Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wood clatters against wood as Imar is thrown in through an open door by Draven’s wind magic and hits the table and chairs that were arranged on the floor inside, knocking them over. Imar gasps, shaking his head and blinking furiously as if trying to figure out what just happened.
Draven simply stalks in after him and yanks him up from the floor before slamming him down into one of the few chairs that still remain upright. Air explodes from Imar’s lungs, and before he can recover his breath, Isera covers his arms and legs and torso in ice, trapping him to the chair.
From my place by the wall inside, I just keep leaning back against the dark wooden panels with my arms crossed over my chest and watch them unseen from the shadows.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Draven declares. “You’re going to send a message to Gremar and tell him that there has been some kind of emergency and that he needs to come to the Golden Palace straight away.”
Imar, who is a member of the Red Dragon Clan and who was the chief administrator responsible for organizing the Atonement Trials, snaps his head up and stares at Draven in shock. “You… What the fuck do—”
“The only words that should be coming out of your mouth right now are yes, sir.”
Anger flickers in Imar’s blue eyes, and he yanks against his ice bonds. “Fuck you. You think you can torture me into betraying my clan leader? You underestimate my strength, Shadow of Death.”
“Torture you? Why would I waste time and energy torturing you,” a vicious smile curls Draven’s lips as he jerks his chin in my direction, “when I can just have her change your entire personality instead?”
Summoning my magic, I straighten from the wall and walk out of the shadows with my eyes glowing. “Remember me?”
All color drains from Imar’s face.
I let a cruel smile settle on my lips as I advance on him.
Just like most people, Imar believes that I can change someone’s emotions so much that they become an entirely different person.
And… well, to be fair, I can actually do that now, since I can create permanent emotions out of nothing and just force them into people’s chests.
But anyway, the point is that Imar has always believed that and has therefore always treated me with a level of wariness.
When I registered for the Atonement Trials, he barely took his eyes off me once he learned that I had emotion magic.
So I knew that simply seeing me with glowing eyes was going to create a spark of fear in his chest.
And it sure did.
I quickly latch on to that bone white spark of fear that appeared in his chest when he saw me, and then I begin increasing it rapidly.
“No, wait,” Imar blurts out, and yanks hard against Isera’s ice shackles again. “Don’t. Don’t—”
I shove more magic at him, increasing his fear even more.
“Please,” he stammers. “Please, don’t change me. I like who I am. Please, don’t make me—”
Bracing my palms on his forearms, I lean down over him with that cruel smile still on my lips. “After all the shit you put us through in the Atonement Trials, do you really think I would show you mercy now?”
He thrashes in his seat. My magic keeps pouring into him, intensifying his fear, until he is yanking so hard against his restraints that the chair wobbles even though I have my palms pressing down on his forearms.
The power I have over his life right now makes a dark sense of craving burn through me.
I drink in that absolutely intoxicating mix of fear and pleading in his eyes while I keep increasing the strength of my magic.
I’ve never held this kind of ruthless authority before. It’s making me feel drunk on power.
“Please.” Imar’s frantic gaze snaps to Draven. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t let her change me. Please, don’t let her change me.”
A smirk spreads across my face as I turn my head and glance back at Draven over my shoulder. My heart skips a beat when I find him watching me with both desire and hatred in his golden eyes. When my gaze meets his, he starts slightly and then quickly shifts his attention to Imar instead.
“Do as you’re told,” Draven replies. “And I might ask her to back off.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll do whatever you want!” He yanks against his restraints again. “I’ll send a message to Gremar and ask him to come to the Golden Palace.”
And he sure did.
Half an hour later, Imar has sent an emergency message to Gremar, and we are hauling his unconscious body across the grasslands and towards the Golden Palace outside the city.
Orion casts a glance at Imar’s unconscious body, that Galen is carrying slung over his shoulder, before he shifts his gaze to me and gives me an unimpressed look. “I could’ve broken him faster.”
I snort. “Sure you could.”
“And speaking of ineffective uses of our limited time on this world,” Orion continues, his eyes narrowing as he slides a suddenly suspicious look at Isera. “Why are we using the main entrance instead of the secret path that leads straight to the heart of the castle?”
“What secret path?” I ask, frowning at him even though his gaze is still fixed on Isera.
“It’s a design feature present in both of our castles. With the exact location kept secret from the masses, of course.” Challenge creeps into his suspicious stare as he holds Isera’s gaze. “As a descendant of the Seelie Queen’s second daughter, you should know that much, at least.”
“Of course I do,” Isera replies smoothly as she levels a look of challenge back at him. “But I’m not about to disclose the location of it to three dragon shifters and the ruler of an enemy court, am I?”
He holds her stare for another few seconds, suspicion still swirling in his eyes. Then he clicks his tongue and presses his hand to his chest in an overly dramatic gesture. “Enemy? You wound me, little viper. And here I was, thinking that you trusted me.”
Tension crackles through the air as they hold each other’s gaze in silence. Then, to my surprise, both of them let out a short huff of laughter that is barely more than an amused snort.
Behind their backs, Alistair and I exchange a quick glance.
That was close.
If Orion ever finds out that Isera isn’t actually royalty and that their entire bargain is based on a lie, we’re going to be in deep shit.
Thankfully, though, Isera is apparently an incredibly smooth liar.
Once we reach the Golden Palace, we split up into smaller groups to prepare the ambush for Gremar Fireclaw. And to prepare the four contingency plans that Draven devised as well, in case everything goes to hell.
I lead Galen into a small storage room that I discovered back when I was scouting out the Golden Palace during the Atonement Trials all those months ago.
Once he has deposited Imar inside the room, I look down at Imar’s unconscious body.
With the potion we forced him to drink, courtesy of Haldia, he’s probably going to sleep all the way until the day after tomorrow.
Closing the door to the storage room behind us, we exchange a nod and then start back towards the room where the others are getting ready. But once we draw close to it, I hesitate.
After telling Galen that I need to handle something else first, my feet start drifting in the direction of the main entrance again.
Since Gremar first needs to receive the message that Imar sent, and then also needs to fly all the way here, it will be hours before he actually shows up. Which means that I have time to sneak back to the city, if I want to.
Trailing to a halt in a corridor, I glance towards the hallway that will take me to the main entrance before I shift my gaze to the one that will take me back to my friends.
We’re right here. In the Seelie Court. And I have time. I can go and visit my parents, if I want. I could go and check with my magic and finally get my answer.
Panic lurches inside me at just the thought of it.
What if I’m wrong? What if there is no manufactured flame of hatred in their chests? What if they really do simply resent me?
Glancing down the gold-glimmering corridor, I bite my lip as indecision rips at my chest.
Then I shake my head. No. I can’t risk it.
Not right now. When Orion admitted that he had been bluffing about the portal, I almost drowned in that black ocean that is just one second away from crashing down over me at any given time.
If I go there now and find out that my parents do in fact hate me, I won’t be able to handle it.
It will be the final drop that makes that tiny light of hope inside my chest go out.
I need to focus on the mission at hand. I can find out the truth about my parents later. When I’m in a better place mentally.
Giving myself a nod to confirm my decision, I start back towards the room where the others are.
The hallways inside the Golden Palace are dark.
Since all the faelights in the corridors have been ripped out and replaced by torches on the walls, the only illumination right now comes from the moonlight that streams in through the windows.
So when I see faelight spilling out from a small gap in a door up ahead, I frown in suspicion.
Moving quietly, I sneak the final distance to the room and glance in through the gap in the door.
My heart skips a beat.
Draven.
He is sitting on a chair that seems to have been dragged away from the desk in the corner. His head is turned slightly away from me, and he has buried his face in his hands. Light from a lone faelight gem falls across his body where he sits, drawing in deep breaths.
Then he looks up.
And my heart almost stops.
Dragging in another deep breath, he tilts his head back and rakes both hands through his hair.
There is an expression of utter tiredness on his face.
I have never seen him look this exhausted before.
It makes him look both like a weary thousand-year-old man who has seen too much and an overwhelmed twenty-year-old boy who just wants to go home at the same time.