4. A dyrehorse? A deer? Oh no #2
When I’d finally drained the skin and handed it back, the man raised one of his stark-white brows. “Want some bread too?”
The rumble my stomach gave in response could have easily been agreement or a warning of danger, but I’d risk my luck for a chance at sustenance.
I blinked at him in disbelief before I nodded. The man smiled, a bright flash against deep gray, before he dipped his head and backed out of my cell. The barred door clanked shut behind him as he said, “Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
I scoffed at that. As if I could swing myself off my cot, even though the itch to check if my cell door was locked gnawed at me. Thankfully, my jailer’s absence was brief, and he returned with a bounty.
In his bracer-bound arms were not only a sizeable metal tankard and bread roll, but another blanket. It was as threadbare as the one wrapped around me, but that didn’t stop a tremor of relief from running through my body at the prospect of doubling that measly warmth.
He handed me the bread and tankard brimming with water before setting the blanket by my feet. “Thought that wouldn’t hurt. It’s the draftiest damned cellblock this side of the chasm.”
I gave the bread roll a testing squeeze. “You’ve seen the inside of a lot of cellblocks?”
“Plenty. Now, go on then.” He gestured at me. “Shut up and eat.”
Was it the most decadent bread roll I’d ever eaten in my life?
Hardly. But it seemed relatively fresh, and that was more luxurious than any dungeon food I’d ever seen.
Our prisoners were lucky if the oats they got were cooked that day, let alone ones delivered with consideration and amiable conversation.
When I’d made it through half my roll and was confident it would stay put in my stomach, I broached my next question without even looking up from the bread as I picked at it. “So, I’m in Grimmoria then? Or the Wastes?”
That, at least, had been easy enough for my simple mind to deduce. Full-blooded dark fae—Umbrites, specifically—like the one before me were a rare sight in Odessa, and the scarce few who settled in our lands always saw bountiful work in trades or education with their magic. Not as jailers.
“Grimm’s Keep.” A thoughtful hum. “Pretty damn far for an Odessan like yourself.”
I scoffed and kept chewing.
Grimmoria was weeks away from our borders, and my head hurt a little too fucking much when I tried to piece together what happened after we left the fortress, or when I tried to narrow in on how the hell I was in my betrothed’s dungeon being treated downright cordially by one of his guardsmen.
Unless he didn’t know who I was by an unfathomable stroke of luck.
That was a thought that took me so suddenly, it almost tumbled right out of my mouth. “The rest of the party I was traveling with,” I replied slowly instead, “they’re here somewhere too?”
His pause was unnerving.
“I’ve been assigned to keep watch over you, and you only, so—” He shrugged. “I take days; Jasper watches nights. That’s all I know.”
Two entire people dedicated to watching over me? That wasn’t comforting, and he definitely knew more than he was letting on. But years of guard training taught me well—prying in the wrong places never yielded fruitful results.
“And I’m sick or something? That’s why I’m being kept here?” I asked next. Stupidly, maybe, because why else would I feel so feverish and like a cavalry fleet had run me over?
“The old witch can’t seem to figure out what’s been ailing you, truthfully.”
“The what?”
“The witch?” He tipped his head, though I wasn’t sure if it was in confusion or amusement. “They…tend to the sick and wounded? Pump you full of tonics and tinctures? Usually old bats with awful attitudes?”
“Oh.” Another shiver wracked my body. That was not what we called them in Odessa, but I kept my mouth shut about that. “And they don’t know what’s wrong?”
A heap of lengthy white hair fell into his face as he shook his head.
He sighed, digging out a leather tie from his pocket and working it all back as he said, “Best guess is whatever happened at that camp is still working its way out of you. The witch and Jasper got your leg all fixed up, at least, so there’s no worrying about that mess eatin’ you from the inside out. ”
“My…my leg?” I almost choked on the bread I was fighting to swallow.
Beneath the covers, my toes wiggled freely, but my jailer had an apprehensive look on his face when I glanced back over. I immediately started fighting my way out of the blanket.
“The other one, I think,” he said as I moved to hike up my right pant leg and revealed only inches of flesh that was just as I remembered it.
I switched quickly to my left, and my urgency slowed dramatically.
A sprawling network of rosy pink, freshly healed skin started at the top of my foot, spreading up my shin and around the back of my calf, only a few tendrils trailing any higher than my knee.
Some spots were deep, pitted marks, some were smooth, and others were raised.
One thing was for certain—they spoke of a nasty injury.
They held the pattern of scars I was familiar with growing up so close to the mines in Odessa.
The flush I’d woken to started creeping back through my body. “Are they…?”
“Burns,” he supplied. “Do you not remember?”
I blew out a breath and shook my head.
On the inhale, my mind treated me to a fleeting memory of acrid ash and putrid, burning flesh. It was gone as quickly as it came, but that didn’t stop me from gulping down mouthfuls of water to stave off some of the nausea it churned.
My jailer watched me cautiously the entire time, and there was no misjudging the distance he had put back between us.
“What happened?” I asked, more pleading than I was proud of. “There was a fire? Where? With…with my camp? Or…?”
The man just shook his head with a wince and exited my cell, easing the door back into place.
“I’ve probably said too much. The king was adamant he needed to be the first to know when you were awake.
He might be a while, though, so try to get some more rest. I’m sure he’ll have plenty to talk to you about. ”
I swallowed. “The king was adamant?”
“He was,” the man chuckled. “You’re in Grimm’s Keep, remember? He runs the place from top to bottom, Miss Wynn.”
Miss Wynn.
“Wait a second! Tell me your name, at least. Or… Wait! What day is it—”
The lock on my cell door clicked over, and with it went the fleeting hope of my identity being unknown, and the even smaller hope of finding my way out of this engagement and the hell I’d landed myself in.