hadn’t said goodbye.
Fear and panic fuzzed the edges of her mind, but she focused on her breathing. She let her mind drift elsewhere. She sank into the homesickness for her family so that she had at least something familiar to think about. Then she tried to sleep.
Babbling brought her quickly to consciousness.
The screaming on the lower level didn’t trouble her anymore.
It had started an hour into her stay and persisted.
They were busy with someone down there, but it wasn’t her.
While part of her recoiled at the thought of what was going on, the need to survive won out.
She let it drift through and away from her mind.
Now that clawing sound was no more than a hoarse groan, the voice gone but the poor bastard not yet dead.
The metal latch on her cell opened. Two creatures came through, humanoid but lopsided, and they mostly hobbled toward her.
Their faces were lost to the shadow, like the creature down below.
Definitely some sort of magical phenomenon.
Weak light filtered in through the window above, highlighting parts of her cell she wished might stay hidden. Violence had been done in here.
The first creature reached her. Dirt and grime smeared its arm and something dull and black glistened in patches on its skin. Obsidian?
It yanked the stone slab to mostly vertical. She slid down to her feet.
“What’s this?” it asked the other, its voice creaky, like an old, forgotten rocking chair pushed by the wind.
“Ah. The human. They brought one in last night,” the other said, its voice similar. They both wore dirty, holey frocks in flat black.
The first grunted. “Him Highness wants something different, them says. This is something different. It looks good. Him wants a female. This is female.”
“Yeah, but…” The second scratched its head with long, broken nails. “This belongs to Him Highness Tarianthiel. Can’t you see the magic mark? I can see the mark.”
“Him Highness, the king, don’t care about Tarianthiel mark. That curse magic don’t work on royals. Them can take what them want. Tarianthiel can’t hurt they. Magic stop him. This one will work.”
“What about it being intact?” the second said. “Him Highness wants one intact, them says.”
The other froze. “I’ll check. Maybe Tarianthiel didn’t get there yet. That why he put it in here, maybe? To keep it from the guards.”
The first grunted as the second moved in front of Daisy. It reached for the button on her pants, and she knew a moment of blind terror. A conversation she’d had with Tarian flashed through her memory.
“Otherwise you’d be used by the royals and then their guards. A pretty human, such as yourself, won’t go unnoticed. I’d end up having to kill half the palace when coming to your aid.”
“I wouldn’t live long enough,” she’d ground out, her whole body burning in anger. “The first person to touch me would die, and they’d surely have me executed shortly thereafter.”
Daisy bent her wrists to grab the chains of her shackles. She’d tested them last night. They’d be long enough to yank forward and wrap around this thing’s neck.
Her logic trickled back in slowly. These things wouldn’t be the ones indulging.
They were trying to recruit her for their king, and intact female surely meant virginal.
She didn’t fit the criteria, thank fuck.
They wouldn’t be taking her. If she killed one right now, it would very likely result in a worse situation than ignoring them checking her out.
It wasn’t pretty, but neither were gynecology appointments.
She gritted her teeth as her pants were tugged down.
Her brain filled with murderous rage. She yanked against the shackles as the creature prodded.
It took everything in her power not to reach forward and wrap the metal around the thing’s neck.
Instead, she waited, surviving the violation so she would live to fight another day. Someday soon.
It muttered, “Filthy humans.”
Like it could fucking talk. How about a bath, bub? Maybe a comb and laundry service.
The creature backed away, leaving her clothing as it was.
“No,” it grunted, turning for the cell door. “It’s busted.”
She nearly blurted out a laugh at that.
“There might be some fresh ones—” Its voice was drowned out by the clang of her cell door.
Daisy refused to let shivers of disgust envelop her. She’d dodged a bullet. If anyone ever tried to slut-shame her, she’d recall this instance right here. Sexual awakening for the win.
The vigor of Mr. Screamer below had renewed.
Or maybe that was someone else. Regardless, she pushed her hunger away and let her head loll, closing her eyes again.
She used this time to go over, in minute detail, all Tarian had relayed to her about this place.
Everything she knew about the fae and the wylds.
Everything she knew about fae, period. She might not be great at shielding her mind, but she was excellent at distracting herself with a whirlwind of thoughts.
Because of that, it seemed like no time had passed when she heard her cell door open again.
More light trickled in through the window, but she couldn’t judge what time of day that might mean.
Lennox was the first to walk through, his hair cascading down the shaved sides of his head in a glorious, loose wave.
His beard was tied with a fresh toggle, this one showing a sun design.
He’d had time for a shower. And probably food. And water. Fuck, she was thirsty.
He halted, his gaze on her pants. Well, that was embarrassing. Her stripteases were usually voluntary.
He was shoved forward but hardly budged. Kayla came out from behind him, and her eyes lit with fire. Her step didn’t hitch, though. If anything, she got slinkier as she walked, like a predator sighting its prey.