Chapter 23 #2
“Why not?” a fae woman replies with a snicker from my left.
“This is exactly where you belong. Did you really think that you could refuse a partnership with us? That you were so high and mighty that you could deny us a chance to be dragon riders? That you could tell us that we weren’t worthy of you?
You are animals. No better than horses. This is where you belong. ”
“Don’t talk to my mate like that,” Bane growls. “She—”
I gasp as the fae man closest to him punches him in the face. But the person whose eyes I’m watching through merely continues leaning his back against the stable wall, watching it all while keeping his arms casually crossed over his chest.
Bane yanks his arms up as the guy punches him again. Next to him, Jessina lurches forward and grabs the fae man’s arm.
“Stop!” she calls. “Don’t—”
He backhands her across the face. The sudden hits snaps her head to the side and sends her stumbling into the wall.
Rage pulses across Bane’s face as he starts to leap up from the ground to attack the guy. But before he can so much as get off his knees, the fae man summons some kind of magic that makes his eyes glow.
“Stay on your knees,” he orders. “And keep your mouth shut.”
Bane immediately stops moving as the dragon steel overrides his free will.
The fae man grabs Jessina’s collar and yanks her upright again. Her hand is pressed against her cheek where he backhanded her, and tears line her eyes as she stares at him in fear. He looks back at Bane with cruel eyes. And then slaps Jessina across the face again.
I jerk back in shock.
Jessina gasps in pain, and rage burns in Bane’s eyes. But with the dragon steel keeping him silent and on his knees, he can do nothing to protect her.
The memory shifts again. This time, we’re in a small cabin. It’s dark outside the windows, so I can’t tell where we are.
“Drink,” a fae woman orders from where she is standing in front of Jessina, who is sitting at the table with Bane. The woman’s eyes glow in the dim light inside the cabin. “All of it.”
Forced by the dragon steel and the woman’s magic, Jessina picks up the wooden tankard and starts drinking. Bane looks between her and the three fae who are standing on the other side of the scratched wooden table. Worry pulses across his whole face.
On the chair beside him, Jessina grimaces while she continues drinking. Whatever it is that they’re forcing her to drink doesn’t taste well.
Once she has swallowed every drop, she sets the tankard back on the table and drags in a deep breath.
“What was that?” she asks. “It tasted… strange.”
The fae woman shrugs. “A potion. To make you sterile.”
My heart jerks hard in my chest.
In the memory, Bane’s mouth drops open while horror spreads across Jessina’s face.
“What?” she gasps out.
The fae woman shrugs again, as if it’s no big deal. “We can’t have you getting pregnant, can we? It would make everything so messy and ruin all our plans.”
Tears well up in Jessina’s eyes as she presses a hand to her stomach.
I squeeze Orion’s wrist in rapid succession.
He immediately pulls me back out of the memory.
Staggering backwards, I suck in unsteady breaths while very uncomfortable feelings twist inside my chest like thorny vines. My back hits the cold stone wall of the dungeon, and I brace myself against it gratefully while my heart continues slamming in my chest.
That was… not what I was expecting.
In theory, I knew that it must have been horrible for the dragon shifters who were enslaved by that small group of entitled fae who trapped them with dragon steel when they refused to form a normal partnership with them. But this was worse than I was expecting.
My head spins and my chest tightens uncomfortably.
Because I suddenly understand. I understand exactly why Bane and Jessina slaughtered the people who enslaved them.
I understand why they trapped the remaining fae inside the Seelie Court.
I understand why they made us live in filth and poverty.
I even understand why they began sterilizing us.
It wasn’t just about keeping the population growth under control and strengthening the magical bloodlines. It was for revenge.
I press a hand to my mouth as bile rises up my throat.
Oh Goddess above, I actually understand why the Icehearts hate us all so much. And they’re right to. They are right to hate the people who did all of these awful things to them.
My stomach turns as I stare at Bane with new eyes. I used to look at him and Jessina as monsters who were just evil simply because they wanted to be. But they’re not. They were humiliated and violated and tormented too. How am I supposed to—
“Remember what they’ve done,” Orion says.
His strong voice, so full of confidence and authority, cuts through the dread inside me like a blade. I suck in a sharp breath, trying to reorient myself again. Blinking, I tear my gaze from Bane and instead meet Orion’s hard eyes.
“I’ve seen your worst memories too,” Orion continues, holding my gaze. “Remember what they’ve done.”
Even without his magic, memories suddenly start flashing through my mind.
Memories of how my stomach has ached all my life when I’ve only been allowed one single meal a day.
Memories of all the drunk and ragged people who are drowning their sorrows in alcohol all across our court.
Memories of how we were forced to kill and hurt each other during the Atonement Trials.
Memories of Isera and Alistair, half-naked and shackled in iron, kneeling blindfolded in the middle of a crowded banquet hall.
Memories of them being led around half-naked in a collar and chain.
Memories of them locked in dog cages. Memories of Draven standing on a mountainside while the Icehearts whip his wings to shreds.
Memories of the blood that ran down his ruined wings and the world-ending pain that he had to endure.
Memories of them using dragon steel to take away Draven’s free will for two hundred years.
I drag in a shuddering breath.
That panic and dread evaporate inside me as the sympathy I briefly felt is replaced by hatred and rage that is even stronger than before.
Yes, that small group of entitled fae assholes who enslaved them and did all of those horrible things to them deserved everything they got.
But we did not. The way they were treated by those people doesn’t justify how they have treated all of us who are completely innocent of those crimes.
They have been punishing fae for generations for a crime that we have not committed.
And they’ve even done the same thing that the fae did to them to other dragon shifters. Like Rin Tanaka. And Draven.
The final flicker of sympathy inside me is crushed into oblivion as I once again remember the feeling of that world-ending pain that Draven had to endure after his wings were whipped to shreds.
And it wasn’t the first and only time they did that.
They whipped his wings like that every day for six years.
That massive black ocean of rage and hatred roars up inside me like tidal waves.
Every day. For six years.
I’m going to fucking kill them for that alone.
Screaming suddenly echoes through the room.
I whip my head towards the portal to find Isera and Alistair practically throwing Lyra and Galen in through that glittering blue rectangle before diving through themselves.
“Close it!” Isera screams at Grey.
Grey’s gaze immediately darts to Orion, who jerks his chin down in a nod. Roars and clanging sounds come from the other side of the portal for a second, drawing closer at an alarming rate. Then it collapses into the ground, and deafening silence falls over the room.
I flick my gaze over all of them, looking for Draven.
Ice spreads through my chest.
“No!” Galen screams, shoving Alistair away from him. “We can’t just—”
“Where is Draven?” I demand, my voice cutting through the room like lightning.
Galen turns towards me. His violet eyes are filled with panic and dread and guilt.
“He’s… gone.”