Chapter 6
Rowan
“If anyone ever writes a history of this war, I hope they devote at least one footnote to the fae’s excellent taste in hostage accommodations,” Ellie says following me into a tent that’s bigger than my entire Spire dorm, Kai and Kyrian having remained outside to finish their quiet scheming.
There are furs, a suspiciously generous pile of leather cushions, and even a tea service.
I’d suspect poison, but these bastards seem to prefer more direct methods. Like amputation.
Ellie drops herself atop the cushion pile.
For someone whose hair is still matted from kidnapping and captivity, she looks irritatingly comfortable.
“Comfy. I’d wager these are for the happy couple.
” Ellie waggles her eyebrows. “The fae seem like they are more the ‘sample before purchase’ than ‘keep it in your britches until marriage’ type.”
“Hilarious.”
Ellie flashes me a look that’s equal parts encouragement and don’t you dare have a breakdown without me. “That was… a lot.” Her voice drops the false cheer. “Are we celebrating your lack of dismemberment first, or boiling the guys alive for, well, everything?”
I grab the tea pot. It’s not much of a weapon, but it makes me feel better.
“Boiling it is.”
“They are royalty,” I snarl.
“Fae royalty,” Ellie says cautiously. “I think the fae part is the most relevant in the hierarchy of problems. Also, all the other fae seem to think you are something from the dark realms. Possibly worse. And hence should die in some painful way. That also seems more of an immediate issue.”
“Oh, and I seem to be engaged to Prince bloody Kai of Slait Court.”
“I’m pretty certain that was a ruse and you’ll probably be able to call off the wedding. Can we get back to being kidnapped by murderous fae?”
“No, we can’t!” The words erupt from my chest, jagged and hard, and louder than I expected.
I can’t help it. I'm not brave and stoic. My hands tremble around the delicate porcelain of the tea pot, and my heart slams against my rib cage so violently I’m surprised Ellie can’t see it through my shirt.
I want to blurt out every question and accusation at once, but the tightness in my throat won’t let me form words that make any sense.
Instead there’s just the choking sensation of grief and fury and bone-deep terror.
“I know.” Ellie’s voice is gentle. “I know. But we are going to figure this out.”
“No, we are not.” My voice is raw. I can’t look at her. “It’s not alright, none of this is alright. I’m not—!” My breath heaves, and I realize my vision is blurring and I focus on gulping air to keep myself from breaking down.
Ellie stays quiet for several heartbeats, which feels like an eternity. The silence in the tent stretches as if waiting to see whether I’ll finally shatter. Before I can answer that, footsteps crunch just beyond the tent and the canvas rustles.
I flinch instinctively, and Ellie’s gaze snaps to the entrance.
Kai and Kyrian. They step inside. No Logan. That must mean something but I don’t know what.
The air hangs thick with murder. Good. I hope it chokes them.
“What do ye intend with the tea, lass?” Kyrian asks carefully. They both look like they’re trying to project calm, but there’s tension in their stances—from Kai’s shadows swirling at his feet to Kyrian’s brilliant blue eyes flicking everywhere but at mine.
I lob the teapot at Kai’s chest.
He catches it with supernatural reflexes, setting it down with infuriating care. “Really, Ainsley?”
“Next time it’ll be the cushions,” I snap back.
Kai takes in the tent and cushion pile. “We should talk.”
“You think?”
“Not nearly as much as one would like,” Kyrian murmurs.
Kai crosses his arms. “You’ve worked out by now that Logan, Kyrian and I are fae warriors who’d been masquerading as human cadets for the past several years in order to get into the heart of Eryndor’s operations.
” He pauses and actually waits until I nod before continuing.
“Our mission objective was always to find an alchemy enchanter and snatch them back to fae territory.”
I stutter at the bluntness then grab a cushion from the pile and sink onto it. “So kidnapping me?”
“It was always the plan, yes.” No apology in Kai’s voice, not even a hint of shame. I suddenly understand why command always came so easily to him, why the cadets at the Spire shifted from his path like parting grass whenever he strode past. Kai is a prince. Fae prince. Raised for command and rule.
“Then why bother with the charade?” Ellie asks. “Why not snatch Rowan in the middle of the night and be done with it?”
Kai gives her that look that says he expects better. When she doesn’t answer immediately he turns to me expectedly. “Well?”
“Enchanter information is classified,” I say with a sigh. “Especially anything to do with alchemy. They’d have to put in two years at the Spire before they could find anything out, much less get access.”
Kai nods in approval and I hate how the little acknowledgement sends a wave of warmth through me.
“Even once we had access, trying to remove you from the Spire would have would be an exercise in suicide,” Kyrian says, picking up the explanation.
He crouches a few feet away from me, bringing himself closer to my eye level.
Closer but not too close. Giving me my space.
“The initial field trials were still too far from the border. We intended to make our move during the final field exercise, where we’d be stationed more strategically. ”
“So you were going to play out the year as cadet until -”
“—You are asking the wrong questions, Ainsley,” Kai says, cutting me off.
“What’s the right damn question? Should I be fretting over the betrothal instead of worrying about the kidnapping?”
“I thought I was supposed to be doing the talking,” Kyrian tells him, not that Kai pays him any mind.
“You should be asking why the bloody hell we wanted you to begin with. Why Theron wants to sever your hands. Why does the whole fae army want you—you specifically- executed in the most brutal way possible.”
“Because... because I’m an Ainsley,” I say, the words sounding flat to my own ears. “I’m the daughter of your enemy’s general. And an alchemist… I make auric steel. The only weapon that gives humans a fighting chance against your immortal selves. Why wouldn’t you want me dead?”
“If I wanted you dead, I’d have killed you. So why didn’t I? Why didn’t any of us?”
I swallow because just a few days ago the answer would have been so very different.
It would have been one born of forbidden kisses, and refuge in the night.
Of promises made and stupidly believed. I pull myself together before my face can give away my na?veté.
“Because… I’m a prize?” I guess. “I’m worth more -”
“—you are both our greatest fear and our greatest hope, Chaos,” Kyrian says quietly. “The auric alloy you make, it doesn’t do what you think it does.”
“I think it hurts you.” I raise my chin. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” says Kai. “And also yes. That is to say, auric steel does hurt someone like me just the way you’d expect.
” His fingers drift to the locket around his throat, toying absently with the familiar, worn charm like he’s anchoring himself.
It's a habit of his I’ve seen many times but something about it feels different now.
“But to the shifters and draken—it does something much much worse.”
“When the auric alloy spreads through a shifter or draken’s blood, it locks away everything but their minds,” Kyrian says gently.
“It shuts their muscles down completely—no voluntary movement, no twitching, nothing. If the dose is high enough or the poisoned weapon isn’t removed expeditiously, the victims become trapped in their own flesh.
Unable to move, or speak. If they are lucky, they retain control of their eye lids.
When they learn to communicate that way, they usually beg to die. ”
Nausea grips my throat and I suddenly don’t want Kyrian to continue. But he does, and the words are no longer said kindly.
“It’s like being buried alive inside your own body. Paralyzed but fully awake, fully aware, screaming silently and endlessly for help that never comes.”
“No.” I shake my head, willing his words to be untrue.
I’ve studied, created and refined auric alloy every day since my magic emerged.
I know it, inside and out. It’s a weapon, yes, but a fair one.
Merciful even, since it doesn't kill outright but just neutralizes the magic that renders the fae immortal. But this…
“You are lying,” I tell Kyrian. That's the only explanation I can piece together, sitting here in front of two males who've turned deception into their weapon of choice, sharpening the lies’ edges specifically for me. “Lying and making claims with no evidence to back them up.”
“How do you figure that?” asks Kai.
"The draken.” I nod, finding a loose thread in Kai’s argument and tugging at it. “You are speaking as if you know what they are thinking and feeling, which you can’t know. That’s a false argument construct, one meant to appeal to emotion with no factual backing. A low blow, even for you.”
Kai snorts, his too pretty face tightening with contempt. "Ah yes. One of my favorite bits of Spire's vile fiction. Draken are beasts of burden. Celestial horses with scales."
“Fiction? Why would the Spire lie about that? What reason could they possibly have to deceive us?"
"That’s a question for your mother," Kai says. "But I'll wager it has something to do with making it easier for you to justify capturing and tormenting beings you don't have a prayer of defeating on your own."
"That's—not true.” I cross my arms and seize the momentum away from Kai. “Speaking of untrue things, is Grayson your real name?”
“What?” He blinks. “No, of course not. I’m Prince Kai of Slait. I’d rather thought that part was cleared up by now.”
“And you?” I jab a finger in Kyrian’s direction.
“Sorel was my mother’s name. What I told ye the day we took shelter in the abandoned fort, it was the truth.
Sorel was an exotic dancer who’d caught my father’s eye when visiting court.
She died when I was five. When my father decided to raise me alongside his full-blooded children, it didn’t sit well with most of them. Or with his wife for that matter.”
“You left out the part about your father being the fae king of Flurry!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t leave a few things out.” A flicker of remorse runs over Kyrian’s face. “But the emotions, those were real Chaos. Hurting you was never my intention.”
He sounds sincere. But I don’t want to believe him.
I don’t want to feel the ache in his words, I don't want to let it touch any of the parts inside me that haven’t already been razed to ash.
But the truth is that it does. It touches everything.
Even in light of the laid bare truth, the connection I have to these males runs soul deep.
“Right,” I lean away from him. “Hurting me was never the intention. Just kidnapping me and forcing me to turn on my kingdom?” The words taste bitter. “Let me guess, Logan is a prince of something too?”
“No,” says Kyrian. “He-”
Before he can finish, the tent flap rustles open, letting in a burst of cold air and a smug looking messenger.
"Prince Theron requests the pleasure of your company tonight,” she informs the four of us, placing a large platter with fruit, nuts and thin very raw meat slices onto a table.
“I am at your disposal to assist preparations in any way I can.”
"Splendid." Kyrian flicks his hand in a gesture of dismissal, the genial set of his face crumbling the instant the messenger slips out. He and Kai trade a long look—a silent, sharp exchange that saturates the air until it feels like the tent’s canvas might tear from the growing tension.
“Do you think Theron truly sent a messenger to Slait?” Kai asks at last, voice low.
“Absolutely.”
Kai swears under his breath, then turns to me with the kind of patience that looks like it costs him.
“Whether or not you trust anything we just told you, understand that on this side of the wards, it is taken as truth. The only thing keeping you alive—and in one piece—is our claim of impending marriage vows. Theron won’t risk provoking the Slait court by killing off a royal bride, and my paragon of perfection will protect a beloved mate, whether or not she’s politically convenient. Which is where the catch lies.”
“There is a catch? Because it all seems so straight forward and logical otherwise.”
Kai ignores me. “While Prince Theron couldn’t care less whether or not you’re thrilled to be shackled to me for eternity, my family will turn the universe inside out to ensure they aren’t being played. If there is even a hint that our looming nuptials are a sham—”
“—the consequences will be bloody,” Kyrian finishes, voice flat. “And not just for you.”