Chapter 4 #3
He laughs, every facet of it frozen, and opens his hands. My knees crumple, dumping me hard onto the stone at his feet. Pain pulses in the heels of my hands as I push myself upward and glare.
The fae king stares down, unmoved by the hatred I hurl at him with my eyes. “Sariah of Aethrolia, I hereby Claim you, by the rights granted to me in the Treaty of Vellin. Now stand up. We’re going.”
The world shears, splitting along invisible fault lines. Distantly, I register the roar of the crowd, but the commotion falls through me, past me. Surely this isn’t happening. Surely Ishanna will intervene. Surely she’ll strike down this wretched fae if he so much as thinks of stealing me away.
But when my shaking hands seize my pendant, nothing answers my internal screams. Not even a flicker.
Amriel watches my struggle through slitted eyes, then gestures behind him. “Shadow of mine. Come get this princess off the floor, since she seems incapable of doing it herself.”
“No!” a woman screams. Hands scrabble at me, fingernails catching at my sleeve. A tear opens along the shoulder of my dress, the rip loud in my ear.
I turn my head in slow motion. Evelyn is reaching for me, but my father catches her around the middle, dragging her back. “Stop this,” he says. “Amriel has chosen.”
“No!” Evelyn shrieks. “He can’t have her!”
But my father only hauls Evelyn away. I lurch after them on all fours, desperate to reach my sister.
“Please,” I beg. The word comes out wet and wobbly, as limp as my outstretched hand. “Don’t make me go.”
The look my father levels at me silences my heart mid-beat. He seems resolute, maybe even relieved. “There’s nothing I can do, Sariah. It’s in the treaty. Our family has carried an obligation for generations, and now it’s finally been fulfilled.”
I stare, but when it becomes clear he’ll grant me no aid, I twist around again, my hands grappling for Brynne’s skirts.
She’ll save me. She’ll end this madness somehow.
But when my fingers close around starched fabric, my eldest sister stands as stiff as a statue.
I glance up to find bleak resignation written across her features.
“I told you,” she chokes out. “I told you to make yourself ugly. Why didn’t you listen? ”
I recoil. She did tell me. But I thought I knew better, and now it’s too late. Now no one can help me except the fae king himself.
But Amriel has already turned on his heel and gone striding away. I scramble after him in desperation, the stone floor biting into my kneecaps, my skirts tangling around my legs.
“Please,” I gasp. I know I must look pathetic, begging on my knees before half of Aethrolia, but what does it matter? “I’ll do anything. Please.”
Amriel comes to a standstill, and I halt just before plowing into his boots face-first. The crowd moves in the background—a blur of light and noise—but I can’t see past the shiny black leather just inches from my nose.
“Anything?” Amriel says, still facing away.
“Anything,” I gasp. “Just don’t Claim me. Don’t take me to Velindra. Please.”
He whirls into a crouch and grips my chin, tipping my head back until my neck threatens to snap.
I don’t resist, though. I’ll endure whatever it takes to stay here. To pledge myself to the priestesshood, like I planned. To find a place that will welcome me, one where I’ll finally belong.
“Break my curse,” Amriel says, his words as devoid of feeling as the wasteland behind his eyes. “Find your way through the Wildwood and smash the hourglass in my courtyard. As my mate, you’re the only one who can. If you can manage that, I’ll let you go.”
“You…will?”
“I will.”
White-hot hope blazes beneath my breastbone. “You mean I won’t have to stay in Velindra?”
A frozen laugh falls from his lips. “You might be my mate, little Princess, but I don’t want you any more than you want me.
I need you, because you’re the only one who can break this wretched curse, but after that, you can do what you like.
Spend your life praying, if you want. Spend it begging on your knees, since that seems to come so naturally to you.
I don’t care, if you’ll just free me from this nightmare. ”
He releases me, and I collapse into a jumble of nerveless limbs and spent emotions. Somehow, the king’s Shadow is here, leaning over me, his mouth tight.
“Get up,” he urges. “Don’t debase yourself for any of these people. Especially not for him.” He aims a snarl at Amriel, then crouches down, his hand extended.
For a moment, I simply lie there, staring at his creased purple palm.
I shouldn’t reach for him, but I’m too depleted to haul myself off this floor on my own, so I place my hand in his.
The king’s Shadow pulls me upright, gripping me by the elbow when my knees wobble.
Around the room, jaws go slack. Eyes widen.
From the corner, our baker, Andreius, surveys me like he’s never seen me before.
I swallow and look away. I have the distinct impression that once this is over, he’ll never try to kiss me again.
The Shadow glares at his king. “Where to, then? Home?”
“Yes, home.” Amriel’s mouth bends into a smile, but it somehow looks wrong, like he’s stolen it from someone else without understanding what it actually means. “I’m ready for dinner. And to drink myself into oblivion.”
“And the princess is coming with us? Not going into the Wildwood?”
“No. She’ll stay at the castle for a few days before we toss her in.”
My uncomprehending stare bounces back and forth between them. Surely it will take hours—days, even—to reach Amriel’s castle on foot. And won’t we have to pass through the Wildwood to get there?
The Shadow reseats his grip on my elbow. “Ready, Princess?”
I gape up at him. No, I’m not ready. I don’t even understand what’s happening right now.
When I fail to respond, he fishes something from his pocket—a metal sphere that flashes in the torchlight. “Just don’t let go of me, all right?”
I look down. A bronze globe rests in his palm—a tangle of gears and wheels, almost like a miniature armillary sphere. “What…what is that?”
He grunts. “A wayfarer’s gyre.”
“A what?”
His mouth slants downward. “Just hold on to me. Close your eyes, and when you open them again, we’ll be there. But remember. Do not run from me. Don’t even turn your back.”
I scan the room to find every fae in attendance pulling similar contraptions from their pockets. Somewhere distant, Evelyn is shrieking, but my father must be dragging her away, because her screams grow fainter by the second.
“That’s it?” I croak. “I don’t get to say goodbye?”
“Do you actually want to?” The Shadow’s sphere whirs to life. Wheels spin within wheels, emitting a high-pitched buzz, like that of a whirring metal insect.
“I… I…” My hand clutches at my throat, because I do want to say goodbye. It’s just that no one but Evelyn seems to want to say goodbye to me.
The realization cuts off my protest at the knees.
Amriel leans close, clutching a sphere of his own. Light leaks from between his fingers, blazing brighter and brighter. “Don’t worry, Princess. Once we get there, I have more than enough wine to make you forget how this feels.”
My panicked glance finds the Shadow’s again. He gazes down, his mouth a grim line. “Hold on to me.”
“No. Wait. I—”
But the world buckles like it did in the garden.
Only this time, it doesn’t right itself.
The floor drops out from beneath me, and I go tumbling—not down, not up, but sideways, as if reality has been torn in two and I’m being stuffed through the crack.
The king’s Shadow comes with me, his sphere screaming as its gears spin themselves into oblivion.
Sound collapses. Weight vanishes. My stomach lurches, and for one, two, three terrible heartbeats, I am nowhere at all.