Chapter 25
25
I ran into Triana later that day.
She was struggling under the weight of a large basket of fabric, so I offered to help. “What is this?” I signed once we’d delivered it to one of the sewing workshops.
“Dresses from Light House,” she replied slowly. I was getting better at the language, but I wasn’t nearly as advanced as Triana was. Her hands fluttered like birds whenever she spoke with Maude, but she simplified her sentences for me. “Lady wore them once. Now rags.”
“What a waste,” I said, signing “waste” along with the spoken words. Because the Fae lived forever, they did anything to avoid being bored, even if it meant discarding something after one use.
The thought made me uneasy. Was that what Drustan saw in me? A novel experience? A way to avoid boredom?
I forced my thoughts away from self-doubt. Whatever his reasons for sleeping with me, it had happened. Worrying wouldn’t change anything.
“What have you been doing lately?” I asked, doing my best to sign at least part of the question. Other than the simplest phrases, I still needed to use verbal speech to make my full meaning known, but hopefully I’d soon be able to convey more complex thoughts.
“Seamstress. I sewed before.”
Before the brothel, she meant. Tension had crept into her expression. She seemed happier than when we’d first met, but I wondered if the mental wounds would ever heal.
Which reminded me of something I’d wanted to ask her for a while now. “I’m so sorry to ask this, but can you tell me where the king’s brothel is?”
“Why?”
“I need to see it. Maybe someday I can do something to help the other people there.”
“You can’t,” she signed emphatically. “It’s dangerous.”
“Please.” The idea of that brothel kept haunting me. I wanted to know how many humans needed help.
She sighed before replying with reluctant fingers. “Down the stairs near the quartz room.”
The quartz room was a popular gathering place near the throne room—it made sense King Osric would want his pleasures easily accessible. The corridors around it were always populated by Noble Fae, which meant it would be hard to sneak down the staircase without being noticed. Now that I knew roughly where it was, though, I could try to find the brothel via the tunnels.
I touched my fingers to my chin and extended them towards her. “Thank you.” I hesitated. “How are you feeling?” It was a feeble question, one that didn’t come close to articulating what I wanted to know. Had she recovered from the trauma? Was recovery even possible? I was still plagued by nightmares of my mother wasting away, Anya dying, and the terror of fleeing from the Nasties. It made me feel weak when people like Triana, who had been hurt far worse, woke up every day and went about their business as if nothing had happened.
“It’s hard. But getting better.” Her lips trembled as she smiled, and I hugged her, in awe of her quiet strength.
I explored the catacombs near the throne room that night, searching for the brothel. My stomach churned with anxiety, but I had to see it. Since my own introduction to sex, I kept remembering what Drustan had said about Hector—that he liked his bed partners defenseless.
The thought filled me with rage.
The dagger tightened on my arm, reflecting my anger back at me. Hungry .
It had taken small bites out of me on occasion, so it wasn’t completely starving, but the amount of blood it was drinking clearly wasn’t enough. A visceral memory welled up of the Nasty I’d stabbed in the eye. That blood had been acidic against my skin, but in this imagining it was delicious and peppery, leaving an alcoholic burn in my mouth.
I rejected the fantasy and the lust for blood that came with it. Stop that , I thought. It was the dagger’s memory, mixed with mine. I shuddered at the joy it had felt during that act of horrible violence.
Then feed me.
You’ll just drain things dry. I don’t want to kill anyone else.
I won’t . Unless we have to. I was starving then. If I wasn’t starving, I would drink slower. Take less.
You drink from me all the time.
Only small amounts. You do not offer more.
I didn’t think I’d ever explicitly offered any , but then again, I hadn’t stopped it. You could kill me by accident , I told it as I found a narrow staircase and began making my way downward.
Bonded . Can’t kill you. Won’t.
The dagger’s hunger burned in my own gut now, distracting me from the task at hand. I sat on the steps, considering my options.
This was a serious problem. If I didn’t feed the dagger more blood, it would get hungrier and hungrier until I needed to defend myself against someone, at which point it would lose control and kill. It might even kill if someone brushed against it by accident. But if I fed it too much of my blood, I could die—unless it was telling the truth about being unable to kill me.
I didn’t want to murder anyone, and I couldn’t risk the dagger attacking one of the Noble Fae. Which meant I needed to start giving it more blood.
What if I just left the dagger somewhere and walked away? I hadn’t known it was homicidal when I’d first picked it up. True, it was good to be able to defend myself, but wouldn’t an ordinary kitchen knife work just as well?
Its affront echoed through our bond. I didn’t know how closely it could track my thoughts, but it certainly picked up on intentions. Bonded , it repeated. The metal coiled even tighter around my arm.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I believed it. I could sense through our strange connection that the dagger always needed a master, and that its time under the bog had been torturous. It hadn’t parted from its past owner willingly, and now it wouldn’t be parted from me.
She didn’t part from me willingly, either , the dagger replied.
Who was your last mistress? I asked, curious, but the dagger didn’t respond.
Enough of this. Either I trusted it to protect me or I didn’t. “Fine,” I said out loud.
The dagger eagerly ran down my arm like liquid and solidified in my hand. I looked at the blade, took a deep breath, and cut a shallow slice in my forearm away from any major veins.
Blood welled around the wound and vanished into the blade just as quickly. There was a tugging sensation as it drank even more.
“Enough,” I said.
The dagger stopped drinking reluctantly. I tore a strip of fabric from the bottom of my dress and wrapped it around the cut.
As it resettled into its familiar position as a circlet around my arm, I considered again how I’d found it. How did you survive in the bog for so long without blood?
Pain . Emptiness. Waiting. A kind of nightmarish sleep, the blurred impressions it shared with me implied.
Waiting for what?
Someone to touch me.
Me. I shivered at how close to death I had come. Why didn’t you kill me when I touched you? You must have been starving.
You rescued me, and I was no longer bonded to a mistress. The first drop of blood I tasted after her death bound us.
How did your mistress die?
Again no response, but I felt its sorrow.
I stared sightlessly into the darkness, wondering exactly what this creature was, the dagger that was alive and yet not alive, that hungered and raged and yet was capable of affection for a long-dead mistress.
Do you have a name? I thought suddenly.
Caedo.
Many famous weapons had names, like Painbringer or Lightning, but this felt more personal. Like I’d finally learned the name of a mysterious acquaintance, a name it had owned since birth and maybe even chosen itself.
I was struck by an idea and nearly hit my forehead at the obviousness of it. Can you drink animal blood?
Yes.
Had I truly never considered this before? I’ll collect some from the kitchens so you can feed more regularly .
I hadn’t expected the gratitude that emanated from Caedo, nor its contentment as it wound its way up to perch in my hair as a smooth silver headband. It was fond of me, I realized.
The solution to the problem of the killer dagger was much easier than I had expected it to be. I didn’t have to starve it, mutilate myself, or let it kill anyone. I could steal pig’s and lamb’s blood from the kitchen and keep it fed and content, and there would be no need to fear it anymore.
I huffed a laugh. I’d assumed nothing could be simple, so I’d overlooked an easy answer. The gash on my arm would no doubt leave a scar. It would be a reminder that not everything had to be difficult, and that sometimes the solutions to my problems were right under my nose.
I found the king’s brothel.
It was down several winding staircases and past a section of mazelike tunnels. The noises were what let me know I was in the right place.
Wild sounds of pleasure, horrible sounds of pain. Laughter. Screams. I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to suppress the nausea and terror.
There weren’t any peepholes in the walls, but a ladder led up to a narrow crawl space. The floor was dotted with tiny holes that allowed me to peer into the rooms below.
I crawled as noiselessly as I could over chambers decked with satin, velvet, and silk. They contained enormous beds, piles of cushions, and red gossamer curtains. The floor was swirling white-and-black marble, and the walls were carved with figures of faeries, humans, and even Nasties engaged in sexual encounters. A few of the rooms were empty, but most weren’t. A variety of scenes played out below in flashes of skin, ranging from the sensual to the horrifying.
Triana had told me not everyone in service in the king’s brothel was unwilling. Some chose this life because they valued the money or the touch, and they could quit when they wished. Some were exclusive to certain patrons and didn’t have to serve anyone who inquired. I had no issues with that type of work in general, so long as the choice was theirs.
That wasn’t the case for all, though. Some Underfae served to work off debts or as a punishment for past transgressions against the Noble Fae, and there were humans like Triana who had been abducted for their beauty. Like the rest of the human servants, they were provided nothing more than housing, food, and clothing. Despite seeing no payment themselves, they fetched a high price. There was a certain type of sadistic faerie who enjoyed inflicting suffering and found delight in the abuse of power, and in King Osric’s favored brothel, that desire was of course catered to without regard for morality or decency. The unwillingness of their victims was the point.
The unwilling were easy to identify. Horror and hate filled me as I memorized faces: both the faces of the victims and the faces of the Noble Fae abusing them. If I ever encountered one of those monsters in a hallway alone, they would not survive the meeting, consequences be damned.
Caedo tightened around my bicep, echoing the urge to kill.
Tears filled my eyes as I passed some of the worst displays, but I forced myself to keep going. I needed to memorize the layout of the rooms, note any exits. Triana had said there were sixty in service here and roughly a quarter of them had been forced into that service. Maybe I could take those fifteen people with me if I escaped. And surely Drustan would release them if he took the throne.
Not every scene was cruel, or even sexual, though. I paused to watch, surprised, as a Light lady cuddled fully clothed with a contented-looking female sprite in one room; in the next, a winged Underfae laughed and teased his client and was rewarded with kisses.
Not all the Fae were monsters. But too many of them were.
Of the obviously unwilling, I counted seven humans and three Underfae before I reached the final, most elaborate room. It was decorated in purple and white, with opalescent gossamer instead of red. I knew what this was. Triana had told me King Osric kept a special room for his “pets”—the unlucky human women he claimed exclusive access to.
Triana said they never lasted long.
A naked woman knelt on an enormous four-poster bed with violet sheets. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, and a black bag covered her head, cinched tightly at the neck. The fabric clung to her nose and mouth with each sharp, desperate-sounding breath.
My hand flew to my mouth, and I retched silently. Ritualistic scars covered the pale skin of her back and arms. A few were old, but most were various shades of pink that indicated she was in the early stages of healing. The cruel swirls looked like filigree, a design that would have been beautiful as a tattoo but was horrifying carved into her flesh.
The door opened. White-blond hair gleamed in the candlelight as King Osric stepped into the room. Hate surged into me, hotter and more vicious than I’d known myself capable of before arriving in Mistei.
“There you are, my beautiful pet.”
The woman stiffened at the king’s voice.
“No one else would consider you beautiful anymore, of course,” he continued, “but I think there’s something so elegant in suffering.” He laughed, a musical sound that contrasted sharply with the violence expressed in his victim’s skin.
He pulled a small, hooked blade from his belt. “Let’s begin.”
He knelt on the bed behind her, gently trailing a hand over her back before he sank the tip of his knife into her forearm. She flinched.
I forced myself to watch as he carved a delicate design into her skin. Blood poured from the wound, sinking into the purple sheets. I felt ready to vomit, but the woman didn’t move from her kneeling position, although her body shook and occasional whimpers escaped. The skin beneath her metal cuffs was red and blistered.
“I prefer it when they beg.” Osric started a new design. “Tears, pleas, screaming…”
She didn’t respond.
He laughed. “You’re special for more than one reason. No one’s ever lasted this long, you know. Maybe I like this better after all.”
The pain must have grown to be too much, because at last she squirmed and tried to pull away. Osric shoved her face-down on the bed and inscribed a spiral next to her shoulder blade. Her faint cries were muffled by the sheets.
How much more suffering could she take? How much blood could she lose and still survive?
Osric surveyed the pain he’d wrought with a bright smile. Then his hand moved to his belt.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I crawled away, my eyes blurred with tears and my stomach on the verge of revolt.
I lay shaking in the corridor below the crawl space for a long time. I vomited twice, unable to get the image of Osric and his victim out of my head. Triana had said it was horrific, but I’d never imagined anything like that monstrous cruelty. I imagined stabbing my knife into King Osric’s chest, straight into his heart.
Yes , Caedo hissed in my mind. It, too, was agitated. Now that I’d lost my fear of the dagger, I could sense more complex emotions behind its ever-present hunger. It hated the king, too, but the violence committed in that room hadn’t roused its bloodlust, though I didn’t understand why.
Not like that , the dagger told me. I saw glimpses of battles, blood taken from enemies. Memories of killing in outright conflict. Never like that.
I forced myself to my feet. It was late, but I didn’t want to return to Earth House. Didn’t want to lie awake in bed reliving tonight’s nightmare over and over.
What if there was still a way out? What if the tunnels led beyond Mistei? I hadn’t found any exits yet, but I hadn’t been in this part of the catacombs before. I would walk for miles if I had to—anything to find a way to save the people in that silk-shrouded prison.
I walked and walked until my feet ached. This path was long and straight with regular offshoots. I didn’t follow any of those, choosing instead to explore as far in one direction as I could.
At last I felt a change in the air, a sharp tingle that made the hair on my arms stand up. Caedo vibrated in warning, and I stopped. Was there something—or someone—here? It nipped at my arm, and suddenly I could see a glittering wall of light farther down the corridor. The dagger had given me temporary faerie sight, as it had in the bog. I approached the light gingerly, knowing without the dagger telling me that this was a powerful ward.
The dagger sent an image into my mind: a shimmering white curtain spreading through the rock and dirt around us, curving away into an impossible distance. An impenetrable wall surrounding the entirety of Mistei, not just the aboveground entrances.
Frustrated, I cut off a piece of my hair and threw it at the ward, wanting to see what would happen. The curl sizzled and vanished in a puff of smoke.
My frustration was replaced by defeat. It had been a foolish hope—that I could somehow walk far enough to get out of Mistei without being stopped. That there was some hole in the king’s defenses. If that were the case, wouldn’t some of the Noble Fae have managed to escape by now? Wouldn’t Drustan have managed it, if not for himself, then for the lady he’d loved? He didn’t know about the tunnels, but Oriana did. If she had been able to offer her children freedom and prevent Leo from dying, wouldn’t she have done it?
My dreams of freedom turned to smoke, too. I forced myself to face the brutal truth: I would be a servant forever, spending the rest of my life underground. I would age and eventually die down here.
Unless King Osric could be overthrown, and new, better leadership could take over.
In a way, the death of my hope for escape was a relief—it was one less worry, one less thing to focus on. All my rage and energy could go towards a different cause.
I had only two goals now. Making sure Lara survived the trials…and helping Drustan rebel against the king.