Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Before she could even make it to the stables, just outside the courtyard, an older man wearing dark robes and a cold expression halted her with a single look.
His eyes, heavy-lidded and devoid of warmth, bore into her with an intensity that sent a shudder down her spine.
She could feel the prickling sensation of magic in the icy air around them.
He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was muscular and broad-shouldered, his presence exuding a quiet but undeniable strength. He wore black leather gloves, reaching up past his wrists, and his every movement seemed deliberate and controlled.
“Come with me, and come quietly.”
His soft words held her in an iron grip. His very voice was woven with magic, compelling her into compliance.
Alethea followed him out of the courtyard, away from the keep. Away from the soldiers and the castle guards. Away from her friends.
“Do not shout or scream,” the man continued, like a lullaby. In a fluid motion, he draped a cloak of the deepest black over her shoulders. The hood, when drawn over her head, obscured her vision, casting the world into shadows—and hid her from the world.
“Do not speak at all or make any noise. Walk quietly, keeping your head down, and do not attract attention. Stay close to me.”
Her heart thudded in her chest as she thought of what Nakir would tell her. “Do not go far from me.” She wanted to run away, to cry out for him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything except what this man bade her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she recalled Talia’s words about Enchanters, and a chilling warning echoed in her head. How Enchanters were the worst kind of mage, because they had power over your senses. The most skilled of them even had power over your own free will.
Alethea had the thought she wanted to do all those things he’d instructed her not to, but she couldn’t force her consciousness to obey.
She longed to defy his commands, to scream, to run, to reclaim her stolen agency.
But she could only walk silently beside him, every movement sending sharp twinges of pain through her weary body.
Each step took her farther away from the castle.
The bustling winter city passed in her periphery until they were on the far south side of Aegea, in the warehouse district.
She tried to memorize every step, every turn, but her mind was too muddled to keep track of where she was going or where she’d been.
She couldn’t even lift her head high enough to make frantic eye contact with anyone they passed in a plea for help.
He led her to a particularly nondescript stone building—an abandoned warehouse—and opened the door for her to enter.
The man waiting for her was thin and reedy, his teeth too large for his mouth and his eyes reminding her of a rat’s. “Damn, Baumann. You are as good as they say you are.”
“Better, actually,” the Enchanter replied, his arrogance unsettling. “But that was the easy part. Let’s get this girl to the capital. You know your orders. Do not engage with her whatsoever. She’s to be delivered untouched.”
The capital. These men must have been hired by her mother, sent to retrieve her after the assassins failed. Her throat tightened as if she would cry, but it stuck there—painfully.
Alethea wanted to scream at them, to demand they release her, but the Enchanter’s instructions held so firmly the effort of trying nearly had her blacking out from exertion.
Worse than that was the understanding she wasn’t getting out of this; that this time, no one was coming to rescue her. And that was entirely her own doing.
The warehouse was empty except for a single horse-drawn carriage.
Alethea had no choice other than to maintain in proximity to this man—this Enchanter named Baumann.
He couldn’t have been much older than thirty, with lightly tanned skin, a square jaw, and the faintest hint of an afternoon shadow on his face. He seemed aged far beyond his years.
“Get in the carriage, Princess,” he instructed simply.
Every part of her begged to resist, but she complied in total silence, only allowed to blink through her swirling fears.
Alethea was drowning in her own thoughts, but the one that came back to her time and time again was the single thought that she would never see Nakir again.
It had her heart breaking inside her chest, and she wrapped her arms around herself to try to hold some part of her together.
She wasn’t allowed or able to cry. She couldn’t utter even a single sound.
Alethea retreated as far back into her seat as she possibly could when the Enchanter entered the carriage behind her. He settled on the bench across from hers and slammed the door closed behind himself. The sound had her wincing, clenching her fists tight at her sides.
“There we are. We’re off to the capital. Never you worry—you’re safe and sound.”
Somehow, she didn’t believe him.
“I’d keep to yourself, though, if I were you. Nelson... he ain’t right in the head—you know what I mean?”
Her stomach plummeted, but she could say nothing.
Alethea caught sight of an unusual blade at his side as he adjusted in his seat.
The entire dagger seemed to be made of a dark, inky glass that absorbed all light around it.
It was magical, yes, but also crafted from an element she’d never seen before.
When he saw her gaze fall upon it, he scowled, covering it again with his jacket.
The carriage lurched forward, and she watched through the window as they left the building.
The last thing she saw was the small saddlebag containing all her things, tossed against the far wall of the warehouse.
Everything Nakir had bought her was now left behind.
She drew in a deep, ragged breath, watching it disappear from view as they made their way down the streets of Aegea toward the southernmost gates.
That bag contained everything she’d acquired since starting her new life, and tears pricked her eyes to see it so cruelly left behind.
“Ah. Stay away from the windows while we’re in the city, Princess.”
Alethea was forced to sit back, pinned by the stacking restrictions. Despite his orders, she could still see several men on horseback surrounding the carriage. Alethea counted six, all around the same age and build. Pale skin, dark robes.
Baumann enjoyed hearing himself talk and prattled on as they navigated the city streets. “My client was certainly willing to pay a steep price for you. Not many can afford my rates. Then again, not many can do what I do.”
She was little more than his captive audience. A part of her almost wanted to encourage him to keep speaking, to keep him monologuing, to give up an important detail that would allow her to figure some way out of this.
“But when you have unlimited resources, I guess gold means little to you in comparison to an Oracle.”
Alethea froze, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. A gnawing realization gripped her heart: there was no going back. The revelation of her powers was now a permanent mark on her existence, etched into the annals of history.
“Cat’s outta the bag, innit? Word like that travels fast. Too bad you can’t talk.
I bet you’d have a thing or two to say about your current predicament.
I don’t pity you, I’ll tell you that much.
Oh, and I’ve already sent word to the Aeshlien that you’ve left without him, so I wouldn’t count on a rescue. ”
Would Nakir believe whatever messenger Baumann had sent? Hadn’t she already run away so many times now?
She opened her mouth but still couldn’t speak. She didn’t know how long his enchantment of her would last, and she sighed—inwardly—and turned away.
She only knew they’d left the city behind when she was suddenly free to look back at the dwindling metropolis as grief threatened to swallow her whole.
Tears welled in her eyes as she thought of her time with Nakir and his friends.
She thought of those heavy brows, the broad shoulders that seemed to carry the weight of the world.
Of the way he’d watched her at the Revel, as if she were more important to him than every single star in the sky.
She would never see him again.
Worse than that, in two days, she would be face-to-face with Queen Zenobia Onasis.
She imagined herself sitting across from her mother at her desk, a goblet between them, the same position so many of her mother’s adversaries had found themselves in before her, while Nakir and the others waged war on a distant battlefield.
Alethea had no choice but to spend the day in silence, the hard reality of her situation pressing heavily upon her.
Alone with her thoughts, she found herself trapped in a cycle of self-blame, replaying every misstep she’d taken, every mistake she had made, and every way she’d failed.
Each memory sharpened to painful clarity as she ruminated on that failure, her thoughts shoving her deeper and deeper into a spiral of doubt and regret as every hour took her another league in the wrong direction.
Nakir wasn’t coming. No one was coming. She had ruined that too.
Nelson checked on them after several hours, rapping on the window to let them know the roads were clear enough for a brief stop.
Alethea was at least given a semblance of privacy to take care of her needs, but with Baumann’s hold on her, she had no hope for escape.
She barely knew how his magic worked, let alone how to break the enchantment—or if such a thing was even possible.
The rest of the day went like this, riding in total silence, as he refused to let her utter even a single word. There was no way to console herself by speaking aloud that she would be all right; no way to prophesize her way out of this; no way of knowing what her future had in store.