Chapter 12
Twelve
Myron
The Fairy King’s dungeon is all luxury suite compared to Erina’s torture house. Clean cells line the packed earth corridor leading deep beneath a side building of the palace, their doors made of steel-reinforced wood with barred windows. The walls are made of stone like the cells were hewn into the rock. Part of me wonders if Tori’s ancestors had the same gift as him since the walls are too smooth to be created by pure force of muscle, even immortal ones.
Recienne’s and Tori’s silent footfalls are the other reminder we’re in his palace, not in that of the King of Tavras, and that I’m not a prisoner. The first day I came down here, the walls were closing in on me, and my heart wouldn’t slow until I went back above ground. I told myself that it was because of the anticipation of torturing the male who dared lay a hand on my mate, but if I’m honest with myself, it was pure, rancid fear.
Neither the Fairy King nor his general commented when I’d turned around and rushed back that day.
Four days later, I’m used to the sight of cells, to the open doors showing no prisoners are being held down here. All but the last cell in the deepest level of the dungeon. Gus, the Flame in Erina’s service, is populating that one, and I’m not proud to admit I wish his cell wasn’t so damn comfortable. He’d deserve Erina’s uncivilized means of imprisonment.
That’s why I have no second thoughts when I watch Tori haul him from his cell and drag the stumbling male to the room across from it where he summons strings of liquefied rock from the walls and lets them snake around the male’s wrists and ankles before solidifying them. Only when Gus is secured to the wall does Tori step back, revealing the view of a male too well-fed, too little bruised, and too alive for what he’s done.
“It has occurred to me,” Recienne purrs with that cold smile on his lips I remember from centuries of being on the receiving end of his hatred, “that you haven’t shared the full story of how you got into Askarea.”
Gus’s dark features twitch as if suppressing his reaction. That costs Recienne a mere grin, and a flick of his fingers sends a caress of invisible power snaking through the room, tasting, assessing, calculating the best way to break the Flame, who has the good sense to speak. “Your borders aren’t as well protected as you’d think, King of Askarea.”
Standing a pace behind Recienne and keeping my face composed is a challenge, one I’m willing to take if it means I get to see the male suffer longer.
With an elegant tilt of his head, Recienne stalks closer, leaving Tori and me the muscle in the dimly lit chamber. Oh, what I would give to have the Flame’s face meet my fist. The pure male rage coming with someone having hurt my mate is real, and I’m beginning to suspect this is only the beginning. If she ever gets to shift back into her human form and a male as much as looks at her wrong, I will be ready to outdo my most creative of punishments.
“So where did you sneak in?” Recienne’s impressive calm puts me and my simmering fury to shame, but I blow out a breath, digging deep into my power and weaving little strings of darkness at my fingertips. Control is what I need to work on. Tori said so when he beheld me in the forest, Ayna clutched to my chest and murder in my eyes.
Flashing his teeth, Gus grins at the Fairy King. “When’s the last time you’ve checked on your troops stationed in the east?”
Recienne’s shoulders tighten ever so slightly, but Tori is already in the Flame’s face, a hand on his shoulder as he pins him harder to the stone. “Where?”
“Ansoli,” Gus grits out, and Recienne’s shoulders relax. A learned gesture, not caused by relief but an act. He knows as well as Tori and me that the port town in the northeast of Askarea has to be open for trade during war, even if in a limited, more controlled way, and the flow of foreign ships bears the risk of infiltration.
At least, with the cliffs seaming the rest of the eastern coast down to Tavras, Ansoli is the only true weak point—as the Flames so perfectly proved.
“How many other units are hiding in my kingdom?” Recienne’s voice is a purr of utter delight, not because he enjoys the idea of more enemy troops in his realm but because of the fear in the Flame’s eyes as the king stalks another step closer, Tori shifting out of his way even when the general levels a precautionary hand on Gus’s shoulder.
The male shakes his head, and the air stirs with a flick of Recienne’s fingers. “I don’t need to touch you in order to hurt you, Gus, but I’ll happily use my bare hands to break you if you don’t cooperate.” What he doesn’t say is that he’s already promised me I could do the breaking once all the questioning is done.
If Ayna knew how much I was looking forward to it, disgust would be the only thing she’d feel for me. Perhaps the wary expression in her crow eyes this morning was the first sign she’s starting to see the monster stirring beneath the surface again.
Thank the gods Kaira and Clio have agreed to keep her company while I join Recienne down here.
Gus shakes his head again. It’s enough to alarm all of us that Erina’s reach has extended well beyond the Tavrasian borders; the fact that we picked up Gus in the forests north of Aceleau is proof.
“All right, if you insist on going the bloody path…” Recienne gracefully shrugs out of his jacket, a bored expression on his face as he hangs it on the hook on the wall to his left that is meant for shackles or very heavy, very brutal torturing instruments. Then, he rolls the sleeves of his immaculate white shirt up to his elbows and returns to a shaking Gus, who has the good sense to break into a sweat of fear at the too-calm expression on the Fairy King’s features.
Without a warning, Recienne punches the Flame in the mouth, bones cracking with a crunch and crimson spraying all over the Fairy King’s shirt. He shakes his head at the grunt of pain, earning a smirk from Tori, who’s seamlessly slipped into the role of the blood-lusting general I remember from times at the opposite end of this war.
“You sure you don’t want to talk?” Tori asks in a practiced dance of violence and threats. “The King of Askarea will gleefully take you apart.” He measures the Flame’s pain-drawn face, the tooth clanking on the ground as he spits. “And what he’ll do to you will make this punch look like the work of a child.”
He means it. The Flame realizes it, too, because he tugs on the chains like a mad person, whimpering at the steel cutting deeper into his flesh. The air reeks of iron and salt, of sweat and decay—and fear.
With an elegant sweep of his hand along the thigh of his pants, Recienne wipes away the blood on his knuckles, flashing a grin at the Flame. “Ready to talk now, Gus?” He doesn’t wait for the Flame to respond. “Gus isn’t possibly your full name, is it? You know what they say in my lands about the length of a name.” His golden gaze grazes the length of Gus’s body in that oily manner that is as practiced as the rest of his cruelty—and as convincing—and I have no idea how I should feel about calling such a gifted actor my ally. His eyes snag on the male’s crotch, and just when the tension couldn’t become any thicker, Recienne shakes his head an inch in dismissal. “It has nothing to do with the pathetic length of your cock, even though such a short name would be fitting.”
I let my own gaze wander to confirm the Fairy King’s assessment and find the wet stain on the front of Gus’s pants is growing wider.
“It’s about your rank in fairy society, and with a three-letter name, you’re lower than in the gutters.” A hint of delight plays on Recienne’s features as the stench of urine and embarrassment fills the room. “But those three letters are enough to take control of you and make you do whatever I want you to do, Gus .”
A flash of power zings through the room as he does exactly that, and Gus’s hand lifts in a wave, bloodied mouth shaping into a smile despite the horror in Gus’s eyes.
It’s in that moment that I realize how blessed the Crows are that name control doesn’t work on us. It’s worse than the punch in the face because free will is taken away.
“Tell me where the King of Tavras is hiding his troops,” Recienne orders, waving an idle hand, which delivers enough power to make Gus’s feet tap-dance while he’s fighting that grotesque smile of his.
“They land in Ansoli and cross the lands north of the Seeing Forest until they reach the mountains north of the city.” Recienne drops the control, and Gus’s smile slips into a mask of disdain. “By the time you find them, you’ll be overrun,” he adds out of his own volition, and the threat rings true in his words.
Recienne and Tori share a glance that shouldn’t alarm me, but centuries of knowing the Askarean Fairies as my enemies has honed my instincts, so I see it for what it is: a silent command to ready forces to meet whatever Erina has infiltrated the lands with.
Tori laces his fingers, cracking his knuckles with a sickening sound before he yawns and stalks for the door. “Call for me if he comes up with something we don’t already know. I have better things to do than wait for a common Flame to spill a human king’s secrets.”
Honed to perfection, those skills of deception make me fight a cringe. Had I not seen Tori smile and joke and cry with my own eyes, I might have believed the lie, but I’ve met the true Astorian Remanier Alves DeLoor. I recognize the slight twitch of his mouth for the shock it is, and I know that the moment he leaves this room, he’ll go into planning mode to protect those he cares for the most before planning how to protect the kingdom.
At least, this leaves an opening for me to finally throw my first punch at the Flame, and when Recienne nods at me, I take Tori’s place close by the Flame and let my hands turn into talon-tipped claws and the black haze to fill my vision, the one that promises blood and pain.