Chapter 4
Chapter Four
FINLEY
AN UNDERWATER CAVE SOMEWHERE IN CRESIN
As far as prisons went, this one wasn’t the worst Finley decided.
And she was intimately familiar with several prisons.
The cells, the food, the guards, the ways to escape.
She sat on the lake floor and rested her back against the wall.
A small tin plate with some sort of strange food that she didn’t recognize sat at her side.
She picked away at the poor excuse for a meal.
Even so, this was underwater and there were those strange gills on the side of her neck that helped her to breathe.
Most prisons were far away from any bodies of water, making Finley’s magic parched and fragile.
This was a feast for her magic. So, all things considered, not terrible.
According to Amelia, it was more than she deserved, she was sure.
She munched on the food with a heavy sigh and attempted to stand the sour taste.
Maybe Amelia was right in an odd way. Finley probably didn’t deserve much according to most people.
For so long she sailed the open sea to experience freedom to see and do everything she possibly could before the curse put her into her final sleep.
Being a pirate queen hadn’t been part of the plan.
She hadn’t realized The Mystic was a pirate ship at the age of sixteen when she and Ai decided to stow away all those years ago.
But it turned out Finley was good at pirating, and she’d figured if she was going to be cursed for the rest of her life, she might as well let the world know she was there and make a name. Power and fame — even if it was for dark acts — was an addictive drug, and Finley breathed it in willingly.
Then, not quite a year ago now, she and Ai had heard about Gallis’ Chalice and how it had cured King Brennan. That changed everything and even made her team up with her awful cousin Amelia for a brief time, which got her into this whole mess.
Finley shook her head and pinched the inside of her wrist to snap out of it. Being alone and in the dark always made her brain go to places she didn’t want it to. Memories. Logical thought. Who needed those? She had to get out of here.
She stretched her arms over her head and let her joints pop and crack after sitting for so long. At least she had Rafe as a roommate, but it wasn’t as though he was the best company.
Finley shifted her head toward Rafe’s side of the cave. It was like they were children who shared a room and made a pretend barrier between their two sides and neither of them ever crossed it to the other.
“So… what are you up to?” She called out.
A soft groan came from the other side of the cave and Rafe’s body shifted. He was in his wolf form and curled into a tight ball as though taking a nap. “What do you want?” He growled.
“I’m bored.”
“And why is that my problem?”
Technically it wasn’t. But it wasn’t as though she was about to tell him so. “Because if I don’t get some entertainment soon it’ll be everyone’s problem.”
A low growl from Rafe’s half of the cave rumbled against the walls, and Finley could feel it all the way to her bones. Making him agitated and annoyed had quickly become one of her favorite hobbies. There weren’t many other options for entertainment around here.
“Just let me sleep.”
Finley hung her arms limp at her sides and tilted her head as though she was going to consider his request. “But wouldn’t you rather sleep somewhere more comfortable?”
He shifted again, and his tail swayed back and forth. “What are you talking about?”
She strummed her fingers on the stone floor. Her nails hadn’t been properly trimmed in weeks so they would have made a light tapping sound but being underwater just created tiny bubbles to float around. “You have special powers from the goddess Stula right?”
There were a few heartbeats of silence other than the soft rustle of fur against the stone as he shifted in his spot. Maybe to consider giving her an honest answer.
“Why would you think that?”
She had his curiosity. Good. “I have a friend who’s a descendent of Stula and I know she has some special powers.”
“I thought Ai served Diar.”
Finley clenched her jaw and glared at him. “I have friends other than Ai.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Ass.”
“Brat.”
She took in a deep breath. This was beside the point. “Anyway. I have eyes and ears too. You may not have paid much attention to me while we were captured by ogres in Eral, but I paid attention to you. You sometimes vanished out of nowhere.”
More silence from Rafe’s side.
“So?”
Finley resisted the urge to groan in frustration. Maybe annoying her was becoming one of his favorite hobbies too, which wasn’t nearly as fun. “So, if you can vanish that means you could maybe get out of here, couldn’t you?”
“That’s a big assumption.”
“Have you tried?”
Finley could practically feel the irritation radiating off him from across the cave.
His claws scratched against the stone and his shadow rose and stretched.
She swallowed. Deities bless it, Rafe’s wolf form was huge.
She could ride him like a horse if she wanted.
Or in other ways. Not in wolf form obviously.
She shook her head. The loneliness must be getting to her.
“Under normal circumstances, the rules of transportation and movement don’t always apply to me.”
How delightfully cryptic. Finley ran her tongue over her teeth. “And under unusual circumstances?”
“There is some magic even I can’t get around.”
The answer was unhelpful to say the least. If he was being truthful, which she wasn’t sure if he was. Still, she’d dealt with people more stubborn. Herself included. “You haven’t answered my question, have you tried?”
Rafe’s shadow turned and his glowing yellow eyes stared out at her through the darkness as though he could see right through her. She shivered. “What’s it to you?”
This wasn’t going anywhere. Direct would be the best. “I can get us out of this mess with or without your help, but it’ll benefit us all if you can use your powers.
In the end we’ll be able to get away from Amelia, and you can,” she waved a hand around in the air, “do whatever it is you do and we won’t have to suffer each other’s company anymore. ”
The golden eyes blinked then turned away and he plopped down again. “There’s no getting out of this mess. At least not for me. I’ll bide my time here thanks.”
Finley blinked a few times. That wasn’t the answer she was expecting. “What do you mean you’ll bide your time? You want to stay in here forever?”
“Believe me when I say it’s for the best. Now leave me alone.” Rafe’s outline curled into a ball with his back toward her, conversation done.
But Finley was far from done.
She twisted her head back and forth to look for something to catch his attention and settled on the tin plate with her meager meal on it.
She grabbed the thing, letting the food tumble to the ground, and banged the plate against the wall.
Underwater, it didn’t have quite the same effect as it would have on ground and made more of a muffled thud than a ringing clang. “Hey! We’re not done, and you owe me.”
Rafe scrambled to his feet and in moments he’d shifted from wolf to man again, golden eyes still blazing. “And why do you think I owe you?” He might have been human again, but there was a distinctly wolf-life snarl in his voice.
“You killed my friend’s grandmother. You hurt one of my friends, you hurt me.
You made a royal mess out of things in Eral.
The very least you can do is use your powers to be helpful for once in your life and get us out of here!
How am I supposed to return the Shadow Slayers to her if we’re bound doing whatever Amelia wants? ”
To be honest, returning the Shadow Slayers to Rose was low on her priority list. But she meant it when she wrote in that note they were just borrowing them.
Rafe stomped on the ground, and the rattle of his chain made the cave shake.
Finley almost thought the iron bars blocking the exit would break, making her want to jump back.
Even in the dark of the lake she could see his sharp fangs glinting in his growl.
“If you care about Rose at all, you’ll let me rot down here. ”
Now that peaked Finley’s interest. Her fingers curled as though she could grip the floor and she moved closer to see him better. “What do you know? If she’s in danger, then I need to know and get out of here even faster.”
Rafe scoffed. “She’s the daughter of a king, her sorceress stepmother is on the loose, and now she’s the Minister of Eral. Rose is always in danger.”
She could have screamed in frustration. “You know what I mean! If you don’t tell me what’s going on now, I’ll rip the answer out of your throat if I need to. Is that what Amelia wants from you?”
He stalked even closer to her as far as the chains would allow, dark magic radiating off him in invisible waves making Finley shiver.
There was something odd and powerful about that Finley felt like she should know and be familiar with, but it was strange, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“I’m commissioned to kill her,” Rafe said, his voice rumbled deep into Finley’s chest. “Someone called upon Stula to have me kill the princess.”
Finley’s blood turned cold and a lump formed in the back of her throat.
There was no emotion or remorse in his words over having to do his duty to Stula in killing Rose and Renata.
She wet her lips and swallowed as she tried to wrap her head around his confession.
He was going to kill Rose. Commissioned.
In the prison wagon he’d told her he hadn’t had a choice in killing Renata.
She felt the blood drain from her face as the pieces clicked together in her mind.
Why his magic felt like it should be familiar.
Legends about him were everywhere Finley went, but she’d never met him face to face.
“You’re Death’s Prince,” she said in almost a whisper.