Chapter 8
KORYN
You’re injured! Isanara cried.
I’d expected her first words to ring with accusation, but not quite like that. The sound of her high-pitched voice was so dear that tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and my frost didn’t even have the courtesy to freeze them in place before they escaped and trickled down my cheeks.
Did they hurt you?
My shift did not have pockets, but I’d managed a belt by tearing off a few inches around the hem.
I shoved the large shard of porcelain into it, still slick with my blood.
My power was my best weapon, but I wasn’t going to abandon anything that might be of use.
The four-leaf clover was secured at the end of the makeshift belt in a tiny pouch I’d fashioned by looping and knotting the fabric.
Isanara scoffed. As if they could. Have you seen my claws?
They could, I said bluntly. I’d spent too many hours imagining the ways. But they hadn’t. Where are you?
They tried to keep me in darkness. As if my eyes face the same puny limitations as their own.
Wherever she was, there were no windows. An interior room in the palace somewhere? That seemed unlikely. Any room big enough to hold her would have windows. She was nowhere near as large as the tales I’d read about full-grown dragons, but she was too big to shove in a broom closet. Unless…
Can you extend your wings? I asked.
Yes, she huffed, already annoyed with me.
The space between the ring of salt and the edge of the nearest pool was no bigger than the width of my hand.
I threw my arms out to either side, walking carefully but as quickly as I could manage.
No guards had appeared through the single archway exit.
Either there were none—Maura’s hubris—or they’d run for help. Fae cowards.
Still, I exhaled a breath when I reached the end of the rectangle outlined in salt and stepped onto the wide, solid path of tile.
Tell me everything you can about where you’re being held. I tried to soften the command, knowing how she loved to be told what to do. I am coming for you.
Pride that did not belong to me surged through my chest.
You escaped.
I smiled despite the precariousness of our situation. I was armed with only my intractable power and a shard of porcelain against half a coven of witches and a palace full of fae. Diminished though their magic might be, this would not be an easy escape. So, it would have to be a quick one.
They’ve been tossing gems through a slot in the door. They are too cowardly to open it and face me.
In my experience, there was only one place where the doors had holes cut into them for passing food. It was bad news; a dungeon would be highly fortified. At least I was already in the bowels of the palace.
Dungeons, I sighed. I’d reached the archway. From here, I could see the thick glass doors that divided the bathhouse from the rest of the palace. The opaque frosted glass mimicked the pattern of the tiles. I am going to have to fight my way to you. Is there anything else you can tell me?
Yes. Do not hurt yourself any further.
I am less likely to get hurt if I know where you are and how they’re imprisoning you. I palmed the porcelain shard. If my power sprang out of control, the fact that this was in my hand was not going to slow me down. It would not have any effect at all.
They have guards outside my door. Four, I think. Leave me at least one for a snack.
She could not see me roll my eyes, but I was certain she felt it. I thought you did not like the taste of people.
I can learn.
There was nothing to be gained from patience and delay now.
Whatever awaited me through those opaque glass doors would only get worse with time.
The flow of blood from my forearm had stopped, the normal function of clotting doing its work.
It was incredible what the Dark God’s power could do.
And now I would turn that power upon the fae who dared to separate me from and imprison my familiar.
I did not even need to flick my finger. Barely restrained power flowed from my hands, across the tiles to the glass doors. The puddles of dripping water around me froze over, transforming into glittering pools of ice. But my attention was focused upon the doors. Everything else was incidental.
The glass was already frosted and opaque. As my frost covered the panes, their color disappeared entirely. Tendrils of ice snaked along the metal that held the intricately-patterned triangles in place, working their way up from the base of the door to the arched point at the very top.
For a half-breath, the world was frozen. Then my power broke free, and the doors shattered. Glass shards even sharper than the one clutched in my hand rained down. Thousands of jagged glass and ice missiles crashed to the ground, the tile beneath them cracking under the impact.
My chest rose and fell rapidly at the sudden expenditure. But my power sang. More.
Isanara’s satisfied hiss filled my mind.
A flick of my finger, and a sheet of protective ice covered the ground, shielding my bare feet from the shards of broken glass. But I had no sooner passed beneath the tiled arch that had held the doors before I was stopped again.
They’d assigned me fewer guards than my familiar—two. Neither of them held a weapon, nor even looked mildly impressed by the display of shattered glass.
The dark-haired one lifted his hands and clapped slowly. “Well done, Koryn.”
Quiet time, Isanara.
I could picture the flare of her wings that ought to accompany the disgusted sound she made. But she did not speak.
I did not have that luxury.
I tilted my head to the side, considering my pair of adversaries. “You know my name, but I do not know yours.” Although instinct filled in identity.
There were the turquoise eyes I’d adored. There was the long, dark hair I’d seen falling over Alize’s shoulder in a remembered embrace, and later, delivering food to my cell.
“You underestimated her, Wills,” the dark-haired male said, ignoring me entirely. He did not even bother to keep me in his gaze, let alone draw the sword sheathed at his waist, as he held out a hand expectantly to the shaggy-haired blond male at his side. “Pay up.”
They’d placed bets on my ability to escape. The arrogance of the fae knew no bounds.
Let them exchange wagers. There were only two of them, and I’d use their arrogance to my advantage. I was free of the salt. Unspent power screamed in my veins, begging for a release. They’d only be distracted for a second, but a second was all I needed—
Flames encircled me, spiraling up and around like a snake, a coil of fire that held me effortlessly in place.
“You did not think it would be that easy, did you?” The dark-haired male’s sparkling turquoise eyes were on me once again. The crinkle at the corners told me they’d never truly left. A tactic to see if I would exploit the opportunity. An opponent taking measure of a challenger.
The smirk at the corner of his mouth was so familiar that my knees almost buckled. He had Alize’s golden skin, but Garrick’s eyes. Too bad for him that the emotion in the pit of my stomach was no longer affection.
“Your fire cannot hold me,” I said. As quickly as his flame had encircled me, I dropped the temperature of the air, snuffing it out.
The fae at his side, the one with the shaggy hair, drew his sword. His magic must be too weak to bother using against me, then. Perhaps it ran stronger in the royal line. I did not care.
I threw out my hand, and the shaggy-haired male screamed as ice encrusted his fingers and froze the hilt of the sword to his hand.
The prince’s smirk grew into a grin. “Vicious witch,” he breathed.
“I prefer wicked.”
We sprang into motion, fire and ice warring with one another.
The dark-haired prince drew his sword, but it was the flame that he wielded from his other hand that was the more dangerous.
It was not limited by the reach of his arm.
I countered with frost and ice, but I was not a warrior.
My advantage was built on the power that had coalesced inside of me over the days of my captivity.
But as we fought, it strained against my tenuous attempts at control.
If I let it loose fully, I did not know what it would do.
Kill them both. Spears of ice through their hearts. They would not die, I corrected. Fae were nearly impossible to kill. But what was to say that my ice would not behead one of them? Both of them?
Why did I even care? The fae were responsible for every terrible thing that had happened in my life.
They’d brought down the curse upon Velora.
My father’s obsession with them had led to my sister Janessa’s death.
Even my flight into the woods, where I froze to death only to be resurrected, even that I could trace back to them—
But I had made choices, too.
This choice was mine.
Before I could make it, the fire-wielder flailed back. His hands fell to his sides, his flame and sword with them. I gulped down breaths, my weeks of hiking through the mountains still not enough to prepare me for this level of fighting.
As I watched, the male lifted his sword, considered it for a second, and then dropped it to the ground.
I gasped in another breath, stunned, disbelieving. I must be more out of breath than I’d realized… I must be hallucinating.
“Our interests are better served by letting the witch go,” he said. His blond companion nodded earnestly. They turned and walked away—down the corridor, not bothering to cover their retreat—while I stood, dumbfounded, staring after them.
They reached the end of the corridor and veered left, out of sight. But I was not alone.
He stepped out of the shadows into the space the two males had occupied moments before. They’d walked right past him, as if they had not even realized he was there, which was impossible with their heightened fae senses.
The pain that seared through my chest told me—this was not a hallucination, and it was not a nightmare. This was my reality, and he was staring me in the face with an emotion that I refused to believe.
Garrick the fucking Red.