Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s hard to tell how much time has passed. Both because we’re always kept in dungeons or cells or locked rooms with no windows. But also because they keep moving us from place to place frequently.
Every time Hana comes back from one of her sessions with them, they take off Grey’s collar and force him to open a portal to another location. Probably so that Hana, who is the only one of us who ever sees the outside of a cell, won’t be able to tell us where we are when she gets back.
And every time she gets back, she looks worse.
I know that they are making her research how to open the Gold Clan’s pocket reality.
Since the pocket reality was created by someone else, it’s apparently not as easy as just flicking her wrist and making it open.
And I also know that they are torturing her.
Extensively. They apparently meant it when they said that they plan to break Hana and make her become their new tool who can use the dragon steel.
So far, she has managed to hold out. But she is looking worse and worse every time the Icehearts dump her back in our cell.
Though I suppose the rest of us aren’t doing all that well either.
Isera spends most of her time hyperventilating with her head between her knees. Since she is intensely claustrophobic, at least in tight spaces where she can’t see outside, every minute in these windowless cells is pure torture for her.
Orion isn’t much better. He just sits with his back to a wall, staring out at nothing with his one good eye and continuously tapping his fingers against his leg in an incredibly stressful rhythm.
I don’t blame him. He’s probably trying to estimate how much time has passed and how much remains until his wounds are no longer fresh enough for Haldia to heal.
The only person who isn’t having a mental breakdown is Grey.
Apart from the times when the Icehearts force him to portal us to a different location, he simply leans quietly against the wall close to where Orion is.
In fact, his turquoise and yellow eyes barely leave his king.
So he is the only stable person in this room.
Because I am also suffering from a never-ending mental breakdown. But for an entirely different reason.
I slide my hands underneath my thighs where I’m sitting on the cold stone floor, hoping that no one could see how much they were shaking. But it’s useless. Because my entire body is trembling.
Grey slides his gaze to me, a look of concern on his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I reply with as much conviction as I can muster. “I’m just cold because my body is using up all of my energy to heal the stab wounds.”
Understanding dawns on his face, and he gives me a nod before shifting his gaze back to Orion.
I stifle a breath of relief. He bought it.
It’s partly true, anyway. My body is using a lot of energy while trying to heal the wounds that Jessina inflicted on me yesterday. Or the day before. Or however long has passed since they took us captive.
But that is not the reason why I’m shaking. It’s not the reason why I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin and bang my head against the wall.
It’s because I still haven’t been able to use my magic.
Every time I pass out and fall asleep, or even just close my eyes, I see those awful memories of when Jessina killed my parents in vivid detail.
And every time, I wake up gasping and in cold sweats.
That deep need to feel the comforting pleasure of my magic was already strong before we even got here.
Ever since Orion shattered Kander’s memory magic, I’ve been craving that comforting sensation more and more.
And now, I haven’t been able to feel it for…
an entire day? Two days? Three days? I don’t know how long. All I know is that it’s too long.
My body continues trembling. I squeeze my fingers into fists underneath my thighs and run my tongue through my parched mouth.
The Icehearts are giving us water from time to time, but almost no food.
Not that it matters. No amount of food would be enough to satisfy that awful hunger inside me.
Because I’m not really hungry for food. I’m hungry for that wonderful comforting feeling of my magic.
I need it. Just a little boost. Then I will be okay. Then I will be able to function properly again. But with the iron collar on, I can’t give myself that one little boost of pleasure that I so desperately need.
So instead, I shake and suffer and lie to my friends.
Isera asked me earlier as well about the trembling.
And I told her the same thing I told Grey.
That it’s only because I’m cold. Thankfully, she is too preoccupied with her own panic attacks to see through my lies.
And an awful, selfish part of me is glad for it.
Because I don’t want her to know. I don’t want any of them to know.
I have spent so much time and effort on becoming someone that people can depend on.
I have finally proven to my friends that I am someone who contributes.
That I am strong and smart and that they can count on me.
So if I were to admit to them that I’m struggling with the effects of my magic—my own magic, for Mabona’s sake!
—it would ruin all of that. It would make them see me as a liability instead.
And I don’t ever want to be a liability again.
I don’t want to be seen as the weak link.
So I try to keep my shaking to a minimum as I sit there and force myself to ignore the way my mind is begging for relief that I can’t get right now.
My heart leaps into my throat as the door is yanked open.
We all scramble to our feet as Hana is shoved across the threshold right before both Jessina and Bane stride inside as well.
“At last,” Jessina declares while impatiently flicking her long white hair back over her shoulder. Her pale eyes shift to Grey. “Time to go.”
Orion and Isera move so that they are standing closer to me while Jessina explains in detail the place where she wants Grey to open the portal.
Hana remains on the other side of the room. Her black hair hangs down the sides of her face like dark curtains as she just stands there. I try to meet her eyes, but her chin is lowered and her shoulders are bowed. She is practically cowering there next to Bane.
I stare at her. Has she…?
“Let’s go,” Jessina says, her voice cracking through the air like a whip.
Blinking, I shift my gaze to her and realize that Grey has already opened the portal. Jessina jerks her chin at us. I shoot her a glare but follow Orion and Isera through the portal.
Surprise hits me when I step out onto a sunlit stretch of grass right in front of the sea. After so long in dim cells and darkened rooms, the sudden sunlight stabs at my eyes, and I have to squint and raise a hand to give them shade until my vision has adjusted.
Next to me, both Isera and Orion seem to come alive again for the first time since we were taken captive.
Isera because she is finally in a place with no walls.
And Orion no doubt because now that we’re here outside the pocket reality, we finally have our first real chance to escape and make our way back to the Unseelie Court.
Both of them scan the area around us with sharp gazes, assessing our position and what we have to work with.
After Jessina, Bane, and Hana have stepped through the portal as well, Jessina once more collars Grey with iron. Then she and Bane turn to us.
Bane draws a hand over his long black hair to smoothen down nonexistent stray strands. Then his dark gaze slides to Hana, who is still cowering beside him and staring at the ground.
“Open it,” he demands.
“Yes, sir,” Hana breathes.
Orion snaps his gaze to her. “Sir?”
She doesn’t reply. Or even look at him.
“Hana,” Orion demands, his voice suddenly brimming with command. The voice of the Unseelie King. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
“Get on with it,” Bane orders.
“Yes, sir,” Hana whispers, and dips her chin even lower.
We all watch her with scrutinizing eyes as she walks up to the edge of the grass.
There is no beach between it and the water.
Instead, the grass ends abruptly in a small bluff.
It’s so low that I could jump down from it without hurting myself.
Below, waves lap gently against the side of it.
Hana stops with her feet right at the edge and then raises her arms.
There is no visible magic in the air as she moves her hands. In fact, nothing appears to be happening at all. I squint at the space in front of her. But only glittering water is visible there on the other side of the small cliffside.
I jerk back as the air suddenly… splits.
A crack forms in the air in front of Hana. It widens and spreads towards the ground as she slowly draws her hands to the sides, as if she is parting a pair of heavy curtains.
My pulse thrums in my ears as a stone bridge becomes visible where only air used to be.
It’s not a bridge that has been constructed by people.
Instead, it looks as if the ground that we are standing on just stretches straight out into the water, forming a natural walkway.
I stare in amazement as an island appears at the end of that bridge.
“Excellent work,” Bane says, sounding genuinely pleased.
Hana backs away from the hole in the air and returns to him and Jessina. “Thank you, sir.”
“Hana,” Orion growls. “You do not address anyone outside the Unseelie Court as sir.”
She flinches but says nothing. Only cowers down even more.
Next to her, Bane lets out a smug chuckle and flashes the Unseelie King a knowing smirk. However, before Orion can retort, Jessina stalks up to where Isera, Orion, and I are standing and shoves the crude dragon steel bracelet into my hands.
“Go in there, put this on their clan leader, and then come back out with that person,” she commands while putting the piece of leather she used to touch the bracelet back inside her dress.
My fingers curl hard around the metal as I try to block out another torrent of memories that I really don’t want to be thinking about now.
Because now, I need to focus. My soul vibrates with the need for my magic, both to feel that pleasure and so that I could channel it through this metal and shove it against Jessina’s naked skin and then use it to control her.
But with my iron collar, it’s impossible.
So instead, I stuff it into one of my belt pouches and then clench my fist to hide the way my hands are still shaking slightly.
“Why don’t you just go in yourselves?” I bait.
“So that you can trap us in there?” Bane scoffs from behind Jessina. “Nice try.”
“What’s to stop us from just staying in there? Safe and protected from you inside a pocket reality.”
“You could,” Jessina replies, a cold and utterly vicious smile on her lips. “You could stay in there, safe and sound, while we slaughter all of your friends and loved ones out here. Is that what you want, fae?”
Grinding my teeth, I glare back at her but say nothing.
“Thought so.” She flicks her wrist dismissively but then narrows her eyes at us again.
“Let me make this perfectly clear. If you come back out here without the leader of the Gold Clan in dragon steel, I will carve out all of your remaining eyes and then leave you crawling around on all fours, blind for the rest of your miserable lives.”
Orion flinches, which just makes her vicious smile widen.
“Still holding out hope that someone will be able to heal your eye?” Jessina mocks, her cruel gaze on Orion’s face. Then she jerks her chin towards the opening in the air. “Better hurry then.”
He bares his teeth at her but then simply spins around so that he is facing the hole in the pocket reality. Isera and I turn around as well. Waves lap gently against the stone walkway that leads out to the island hidden out there in the water.
“Go get us the Gold Clan,” Bane says.
With a deep breath, we step inside the pocket reality.