Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
CAIRN
Caelum is lying on the furs in the shelter I set aside for him. He’s breathing, eyes open and glassy. Nothing more than a body going through the motions of survival while whoever lived inside it has retreated somewhere none of us can reach.
I crouch beside him. “Caelum?”
Nothing.
His arms rest either side of his body, fingers slightly curled. He used to talk with his hands, sharp gestures that cut through the air when he argued … which was often. He had opinions about everything and the stubbornness to defend them against anyone, including me.
“I don’t know if you can hear me.” I keep my voice low and steady. “But I’m going to keep coming back until you can. I’m not going to give up on you.”
His chest rises and falls. He continues to stare upwards. He gives me no response at all.
I settle into a more comfortable position and talk to him for a while.
I tell him about the camp, the weather, and a hawk I saw circling the hollow as I walked to his shelter.
I fill the silence because maybe hearing my voice will help him find his way back.
Maybe it won’t. But I’m going to keep trying until I know for certain one way or another.
There’s a soft rustle behind me, and I turn my head just as a female walks in, carrying a bowl and cloth. She freezes when she sees me, eyes dropping to the floor.
“I was coming to feed him,” she whispers. “I can come back.”
“No. Stay.” I rise. “Has he reacted to anything at all?”
“No. I’m sorry.” She moves toward Caleum, careful to keep distance between me and her. I recognize the signs of someone who was used for the same things I was. “He takes a little broth, though.” She lowers herself to her knees on the opposite side to me.
I get to my feet slowly, not wanting to startle her. “Please let Vel know if anything changes.” She will be more comfortable speaking to her over me.
She nods without looking up, setting the bowl onto the floor. I stand for a second longer, watching as she eases Caelum up into a seated position, then quietly take my leave, and go in search of Serath.
She’s sitting on a pile of furs, eating an apple when I push through the entrance to her shelter. When she sees me, a smile lights up her features.
“Cairn.”
“Serath.” I lower myself to sit across from her. “Vel said you were speaking.”
“Trying.” She sets down the apple. “The words are … all there. Getting them from my head to my mouth is the hard part.” Her voice is stilted, with long pauses between the words. “It’s as though there’s a wall between what I think and what I want to say. I have to find my way around it.”
“It’ll get easier.”
“Maybe.”
“I choose to believe it will.”
She considers that, her eyes tracking over my features.
“Caelum?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been talking to him. I don’t know if it helps.”
“It might … or it might not.” Her mouth curves. “That’s all any of us have right now, isn’t it? Might or might not.”
“It’s more than we had a week ago.”
“Truth.” Her smile widens. “I can feel the thread linking us again. To you, and the others. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“It is.” Her expression softens then. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel it again. Any of it. I thought—” She takes a breath, and then she’s moving, crossing the small space between us. Before I can react, her arms are around me.
My body locks up, breath freezing in my lungs. The urge to shove her away, to put distance between us and get her hands off me surges fast.
Fingers in my hair. Mouths against my throat. Bodies pressing me down. Using me. Taking what they wanted.
No. This is Serath. The sweetest of my warriors.
I force myself to breathe, and lift my arms to hold her back instead of pushing her away. She’s thin. I can feel every rib, every knob of her spine. And she’s shaking, her face pressed into my shoulder, her fingers gripping the back of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“You came back for us.” Her voice is muffled against my shoulder.
“Of course I did.”
“I know. I just—” A shudder runs through her. “I couldn’t let myself believe it. Even when I saw you standing there, when the collar broke, I couldn’t believe it was real. I kept waiting to wake up and find myself back in the cage.”
I tighten my arms around her, resting my cheek against the top of her head. “It’s real.”
She pulls back, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes are wet, but her jaw is set, embarrassed to have shown weakness.
“Don’t tell Vel. She’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
I lift one eyebrow. “Tell her what? I didn’t see anything.”
She laughs, a rough startled sound. “There he is.”
Her hand cups my cheek. I turn my face and press a kiss to her palm, then take her hand and help her to her feet.
“Rest. Eat. Get your strength back.”
“And then?”
“Then we figure out our next move.”
She nods, but her hand tightens on mine before letting go. “I want to be a part of it. Whatever we do next, I need to be a part of it, Cairn. I can’t sit here and—”
“You will be. When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“No, you’re not.” I hold up a hand before she can argue. “None of us are where we should be yet. But we will. And when that time comes, I’ll need you at my side. So rest. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Eldráfn.” The softness in her voice is so familiar, so her, that the ever-present knot of tension in my chest loosens slightly.
The hollow is quiet around me when I step outside. I lift my head to the sun, letting my eyes close for a second, and reach down for where that single thread faintly tugs me east.
It’s no stronger, the distance between us hasn’t changed, but there’s a difference to it … a resonance that makes my heart pound, as I search deeper.
Multiple threads. Two, maybe three, tangled together. Close enough that their signatures blur at the ends. There are more of my warriors out there. Alive and free. Near each other, possibly together.
My heart pounds harder. If they are free, if they have never been collared, then maybe …
I want to go to them. The urge is so strong my feet are already turning east before I catch myself, my thoughts are on the verge of summoning Selveryn so I can ride until I find them.
But I can’t leave yet. The fae here need protection. Vel and Therin will never agree to me leaving without them, and we can’t abandon the hollow without defense. The mage who escaped will have reported to someone by now. For all I know, human soldiers are already on their way to the Dell.
But soon. Once more fae have recovered enough to fight. Then I will ride east.
I turn back toward my shelter. I can feel her presence at the edge of my awareness, the wrongness of the bond I created by accident. It’s a connection that shouldn’t exist, and I need to deal with it. I need to find answers for why it is not what it’s supposed to be.
She’s standing near the back wall, as far from the entrance as she can get, her back pressed against the surface, hands flat against it at her sides.
She’s been crying. The tracks on her cheeks and the redness of her eyes give it away.
But she’s staring at me, chin lifted in defiance and an expression on her face that’s trying very hard to be brave.
It’s failing.
I cross to the chair and sit, settling back into it, and rest my hands on the arms.
“Come here.”
She doesn’t move, fingers pressing harder against the wall behind her.
“I’m not going to ask twice.”
“Good. Because I’m not a dog. I don’t come when called.” Her bravery sends a rare spark of amusement through me.
“No. You’re not a dog.”
I’m out of the chair and across the space between us in three strides. She tries to bolt, a desperate sideways lunge toward the entrance, but I’m faster than she is. My hand closes around her arm, and I spin her, slamming her back against the wall hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
Her hands come up, hitting my chest, my arms, anything she can reach. I catch both her wrists in one hand and pin them above her head, my other hand presses flat against her sternum, pinning her in place.
“Let me go! Get off me! Get—”
I lean close, my mouth near her ear. “Be still.”
She doesn’t listen. Of course she doesn’t.
She keeps fighting against my hold, twisting and turning, trying to release her hands.
Her breath comes in short, panicked gasps.
I let her exhaust herself. It doesn’t take long.
And eventually, her struggles weaken, then stop.
She slumps back against the wall, chest heaving, wrists still pinned above her head.
“Are you finished?”
She doesn’t answer, glaring at me, eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Good.” I release her wrists, but keep my hand on her sternum, holding her in place.
“Now listen to me carefully. I’m only going to explain this to you once.
When I tell you to come, you come. When I tell you to kneel, you kneel.
When I tell you to be silent, you don’t make a sound. That is how this works now.”
“You can’t—" Her voice is shrill. “I’m the king’s daughter! You can’t treat me like—”
“Like what?” I arch an eyebrow. “Like property? Like something to be used and discarded? Like fae?” I let each word land, watching them hit. “I can. I will. And I am.” I let my lips curve up into a smile. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Her lower lip trembles. A tear escapes, tracking down her cheek.
“Kneel.”
She shakes her head, a tiny movement, but defiant all the same. “No. I won’t.”
I step back, dropping my hand.
“Kneel. Or I’ll put you on your knees myself. And you won’t enjoy how I do it.”
The silence builds between us. I watch her face as fear and fury fight for dominance. Her eyes dart around, searching for any option that doesn’t end with her on her knees at my feet. But she isn’t stupid. She knows there isn’t one.
Slowly, her body shaking, she lowers herself to her knees.
“There.” I return to my chair and sit. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
Through the connection between us, a spike of humiliation bleeds through, so intense it makes my own face heat for a moment before it fades.
I gesture to the floor beside my chair. “Here. Beside me.”
She doesn’t move, her head shaking, fingers curling into fists against her thighs.
“I said here.” I snap my fingers, my voice turning colder. “You can come on your knees or you can crawl. Choose.”
“I’m not—” She swallows hard. “I’m not crawling anywhere.”
I’m out of the chair before she can register the movement. My hand fists into her hair, wrenching her head back, and I drag her across the floor. She gives a choked cry, slipping and sliding against the furs, hands scrabbling for purchase. When I reach the chair, I release her.
She collapses forward, catching herself on her hands.
“Next time, you crawl when I tell you to crawl. Understand?” I settle back into the chair.
She doesn’t say anything, her body trembling as she stays there on all fours, her head hanging and her breath coming in ragged gasps. A princess of the realm. On her hands and knees at my feet because I put her there.
The satisfaction that curls through me is dark and visceral.
I let her stay like that for a moment, give her a second or two to catch her breath, and then I reach down and catch her chin between finger and thumb, tilting her face up to mine.
“This is what you are now.” I keep my voice soft. “Whenever you are in my presence, you kneel beside me. Every time. Unless I tell you otherwise.”
“Why?” The word comes out broken. “What is the point?”
“The point is that I want you there.” I release her chin and sit back. That is all the reason you need.”