Chapter 9
The castle is quiet and cold – as if it exists in a different place entirely from the rest of the city. We are taken quickly through the courtyard, past the grand doors that must lead to the entrance hall, and down a series of dark passageways that seem to be leading us to the belly of the building.
At the rear, near the stables, where everything smells of hay and dampness, a large trapdoor is opened and we are ushered into a pitch-dark hole.
I stumble as I descend the spiral staircase, bracing myself on the icy stone wall for support because, although my wings are free, I daren’t move them for fear a guard will think I am about to take flight.
The movement of climbing downwards makes my thigh burn. Kayan hears me wince and inhale sharply. “Are you all right?” he asks. “Are you injured?”
“I was hit in the raid.” I reach down and rub my thigh, the contact making my entire leg start to throb. “I didn’t think it had broken the skin but it must have.”
“Those arrows were poisoned,” Kayan says, stumbling behind me as he’s shoved roughly by a guard who tells him to keep moving.
“They were,” I say, trying to keep my tone light and worry-free. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine. Maybe they’ll let me see a healer.” I glance back over my shoulder and meet Kayan’s eyes. “After all, Eldrion doesn’t want his prize possessions to keel over, does he?”
Before Kayan can reply, we reach the bottom of the staircase and emerge into what looks like a cellar. The ceiling is low, causing the taller males in the group to almost brush the tops of their heads and the ridge of their wings on its curved surface.
A guard stomps ahead, lighting torches, then stops in front of a large iron grate.
“You’ll be held here until Lord Eldrion decides what to do with you,” he says, pulling the door to the cell open and nodding at us to head inside.
A few others file in first, then Kayan, but before my feet can cross the threshold there is a hand on my arm squeezing me tightly. “All except you,” he says, studying my face. “Lord Eldrion requested the redhead be taken somewhere else.”
Acid-tinged dread thickens on my tongue. I shake my head, try to think of something I can say to persuade him to let me stay with the others, but I am aware it is futile. The guard takes my elbow and roughly jerks me out of the way so he can seal everyone else inside their cell.
“You’ll be brought water and food soon enough,” he says.
Is that sympathy in his voice?
I search for his eyes but he keeps his face tilted away, so I cannot see his features properly. I am almost certain it is sympathy I detected. “Where are you taking me?” I ask as he marches me through a separate door and up a separate staircase.
We emerge in a brightness that makes me shield my eyes.
A large entrance way with a bright, glinting chandelier in its centre and a huge curved staircase at its rear. “This way.” The guard approaches the stairs and waits for me to ascend them first. Following close behind, he says, “Just so you know, you’re being watched. Even when you think you’re not. So, don’t try anything if you want to live through this.”
Again, there’s that softness in his voice.
“Is it possible to live through this?” I ask, turning to look down at him. “What does Eldrion intend to do with us?”
The guard hesitates a moment, then narrows his eyes, shoves past me, and strides loudly down the corridor at the top of the stairs. I follow, my heart beating harder and louder with every step, until we reach a large oak door with a butterfly engraved on it.
“Here.” The guard raps on the door with his knuckles.
After a pause, it swings open and he shoves me inside. “I asked what Eldrion intends to do with us,” I call, turning around in the hope of catching him before the door closes.
But it is too late.
He has gone, and I am alone.
At least, I think I’m alone until a flicker of movement in the corner of the room startles me. “Don’t be alarmed.” A young, dark-haired woman wearing a black smock and a white apron holds up her palms at me – like I’m a frightened animal about to run from her. “Lord Eldrion asked me to take care of you. You’ll not come to any harm in here.”
“Take care of me?” Indignation, disbelief, and rage swirl in my stomach. “He just bought me at auction and locked my people in a jail cell. And he wants you to take care of me?”
“I’m Briony.” The woman extends her hand. When I shake it, she smiles. “I’ll be your maid.”
My forehead creases sharply into a frown. “Maid?” I laugh and shake my head. “I am a prisoner. Prisoners do not have maids.”
Briony tilts her head from side to side. “Apparently,” she says, “Lord Eldrion has decided that you do.”
After handing me a glass of water and watching me drink it, Briony gestures to a large bathtub in the corner of the room and asks if I’d like her to run it for me. “While you soak, I’ll lay out some clothes for you. I gathered what I could at such short notice.”
Again, I cannot help laughing. Why would Lord Eldrion do this? Why would he bring me here only to give me a servant and a bubble bath?
I have barely formed the question in my mind when the answer comes to me. Panic grips my throat and drips down into my limbs; there can only be one reason Lord Eldrion would want my body cleansed and polished and ready for him.
I think of Rosalie being dragged away after the Gloomweaver extolled her virtues as a potential breeder. A carrier of Sunborne children.
My arms go to my waist, and I hug myself tightly. For, in this moment, I know exactly what Eldrion wants.
He intends to claim me.
He intends to make me his.
I want to resist.I want to refuse to bathe, crawl into bed, and sleep until this nightmare is over. But I also desperately want to feel clean again, and to remember what my skin was like when it was not caked in dirt and sweat and remnants of the stranger who I still cannot get out of my mind. I also need time to think.
“Very well, I’ll bathe.” I nod and flex my fingers inside my gloves.
Briony nods and sighs a little, as if she is relieved she doesn’t have to try to persuade me.
“But I want to do so alone.”
“Of course.” She turns her back on me and heads for the tub, turning the taps so that steaming hot water runs into the basin.
Facing away from me, I can see that her wings are not like mine. They are small, almost like Kayan’s – the way they became after the accident. Thin with visible, spidery veins and a muted grey tinge to them that indicates she has no elemental magic.
“You are Shadowkind?” I ask, stepping closer.
Briony swirls some lotion into the tub and looks up at me, sleeves rolled up as she tests the temperature of the water. “I am,” she says. “All those in servitude to Eldrion’s family are Shadowkind.” She bites her lower lip. “At least, we were until now.”
I swallow forcefully. “You think he wants to keep the Leafborne as his servants, too?”
“It is not my place to speak of such things.” Briony worries the hem of her sleeve with her fingers. I glance at her arm, and notice a spider’s web of scars that make my stomach clench. She pulls the sleeve down, then stops the taps. “Your bath is ready, ma’am.”
“Please, don’t.” I take her elbow.
She looks at my hand, frowns a little at the golden glove, then pulls away.
“Call me Alana. I am not your superior.”
Briony smiles gently. “All creatures are superior to the Shadowkind,” she says gently. Then she tilts her head in the direction of what I assume is a dressing room. “I’ll attend to your wardrobe while you soak. Let me know when you’re finished.”
I watch her wings closely as she leaves. They do not move the way mine do. Instead, they sit motionless on her back, no twitching or fluttering. They are just... there.
Before getting into the tub, I cross to the window and pull open the shutters. Warm air hits my face, in complete contrast to the cold that hangs over the castle. I brace my hands on the sill and lean out. Looking up, I can see the parapet where Eldrion’s guards patrol with the arrows.
If I jumped and flew, would they truly shoot me down?
I turn my gaze towards the ground. My rooms are in a tower above the courtyard. Below, I can see the horses, and the trapdoor that leads to the cellar where the others are being kept.
My head spins with thoughts I can’t pull into place. They don’t seem to line up, or make sense. It is as if I am thinking in tongues. Amidst them all, thoughts of the stranger behind the falls still keep creeping in.
What happened to him? He was not a Gloomweaver, that much I’m certain of. He was fae, but from where? Not Leafborne. Perhaps an Oceandweller or a Mountainborne.
I grip the sill tighter, my fingers grating against the stone as I try to steady my breathing.
There are many things I should be thinking of at this moment, and the stranger in the red mask is not one of them.
Beneath my rough brown dress, my thigh aches. Perhaps the warm water will soothe it. Perhaps if I’m not in pain, I’ll be able to think more clearly. For there has to be some advantage to me being up here instead of down there in the dungeon. There has to be something I can do from here that will help the others.
Removing my dress, lifting it over my head, I cross to the tub, then remove my gloves too and step in, hooking my long legs over the rim then sinking down into the water.
My hair floats around my shoulders, becoming damp at the ends, and I sigh as the warm water laps at my stomach, my breasts, my arms, the binders on my wrists.
I scoop some water into my hands and splash my face.
But my thigh still burns and, raising my leg out of the water, I can see it is angry and red. I want to ask Briony for help. I want to ask if she has any way of healing it, but I am not yet certain I can trust her. I vow to search her aura when she returns. If I do, I’ll know whether she is earnest or whether she is a spy sent by Eldrion to watch over me and report my movements.
What if she reports my injury to Eldrion and I’m slammed back into the dungeon? Or given back to the traders?
It seems that, by being here in this tower, I have the chance – even if it is a tiny glimmer of a chance – to help my people escape. So, I will do what I can to ensure he keeps me here as long as possible.
Even if that means . . .
I swallow hard and screw my eyes closed. There is something about Eldrion that makes my skin ache with intrigue. Yet, knowing what I know of his cruelty, how could I ever find him anything but reprehensible?
If he intends to touch me, to use my body, to keep me here as his plaything, how do I let that happen without wanting to scream and claw out his eyes and tear holes in his wings with my teeth and my nails?
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
A jolt of nausea springs into my throat and I turn to the side of the tub, releasing the meagre contents of my stomach onto the stone floor.
Immediately, Briony appears in the doorway and hurries over. “You are burning up,” she whispers, brushing her palm across my forehead. “You are sick?”
I allow the gates of my mind to open and, even though a haze is descending on me, I search out her emotions.
“My lady?” She shakes her head, then corrects herself. “Alana... are you injured?”
I nod at her, suddenly unable to speak because my lips and mouth are so very dry. Her concern is palpable. It swims in her eyes and in the air around her.
She is sincere.
Thank the stars she is not an enemy.
“I was hit by a Gloomweaver’s arrow,” I whisper. “Please, don’t tell anyone. If Eldrion knows I’m weak he might send me to the dungeon and I can’t –” I inhale sharply as pain ricochets up and down my leg.
Briony’s eyes are wide and worried. She grabs a towel and moves to help me out of the tub. “My gloves,” I mutter. “I need my gloves. I shouldn’t touch you.”
She frowns at me but, without asking questions, nods. She hands me the gold gloves and I pull them shakily over my hands, then allow her to help me out.
It is ridiculous, really. I don’t need to touch her in order to feel what she is feeling; I perfected the art of using just my mind many years ago. And I know deep in my soul that I won’t do to another what I did to Kayan. At least, not like this. Not by accidentally brushing their skin with mine.
What happened with Kayan was the result of passion, and exhilaration, and a complete loss of control.
Part of me wondered, when I was with the stranger behind the falls, whether I might hurt him the same way. As my body exploded beneath his touch, I wondered whether it really was my hands that did the damage to Kayan or if it was all of me.
But he escaped unharmed.
So, perhaps my mother was right; my power is at its strongest in my fingertips.
When I am sitting on the edge of the bed, drinking from a large mug of water, Briony kneels in front of me and examines my wound. “Alana, I need to get you some medicine. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She glances at the window, at the encroaching evening sky. “We have to make sure you’re well enough for the banquet.”
“Banquet?” I ask, my eyes fluttering as I lower myself back onto the bed. “What banquet?”
“Lord Eldrion has requested your presence this evening as his guest.” She is at the door, turning the handle. “I’ll explain. But first, medicine.”
And then she is gone, and a key turns in the lock, and I am alone.