Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
CAIRN
The first spike hits me twenty minutes after Vel takes her.
I’m flipping through one of Cowen’s ledgers, looking for more details he might have noted about the other preserves when fear slams through the connection hard enough to make my hand jerk. The page I’m holding tears almost in two.
I set the book down, close my eyes, and breathe through it until I can separate her emotions from mine.
Terror, raw and animalistic. The kind that makes prey freeze before it bolts.
Good. That’s what I wanted. It’s the reason I chose Vel—someone who has made no secret of wanting her dead.
Vel won’t shield her from anything. She’ll march her through the camp of fae who’d gut her for sport, wearing a scrap of fabric that barely qualifies as clothing, and let every fae who wants to look get their fill.
If that doesn’t make the connection flare, nothing will.
I go back to the book.
The second spike comes ten minutes later. It’s stronger this time, and my pulse picks up speed. I have to grip the edge of the table until the panic subsides.
I map the sensation as it fades. Strong emotion is the trigger. The stronger it is, the brighter the flare. Fear works. So does humiliation. I felt that when I made her kneel and called her pet. When I stripped her bare this morning and watched her try to cover herself.
The connection pulses again. It’s fainter this time, but sustained. A low thrum of dread that doesn’t spike, but simply continues. She’s gotten past her initial terror and settled into endurance.
I know that feeling. I lived it for three hundred years.
I find myself leaning toward it, the book lowering, as I pay attention, tracking her emotional state as she moves through the camp.
That’s the part that bothers me.
When she’s vulnerable, truly vulnerable, I notice. Some part of my awareness orients toward her whether I choose it or not. When her walls crack, I feel it. And instead of dismissing it and shutting it out, I find myself wanting to know more.
I don’t want to want that. I don’t want to feel anything for her at all.
But this connection … this thing that has formed between us … doesn’t care what I want.
The flap peels back and Vel steps inside. The smile on her face speaks of pleasure at a job well done.
“Well?”
Vel’s smile widens. “She was shaking by the third shelter. Almost vomited at the fifth. I had to hold on to her to keep her from bolting twice.” She examines her nails, pursing her lips.
“Brielle got close enough to whisper something. I didn’t hear what it was.
But your little female went white as bone. ”
“Did anyone touch her?”
“No.” Her eyes flicker with disappointment. “I kept them back, as you wanted.”
“And where is she now?”
“Outside.” Vel’s eyes meet mine. “I think she’s actually more afraid of you than them. I don’t know what you’ve been doing to her while you’ve been all alone. But it’s not fair of you to leave us out of it.”
“Some things aren’t meant to be shared, Vel.” I close the book and place it on the table. “Bring her back inside.”
Vel turns, then faces me again. “She’s close to breaking, you know. A few more days of this and there won’t be anything left to play with.” Her tone is more serious now. “You might want to decide what you want from her before that happens.”
She doesn’t wait for my response, disappearing outside. A moment later, the princess steps inside.
She’s shaking. That’s been a constant state in all our time together, but this is different.
This isn’t the fine tremors of someone fighting to hold themselves together.
These are full body shudders that make her arms jerk against her ribs where she’s got them wrapped around herself.
The tunic has ridden up on one side, baring her thigh almost to her hip, but she hasn’t noticed.
Her face is the gray-white of old snow, except for two spots of color high on her cheeks.
Her eyes won’t settle on anything, darting around the shelter constantly.
The connection between us pulses with her fear. Cold, clammy, and thick enough to taste.
“Come here.”
She flinches at my voice, and for a moment I think she’s going to bolt.
But there isn’t anywhere she can run to.
She knows that. She crosses to me in stiff, uneven steps, and when she reaches my chair, she stops, waiting.
Her breath comes in shallow, rapid pulls that don’t seem to be giving her enough air.
I let the silence build, and watch her fight to control her breathing … and fail.
“Kneel.”
She drops. Her knees hit the furs with a thud she doesn’t seem to feel. She stays there, hunched over herself, arms still locked around her ribs.
“Look at me.”
Her head comes up. Her eyes are wet, red-rimmed, pupils blown wide.
“You asked to go outside. You wanted it.”
She swallows, but doesn’t say anything.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing. They didn’t … No one touched me. They just—” Her throat works as she swallows.
“They just what?”
“Looked at me. All of them. Every single one.” The words spill out fast, tumbling over each other. “The entire time I was walking through the camp, they watched me. Their eyes followed me everywhere. And they wanted—”
Her breath is getting faster, edging toward hyperventilation.
“They wanted what?”
“They wanted to hurt me. I could see it in their faces. The way they tracked me. One of them smiled and it was …” A shudder runs through her. “I’m sure she was thinking about how she’d kill me, planning it in her head. And I couldn’t do anything except keep walking.”
“She probably was. What did Vel do?”
“She … Every time someone got close, she’d pull me back just before they reached me. But she made sure I saw them coming.” Her laugh sounds like breaking glass. “She wanted me to be scared. She enjoyed it.”
“Yes, I imagine she did.”
She looks up at me then, her face wet with tears. “You knew. You knew what it would be like.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
I lean back in my chair, and look at her. The shaking hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s getting worse now that the immediate threat has passed, her body finally allowed to react to what it’s been holding at bay.
“How did it feel?”
She stares at me, tears spilling down her cheeks. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“Answer me. How did it feel to walk through the camp and have them look at you like that?”
“Like I was walking to my death.” Her voice breaks. “Like any second one of them was going to … and Vel wouldn’t stop them. I knew she wouldn’t, because she wanted it too. I can see it every time she looks at me.”
“Go on.”
“I couldn’t breathe.” She presses the back of her hand to her mouth. “My heart was pounding, and all I could think about was putting one foot in front of the other, and pray that none of them would …”
Her fear is a living thing now, crawling through the connection.
“And the worst part—” Her voice drops to almost nothing. “The worst part is knowing it isn’t going to end. When I come back here, I’m still going to be trapped, and surrounded by people who want me dead. I’ll still be—”
“Prey?”
“Yes. Prey.” She lifts her chin and meets my eyes. “You wanted me to be afraid. You wanted me terrified and shaking and sick. You wanted me to know how powerless I am here. How much I depend on you to stay alive.”
“Yes.”
A sob escapes her. “Why?”
“Because that’s what my people felt. Every day. For three hundred years.” I lean forward. “The same stares. The same smiles that promised violence. The knowledge that death was one wrong move away, one master’s bad mood, one decision of a lord who wanted to hunt.”
“I know.” She’s crying openly now. “I know. I understand.”
“You don’t understand anything.” I’m on my feet before I decide to move.
She scrambles backward, falling onto her ass, but the sleeping platform is behind her, blocking retreat.
“You had one hour of being looked at and you’re shaking so hard you can barely speak.
You got to walk back here knowing it would end, and that you’d be safely out of sight again.
You walked through the camp and no one touched you. ”
I’m standing over her now, and she has to crane her neck to look up at me, tears streaming down her face.
“They didn’t get walls. They didn’t get an end point, Alleria. They woke up to it every morning and fell asleep to it every night.”
“I know.” The words are barely audible. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I don’t know what else to do.” Her voice breaks completely. “What do you want me to do? I can’t undo any of it. I can’t—”
“Aren’t you listening to me? You can’t do anything.” I crouch in front of her. “There’s nothing to do. Nothing to say. No way to make amends. I wanted you to see what it was like. Now you know. That’s all there is.”
She’s shaking so hard, her teeth are chattering between sobs. Her whole body has curled in on itself, trying to make herself smaller, trying to disappear. The connection is screaming with her fear, her shame, her desperate wish to be anywhere but here.
And through it all—the terror and the tears—I feel myself lean toward her.
I hate that. I hate that some part of me wants to ease this, wants to say something that isn’t designed to hurt. Three hundred years of being owned and used and I still haven’t burned out the part of me that responds to suffering with anything other than satisfaction.
“Look at me.”
She doesn’t. Her face is buried in her hands, shoulders heaving with the force of her sobs. I catch her wrists and pull them down, forcing her to meet my eyes. Her face is wrecked—red, swollen, blotchy with tears. She looks broken. She looks exactly the way I want her to look.
It doesn’t feel the way I want it to.
“This is what you are now.” I keep my voice low. “Not a princess, or a hunter. Prey. You live because I allow it. You breathe because I haven’t decided to stop you.”
Her lips part. For a moment I think she’s going to apologize again, and I’ll have to—