Chapter 3
three
Whatever carriage they’d put me in, we were on the road for a long time. Could have been a few hours, could have been one, but to me it felt like an eternity.
In the first few minutes, while my fear still had a hold of me and was threatening to drive me insane if I didn’t see with my own eyes what was happening, I actually pushed the pieces of silk aside, and I tried to see through the holes on the side of the giant chest. Something blocked my sight, though.
That’s why I pushed the lid open—all the time imagining that a fire-breathing dragon was going to scorch me alive as I did—until I saw that I was indeed in a carriage.
A massive carriage, at least three times the size of the one Rune and I had ridden in, and there were no seats here, just six chests, and three big wooden boxes.
The white fabric that covered the entire carriage was thick enough so that I only saw that it was daylight outside, that’s it.
No opening, no windows, just the wooden structure that held it up.
Most importantly, there was nobody in there with me.
Wherever I was going, the guards hadn’t seen me. The people who were controlling this carriage had no idea I was here.
For now, I took it.
My fear and my panic calmed down, and eventually I was able to close the lid of the chest again and think. Plan. Try to see a way out of this situation, despite how absurd and utterly hopeless the whole thing was.
I was in a different world, and I was being chased away by royal guards, accused of murdering the very prince I’d come here to save.
Things were bad. They were bad bad.
But then there was Rune, and as long as Rune was around, I felt like I could make it. Whatever kind of magic that man put on me, the thought of him gave me hope. The thought of him made me believe—truly believe—that I would actually make it out of this somehow and get back home.
And in order to talk to Rune, I had to send him a message, to let him know where I was. So, the plan was simple—I needed to find my way back to Blackwater, the vampire territory of Verenthia, and find Raja, Rune’s friend, the woman who saved his life, who saved mine.
She hated me, Raja, and that was okay. She could communicate with Rune through shadows, and that’s all I cared about. If I had to, I’d beg her to tell Rune I was there, and then he’d come. I had no doubt in my mind that he would come.
The moment I had this plan clear in my mind, I was calmer.
The thoughts in my head calmed down, and I wasn’t so certain that I wasn’t going to make it.
Yes, it was going to suck, I figured, but I’d survive.
So long as there was a way to get to Rune, I would survive the fucking fae realm one more time.
The carriage stopped. With it, my heart.
I stopped breathing, stopped moving, kept my eyes closed tightly and focused only on my ears.
Voices, though I heard them faintly, and we were most definitely not moving. I thought perhaps we’d stopped for a little while like we had before, but no. Seconds turned to a minute—I counted—and then two, and the carriage stayed in the same place.
Call it instinct, call it common sense, but I knew that it was time to get out of my hiding place. As nice as it had been to sit there and hope against all odds that I would somehow magically end up outside the walls—and free—it was time to get out and see where I was.
Daylight outside.
I pushed the lid of the chest open all the way as slowly as I could as to not make any noise, and I made it out of it with shaking legs.
Outside, there were people, probably fae, a lot of them.
Inside, the silks I’d been lying on were wet, dirty, completely ruined.
Fuck. My dress was still wet, and it was still the dress everyone at the palace had seen me in, and the jacket I’d stolen wasn’t going to hide me well enough. Thank God I’d taken the pants as well.
That’s how I ended up hiding behind the biggest box in the carriage and taking the dress off.
The velvet pants were big, but manageable.
The jacket was big, too, but when I buttoned it all the way, you couldn’t see a single part of my body, except my face and my hands.
I went through the same chest I’d hidden in and found a small enough piece of silk in a rich, deep green color to put over my head.
I tied it under my chin just like Rune had done with the red shawl he’d gotten for me—and fuck, I missed him so much it hurt.
My ears were burning, so hot I didn’t dare touch them, and my heart was beating a mile a minute, but I was ready to get off this carriage and find my way to Blackwater.
Then I turned—and golden eyes locked on mine.
The scream caught in my throat. I froze in place, hands fisted tightly, and I waited for the young boy to call for someone.
Fucking hell, I blew it. I thought I was so quiet, that nobody was even close to me. I hadn’t heard a single thing, and now this boy who couldn’t be older than fifteen was looking at me with wide golden eyes, his ears pointy and his pink lips parted.
A second ticked by and he didn’t run, didn’t move at all.
My heart slowed down the beating a little. I licked my dry lips and took in a deep breath. “Please don’t scream.”
The boy’s blond brows shot up. His eyes scrolled down my body slowly. “Who are you?” he said, his voice hushed, and he looked just as confused as I was.
But there were people outside, and those people were going to eventually come closer and see me, and someone was going to figure out who I was, so…
“I’m…I’m Bethany.” Betty was going to either praise me for using her name or smack me in the head. Either way, I’d take it.
The boy’s brows narrowed now, and he leaned closer to the edge of the carriage to inspect me better. “You’re not from here.” It was a statement, and if I tried to argue with him about it, I wasn’t going to win.
At that point I knew that my only option was to lie through my fucking teeth. There really was nothing left for me to lose by lying—he either believed me or he didn’t .
“I’m actually from the queen’s palace,” I said, clearing my throat, raising my head. “I was sent to take something outside the court for the…the seer.”
My heart beat steadily despite the fact that I was making each word up as I went.
The boy’s eyes opened wide. “The seer?”
“Yes, the seer.”
God, if you help me get out of this place today, I promise I’ll donate all my savings to the dog shelter as soon as I get back home.
“You’ve seen the queen’s seer?” He leaned in, put his hands over the edge of the carriage’s bed and came closer, golden eyes wide as he looked up at me.
Slowly, I squatted down. “I have.”
A blink. “ And ? What does she look like?”
Oh, hell… “Wrinkly. Old. White hair, almost white eyes—you know.” That’s what that woman had looked like in the prince’s bedroom, right? I was almost a hundred percent sure of it—unless she hadn’t been the seer at all. In which case— fuck.
The boy thought about it for a second. “Why were you sent to take something out of the court? Where’s the royal guard?”
“Because, erm…it’s…it’s a secret.”
“A secret?”
“Yes. It’s…something nobody can know about. I’m supposed to take it to Blackwater.”
Someone called outside, and my heart jumped.
The boy stuck his head outside of the white fabric of the carriage, and said, “Just a minute!”
Fuck, I was sweating so hard…
“What is it? What are you taking outside?”
“I-I-I can’t tell you that.” Again, those blond brows shot up and something flashed in his eyes—suspicion or disbelief.
It made no difference. “But— but I’ll give you a hint.
” My voice shook but my mind was working.
I’d read plenty of books, damn it. I could make something up.
“It’s…uhm…it’s green,” I choked out, then cleared my throat.
“And it’s fabric. And—and it hums when it’s near its fate. ”
There. That sounds senseless and magical, I thought.
The boy paused for a second, then his eyes fell on the piece of silk I’d wrapped around my head and shoulders.
Magic. It was just magic, and magic could make things hum, couldn’t it? Even if it was the worst idea in history, it was still possible.
“The seer,” he finally said. “Did she see me in her vision?”
Oh, God…
“She saw a helper.” I swallowed hard. “No face—she only said I would have help to make it out of the court safely.”
His eyes brightened up instantly, like I’d just unlocked some part of his brain he didn’t even know existed.
Just like that, he believed me. To this day, I still can’t wrap my head around it, but the boy believed me.
He told me to follow him outside the carriage, to take his hand and keep my head down, and I did. With shaking legs, I jumped off the carriage, not entirely sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this.
We were in the heart of the city I’d seen from the balcony of the palace, which now loomed far in the distance, and I was only able to see the tips of the towers pointing at the clear blue sky.
Every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps, but there was no time to dwell on what had happened the last time I was there.
Fae surrounded me on all sides. Buildings, big and small, most made out of white marble, decorated with gold—doorknobs, window frames, fence doors.
They weren’t cramped up together like in most places in the fae realm I’d been to so far.
Each building had space all around itself, and the streets were wide and open, and the people were all dressed well.
Most didn’t wear velvets, but ordinary clothes—like the boy who had gripped me by the hand and I hadn’t even felt it.
He was shorter than me, thinner, but when he pulled me to the other side of the big carriage I’d been riding in, I had no chance of stopping it.
Everything turned to a blur around me so quickly, and I kept expecting someone to shout, to call me out— murderer! —and to grab me, chain my hands behind my back.
Nobody did.