9. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
W hen the doors close, we are alone. The Mordorin prince and his human bride with nothing standing between us but a giant bed dressed in scarlet covers.
I watch him through the black, gossamer bed curtain, stalking back and forth like a caged animal, his fingers trailing down his shirt, popping each button so slowly it’s agonizing, until the shimmering dark fabric falls open. In the midnight sky, moonlight filters through the mists of scattered cloud, finding its way through the arches and casting a silvery glow over his muscled chest. Each ridge and valley of his physique is meticulously defined, his smooth skin a canvas for the black rune tattoos that sweep across his collarbone and plunge down his taut abdomen before vanishing below his belt.
Heat swells within me. He is beautiful to look upon. Unlike any man I have ever seen.
Because he is not a man.
I must remember that, no matter how my body responds to him. I ignore the yearning, focusing instead on the runes, forcing logic to take control before I melt into a puddle on the floor.
“Your runes differ from ours,” I say. “I noticed the ones on Arax’s back as well.”
Daedalus raises an eyebrow. “Runes. That is what you’re thinking about right now?” His hand slides to grip the back of his neck, and every muscled ridge of his body tightens.
I think about sitting with my sisters and weaving for hours until my fingers bleed. The Tender Council, old hunched men with long wiry hair sprouting from their ears. The taste of milk left out too long in the sun. Anything to distract me from Daedalus and my uninvited need to reach out and touch him.
“What else would I be thinking about?” I ask with disinterest, and even I am impressed with how believable I sound.
I notice his eyes turn down and his shoulders slouch. If I didnt know any better, he almost looks dejected. “These are runes of the First Fae.”
“Is that what makes them special?”
“Yes, it does, along with the ink that is used.”
“What is special about the ink?” I continue.
Daedalus furrows his brow. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
“It is in my nature. Always has been,” I reply distractedly. “Keeper Tover says I have an inquisitive mind.” I grasp the rune around my neck and return to the subject at hand. “We do not wear our runes on our skin.”
“As you shouldn’t,” Daedalus says sharply. “Such a thing is heresy and would see a noose around your pretty neck.”
I ignore his attempts at scaring me. “If I take off this necklace, my power to heal goes with it. Do you brand yourselves so you are powerful always?”
Daedalus smirks. He straightens and parts his open shirt to his hips. “These runes are for flight, for void walking, for regenerating, for beserking in battle. But none of them makes me powerful.”
Suddenly he vanishes before my eyes in a burst of slithering smoke, then in an instant I hear the sharp boom that signifies he has appeared elsewhere, but before I can turn I feel his warmth against my back and my skin prickles.
“I am powerful on my own,” he mutters in my ear. “In all manner of things.”
I close my eyes as he lays his callused hands upon my shoulders, his fingers kneading at my flesh. His breath is hot as his lips brush against the curve of my neck.
“Why do you do this?” I utter breathlessly.
Daedalus freezes. “What do you mean?”
“Which Mordorin prince are you?” I gulp. “The one who takes pleasure in insulting and frightening me, or the one who whispers his needs and wants so softly in my ear.”
“Which do you prefer?” he asks, his nose against my nape.
It takes all the will I have to not surrender to him. To instead remember the reason I am here. Something far more important than whatever fleeting moment of empty desire he offers.
“I want the warrior who will protect my people from the Legion of Saints,” I reply firmly.
His hands slip from my shoulders. I feel the intensity of his eyes as he circles me, but I cannot look at him. If I look at him, my resolve will crumble.
“Do you know when I first learned of the bargain?” Daedalus asks.
I am only brave enough to give him a fleeting glimpse and shake of my head.
“You were already on the ship to Baev’kalath when the king and queen informed me I was to be wed,” he answers. His face hardens. “The deal you made is with them. Not with me. ”
The ire snapping at my heels breaks the hold of his charms. “I do not care which of you fulfills the bargain. All I know is a price was paid.”
Daedalus’ throat quivers and smoke rolls within his eyes. “What could you possibly understand of prices to be paid? The Tenders of The Grove,” he scoffs. “Holding hands and singing songs in the forest. Praying to beings you call gods who were no more than servants and pets to the First Fae.”
“Do not assume to know anything about me or what I have suffered,” I hiss under my breath, my hands balling into fists at my side.
“Suffered?” The prince throws his head back and bellows an arrogant laugh that fuels my anger. “Because of humans like you, humans who refused to fight alongside us after centuries of peace…”
“We were your slaves!” I snap bitterly, not allowing him to think for a second we were anything else. “Toys to be played with and broken and disposed of whenever you pleased. All we wanted was to be left alone . For you to keep your war far from our forests.”
Daedalus lowers his chin at me and glares. “Do you know how many Fae died? Some with souls so ancient they could still recall the faces of the First. Their lights extinguished, their bodies left butchered and bloody on the battlefield, crushed under the filthy boots of the Legion of Saints as they marched onward.”
I grit my teeth and turn from him.
Is he expecting me to feel sorry for him?
But before I can eagerly widen the space between us, he snatches my wrist and yanks me back. I gasp, flinging my indignant gaze at him over my shoulder, only to find the smoke no longer contained in his eyes. It drifts and singes the air around him.
“House Velastral; burnt to the ground. House Caelithar; all dead.” His bitter glower finds my necklace. “House Maledannan, guardians of nature and healing, wiped clean from his plane.”
If he is trying to prise some sort of guilt response from me for the fate of these Fae houses, he is truly delusional. Instead, I go for the throat. Matching cruelty for cruelty.
“It is a shame only three of the six perished,” I say coldly, my lips a tight, straight line.
He snarls at my audacity. “Driven from their lands, lands infused with the souls of the First, I do not expect House Taramethos and House Ithranor to last long wherever they are.”
“We humans can only hope the same fate falls upon House Mordorin,” I spit with venom.
Daedalus’ broad hand closes around my wrist and he drags me closer to him, and even though I plant my feet, he shifts me with ease. I keep my head down, pressed against my chest, but he pinches my chin between his fingers and lifts it sharply to meet his stare.
“Why, in my domain where no one can help you, alone with me in this room, knowing that I could tear you to pieces with my bare hands, would you dare speak to your prince like that?”
I do not look away from him now. Instead, I meet his gaze eagerly, and I hope my eyes convey the oceans of hatred that storm within me.
“Because if you will not help my people as promised, then you are not what I believed you to be. Even though I doubt your honor, I have never doubted that you are a fearsome warrior, but if you will not protect The Grove, then all my family will die, and I have nothing left to live for.” His grip loosens from my chin and I free my wrist from his grasp with a jerk. “So go ahead. Tell me nightmares. Tear me to pieces. I am not afraid of you. There are worse things than you in the Sundered Kingdoms.”
Daedalus paces backwards away from me, but his eyes do not leave mine. “Really? Like what?” he scoffs.
“The Legion of Saints and the one who commands them,” I mutter, inspecting the redness looped around my wrist. “He is the sole reason The Tenders agreed to this bargain.”
I grimace and rub at my wrist, then realize Daedalus has fallen silent. I look up to see the fire in his eyes reduced to a smolder and his jaw clenched as he mulls over my words. Is he offended that he is not the only monster in the Sundered Kingdoms?
“The Golden Son,” he says at last. “You saw him?”
I furrow my brow. “Yes. He stormed through the forest like it belonged to him, his men crushing the undergrowth and slaughtering rabbits and deer that had never been hunted.”
“And you are sure it was him?” Daedalus persists.
I nod, as condescending as his tone. “Yes. I am sure. He said as much when he demanded we bend the knee and join his ranks.” Then I pause and chew my bottom lip. “I suppose I did not see his face. He wore…”
“A golden mask,” Daedalus sighs. “No one has ever seen his face. They say he is so horribly burnt he hides his hideousness behind the mask. But they also say he was killed in the Betrayers’ Battle, so who knows if that really is him or if someone else has donned the mask?”
“All I know is whoever he was, he promised to burn The Grove and everyone who dwells within to ash if we did not swear an oath to the Legion. That is when Keeper Tovar sent his letter for aid to Baev’kalath.”
“And the Golden Son did nothing to stop this?”
I tighten my fists enough that my nails prick my skin. “You like to tease that we Tenders are nothing but singing, dancing idiots, but we are not as helpless as you think. He did not have the full power of the Legion behind him, only a scouting party. We told him no and fought him back with everything we had and when the rain came and the soil turned to mud that swallowed them up to their knees, they retreated on the promise they would return.”
“You told him no?” Daedalus asks with mocking disbelief.
Suddenly the raw ache around my wrist vanishes, the mysterious weakness that starves me for breath and strength disappears. All I am left with is the reminder of that day and an unyielding pain that will stay with me forever, like glass lodged so deep in my heart that it will never come free, but torture me with agony for as long as I live.
“Yes,” I mutter, my words barely a whisper. “And forty-nine men, twenty-one women, and six children of The Grove died for our defiance. But even that is hundreds less than what we lost in your Betrayers’ Battle. So ask me again, Prince Daedalus, if I understand what paying a price means.”
He dips his chin, glowering from beneath his heavy brow as he stalks towards me. I refuse to believe the heat building inside me stems from anything but my anger and loathing, but the feline way he moves and the slow, rhythmic thump of his boots as he crosses the floor has me hypnotized. As his open shirt sways around his strong, sculpted hips, suddenly I’m reminded of every perfect, hard ridge of his body and how breathtakingly beautiful he is.
An unsteady step backwards is my only defence, but I come to a halt when I feel the end of the bed press against my legs. Daedalus continues his approach with agonizing carnality until he towers over me, trapping me in his shadow.
I cannot move. I cannot scream. But I do not know if I want to.
His warm, rich scent sends my head spinning. It must be Fae magic.
How else could a smell frenzy me the way his does?
His chest heaves before he releases a long, rumbling breath, and I notice the shimmers of color in the cracked moonstone around his neck. “Tell me, Princess Amara. Would you like to continue trading trauma tales, or should we do what we came here for?”
I grit my teeth and slowly shake my head in vehement defiance. “I came here for the protection of the Grove. If you cannot give what you promised, I have nothing to give to you.”
He chuckles gruffly. “Oh, there will be no giving, my spirited wife. Only taking.”
Every nerve of my body comes alive when he lightly presses his finger to my chest and traces the line of my sternum down the deep, plunging neckline of my dress.
I shudder. “Prince Daedalus…”
“I have told you once. Call me Daed. Don’t make me tell you again”
When the neckline of the dress ends at my ribs, he grumbles his disappointment before sliding his hand across my stomach to grip my waist.
Through the thin fabric I feel his warmth, and when he curls his fingers to hold me tighter and his nails dig into my flesh, I imagine he could rip this dress right off my body if he wanted to. But I do not want him to. He is a liar and a murderer and if he will not fight for me—he is also a coward.
“Let me go. Please,” I murmur, my eyes falling closed.
If I can not see him, I will not want him.
“So polite,” he whispers, and I can hear the grin playing on his lips. “I like it when you say please. Say please again.”
“Please,” I say as his other hand glides along my shoulder before cupping the back of my neck.
His thumb traces the line of my jaw and sweeps across my trembling lips. “Please let you go, or please don’t stop?”
His deep voice fills my head and I can’t remember what I want any more. My eyes flicker open and when I meet his piercing gaze, I almost speak the words that my body is desperate for me to cry out. But something behind him catches my eye. Bright and vibrant and green, something so utterly unknown to Baev’kalath that it shines like a beacon in the darkness. My serpent vine on the table, and at that very moment, I watch helplessly as another of its new leaves falls.
Tears well behind my eyes, threatening to fall as achingly as the leaf, but I do not allow it. My anger returns to me, and I need it. It is all I have in this place. To remind me of what I am here for. What I will die for. The rage gives me the strength to look into his eyes and not falter beneath him.
“No,” I say through grit teeth.
“No, what?” he asks, cupping the side of my face.
“No to you,” I snap back, batting his hand away from my cheek. “No to this. No to any plans you or your strange, horrible family want to do to me and my body.” I slip myself free of the grip he has on my waist and he scowls. “If you will not fight, then I will. I am Jewel of the Tenders, not a Mordorin broodmare.”
Daed’s tongue rolls in his cheek. “On that, we agree. A broodmare understands when to keep her mouth closed and her legs parted.”
The back of my stiff hand flies at the side of his face, but Daed catches my arm before it can connect. The cuff of his sleeve slips down his forearm and I spy the tattoo around his wrist.
A band of circles and half circles and crescents.
Identical to the tattoo on hand that reached for me from nowhere, in the room that doesn’t exist. The hand I am still trying to convince myself was a figment of my imagination.
Daed stares deeply into my eyes and the intense heat between us is thick enough to cut with a knife. He glances at my bandaged hand, blood seeping through the bandage.
“That should be healing, human or not. Why isn’t it?”
I tug my arm from him, but he does not release. “I do not know.”
“Do not let the queen see,” he warns. “She will think you are…”
“Soiled? Impure? Weak? Why should I care what she thinks? She is nothing but scheming and vile, rivaled only by her son.”
“Do you hate me, Amara?” he asks, his jaw clenched, his chest heaving with breath.
The words flow from my lips with ease. “Yes, Daed. I hate you.”
A grin pulls at the corner of his mouth as he releases my arm and I watch the tattoo sink beneath his sleeve.
“Good. That makes this all so much easier.”
He puts his hand behind his back and I feel like a fool to be so unprepared for the genuine possibility that tonight my Fae husband murders me in our bedchamber. But he does not draw a blade to slit my throat, instead he drops his head and dips forward, bowing before me, and when he straightens, I have no clue what will happen next.
“Sleep well, wife,” he says calmly, and when he walks straight past me and his shoulders rise and fall, it’s almost as if he’s relieved.
Daed does not go to the door, or the balcony, but instead to the secret wall panel. He pushes against the wood in such a familiar way that this is clearly not his first time, and the hidden door falls open, revealing the darkened passageway within.
A half grin escapes my lips. “That was your plan all along, then? To make your parents believe we would spend the night together, but then slip out a secret door?”
“I didn’t have a plan,” he sighs over his shoulder. “You and I could be tangled in that bed right now, naked and slick with sweat, with your legs wrapped around me.” A breath catches in my throat. “But I would rather spend the night somewhere else.” He glances at me with a sideways look. “With someone else. Good night, Amara.”
He steps into the passageway, the secret door sealing shut behind him. Instantly, the air turns colder, the rain's relentless rhythm drums louder, and the walls feel like they’re closing in on me. I block out the noise and the worry, wandering to the wardrobe and shedding layers of velvet and lace that pool at my feet. As I slip on my nightgown, the sheer fabric glides over my skin, a fleeting echo of the twilight breeze in The Grove.
It would be easy in my sadness to let the dark creep in and allow myself to surrender. But for my people, I must endure. Endure this place. Endure the prince. Endure the weakness plaguing my body that shows no signs of stopping. I hold up my bandaged hand and spy drops of blood seeping through the binding. It’s getting worse, I feel it. I glance back at my serpentine vine. Another day passes in Baev’kalath. Another leaf falls. She survive here. I can not survive here, and that is when I chide myself for being so stupid. This place. This horrid place is killing us. There is no sun. No soil. No hope.
My stomach growls as I’m harshly reminded of my hunger. It seems each day the Mordorin find new ways to torment me. But I will starve to death before eating the flesh of an animal. I pull back the heavy covers and crawl into bed, the mattress curling around me with a warmth and comfort that feels foreign in this place.
As I stare up at the intricately carved scene on the dark wood frame, I’m transported to a world of rolling ocean waves beneath a full moon and a sky brimming with stars. The full moon. The Lover’s Eye. A shiver runs down my spine, and my stomach flutters with a mix of longing and dread. I wonder how many others have lied in this bed. Gazing up at the stars and moon and waves while the prince… I squeeze my eyes tight, erasing the idea from my mind.
No matter how hard he tries to draw me into his web, I refuse to succumb to the intoxicating darkness he wields. I’ve made it through another night, still a maiden. His repulsive advances are only another attempt to scare me. Not for a second do I truly believe that he wants me, not when he has his pick of beautiful Fae. Why instead would he desire a lowly human?
As for my fleeting attraction, he only needs to remain his insufferable, arrogant self, and keeping my walls intact should be effortless. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
When my stomach growls again, I cradle my belly, trying in vain to soothe the ache. I'm tired of thinking about the Mordorin and weary of my hunger, so I force myself to push both aside and focus instead on the carved scene above me. I imagine the waves rolling gently, the rhythm syncing with the distant crash of the ocean outside. In my mind’s eye, I picture a ship riding the swells, the steady rise and fall bringing a welcome sense of calm. But then, without warning, a monstrous creature erupts from the depths, coiling around the vessel and dragging it into the abyss, lost forever. I exhale a weary breath. It seems not even my own thoughts are safe from the torments of the Mordorin.