A Debt of Shattered Hope

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A normal person probably would have kicked and screamed the entire time that infernal catlike cage held them prisoner. I was decidedly not a normal person. I had never been under the delusion that I was. On the contrary, I had always known I was a little nutty. From the moment Rictus had his meatheaded associates lifted the golden plated sun mask from my face to the moment he bid me goodbye, all I did was sit in my cage and listen.

The stables, where they had offloaded my cage, was a noisy place, but the fog cloaking my cage gave me only snips and clips of conversation. A strange word here, a raucous laughter there. Frustration set in deep razor claws by the second hour of strained eavesdropping against the velvety bars of my cage as I tried to get a clue as to what happened next. When the world went still and silent, fear entwined with a growing desperation laced through me. The absence of life, save for the soft breathing of horses and perhaps the cage, was unsettling and reminded me of how helpless I was.

The soft rumble of a masculine voice cut through the unnatural stillness, but I didn’t understand what it said. Something about the dark blanket my cage afforded me twisted and warped the words into strange syllables I couldn’t decipher.

Warm amber lantern light pierced the veil of the cage and stabbed into my still-too-sensitive eyes. It was The Raven of the Dawn, and he was crouching before my enclosure, watching me with something dangerous flashing in his old growth forest green eyes. But even the murder boiling behind his gaze did not stop the threads of whatever chord had been struck within me from humming a siren song, pulling me toward him. It lured me away from the back of the kennel and closer to the enormous hand he was extending through the bars. My eyes were riveted by the sun-kissed expanse of muscular forearm, where his tunic shirt was pushed up, following the map of his veins.

Quick as a cobra, the moment I came within arm’s reach, he grabbed hold of the front of my gown and pulled me flush with the bars. I tried to yelp and fight, but my new friend pain lanced through my head. I had never been prone to headaches—I’d had maybe three real migraines, but I knew well enough that the inferno that shredded across the left side of my head was no headache. Headaches did not feel like you dunked your skull in a bonfire. They did not crawl across your scalp, sink into your bone, and burn away at the tender meat they discovered unguarded.

Seconds turned into hours turned into years turned into millennia as my brain roasted in the oven of my skull until stars burst across a night sky and offered a millisecond of reprieve, and I took it. I twisted and, without a single shred of hesitation, bit down on the tender inside of his forearm as hard as I could. Blood peppered my tongue and salted my awareness before being washed away by electric sparks sizzling across a brain that should’ve been nothing but charred, smoking ashes.

Our eyes connected, and I watched a maelstrom of complicated emotions burst across his expression before they finally settled on a bemused, chilled passiveness.

“Release.”

The command was a simple one. There was no or else. There was no following threat. The word itself was a dictate and a threat all on its own.

I didn’t want to. I wanted to bite down hard and only come away when a mouthful of his flesh accompanied me so I could spit it back in his face. But my jaw had other ideas, and like an obedient puppy, it let go with only a whisper of reluctance .

He shoved his wounded hand back into his black glove and pushed up from his crouch. I watched him examine the trickle of blood that ran from the brutal, angry red wound with an enigmatic half smirk.

“There’s more where that came from, asshole,” I hissed, finally finding my voice through the tender ache of my head.

“I’m sure there is.”

The simple statement was a razor blade in an apple, some unrecognizable emotion buried within the heart of innocuousness—but deadly nonetheless.

The black fog of my prison rolled down over me again, extinguishing the lantern and muffling his retreating footfalls, leaving me to try to think around the scorched remnants of my mind.

I sat in silence, brooding in my bitterness over being brutalized once again, tracing the two and the one on my thigh with distracted anger, pushing my nail deeper into my skin.

There is a certain amount of comfort that falls over men who have spent too much time with each other. They start to forget to hide their conversation. They forget to pull on the air of casual cautiousness that is normal around an outsider. And I was not going to miss the opportunity to soak in all the sounds I was afforded during our journey.

Rictus had not allowed sound to freely pass the black fog that hovered around my cage out of kindness. Or at least not a sense of kindness he would recognize as such. To me, the waves of conversation I heard pass through the six men who surrounded me helped ease the panic of the unknown. It allowed me to center myself and think.

It allowed me time to plan.

It also allowed me time to forget that, odds were, they could see with perfect clarity into my cage and were at least circumspect enough not to mention the nearly naked woman in the cage among them. The fact that they hadn’t mentioned it told me a lot. And I would use that information as much as I could.

The cage around me swayed, lifted, and came to an unsettling stillness, knocking me from my brooding. The patch of thigh beneath my finger was raw from the constant tracing of the numbers two and one, which had become an idle reminder of my purpose. I didn’t even remember starting to scratch the number into my skin again.

The scent of cooking food filled my cage, and my stomach twisted with empty longing. Deep, greedy breaths were taken of roasted chicken, berries, and some sort of vegetable I couldn’t quite pick out. The fog rolled away, and a plate was set in front of me, a two-pronged fork set beside it.

A stranger smiled softly at me and then nodded to the food. “Eat up, little pearl.”

“I’d give my left tit for one of you to call me something other than some stupid pet name.”

Right. Tongue lock had been disengaged—or so it seemed—and I’ve completely forgotten what an inside thought was.

A villainous smirk pulled across the man’s face as he crouched before me, meeting my eyes. “Then, by all means, give us your name, little pearl.”

“Oh, fuck off, Stag,” The Raven of the Dawn barked from somewhere behind my tormentor.

The Stag, satisfied with his game, pushed up from his crouch and spun on the heels of his well-oiled boots, arms wide in mock acquiescence. “Captain, forgive the harmless joke at the expense of our guest. Perish the thought of sullying your gift.”

The two men were joined in their laughter by their compatriots, moving out of my field of vision and allowing me to take stock of the scene before me.

A fire burned pale orange and yellow in the night, casting dancing and swaying light outward. The men were camped around it, bedrolls rimming the makeshift pit. A bottle of what I guessed was wine was passing between the circle of men as they talked, but I could not follow it, as my attention was seized by the forest eyes of The Raven of the Dawn who had settled across the flames from me.

He was stretched out, his long legs crossed at his booted ankle, his upper body leaning on his pack. His breastplate stood upright behind him, resting on what looked like a padded coat. The lack of armor allowed me to see the cut of his wide shoulders, defined and built strong by heavy toiling. The dipped V of his tunic, its laces haphazardly splayed open, gave me a delicious view of dark hair beneath his collar and drew my eye to the way the shirt strained against muscles. The lurid red mark where my teeth had sunk in was on full display.

Once again, his gaze locked with mine like a bear trap. Once you were in its grasp, there was no escaping it. We watched each other, eyes never moving away, the tension in the air thickening with every shared breath. What was it about this man? Why couldn’t I look away? Why couldn’t I keep myself from leaning toward the bars of the cage as if subconsciously trying to get closer to him? I couldn’t decide if I wanted to touch him or take up the sword lying across his lap and plunge it into his piercing regard.

It was him who finally broke the spell and cast his gaze down my face, throat, then finally to the plate before me. The path was slow, as if he were indulging in every single inch of barely shielded skin he could see. My own gaze followed his, staring at the lavish meal before me.

Rage itched at my throat. I was not a pet. I was not his pet! I pushed the plate away from me, petulant and childish. I wouldn’t eat when they fed me in a cage.

I turned my back on The Raven and curled my knees up against my chest to shut him out.

Mere seconds passed before I heard him at the bars. “Do not force me to open these bars, Cricket. Eat. I can hear your stomach from across the fire, which means the wolves can hear your stomach.”

Get fucked , I wanted to spit at him, but I remained quiet, tracing the two and one on the back of my hand .

“I will give you until I finish seeing to the others to eat in peace. If I return and find that plate full, I will tie you down and shove the food down your throat.”

The threat in his voice was soft. It didn’t need to be loud. This wasn’t a man who needed to shout or bite out his threats. This was a man who wore his confidence and power like an unseen mantle of authority. The kind of man whose every movement should be watched carefully. A man dangerous enough that his very breath could slice his enemies in two.

And I was the kind of woman who ignored dangerous men and let them stab pillows in dark long-abandoned rooms. So, I ignored him until I felt the familiar sensation of the black fog falling around the cage. This was thicker, though. It felt fully like a blanket had fallen over the cage, and only the softest of light from the fire beyond it pooled inside.

He was giving me privacy. Time away from the leering gaze of his riding companions and time away from being on display. I didn’t like that he was being kind. I wanted him to stay a bastard. I wanted to hate him. I didn’t want to imagine anyone could be kind in this land. It would be easier to light them all on fire on my way out—whenever that was.

The gnawing in my stomach won out, and I ate my meal quietly.

He never came back, at least not while I was awake. In the morning, I woke to the complex aroma of cloves, cardamom, rosemary, cedar, campfire smoke, and the warm scent of clean, masculine skin. The cloak that had been draped over me was tucked under my chin, and there was a bundled-up shirt under my head. My dish from the evening had disappeared, and in its place was a divine scent and warmth.

I let myself indulge in the comfort for a moment before I kicked out of it and pushed it through the bars along with the shirt. Tossing them into the blackness of the fog around me, hoping I hit him or one of his friends in the face.

Raucous laughter was the answer to my unspoken question about whether they were close .

Every night that followed was the same. He would have someone deliver me my meal when they ate, the exact same food they ate, and he would watch me across the fire. He didn’t need to tell me to eat, though. As soon as I lifted my fork, the darkness would fall around my cage, and I would be given the privilege of privacy.

Every morning, I woke to the same, his cloak around me, his shirt as my pillow, and my plate cleared away. I was starting to get used to the rhythm of the travel. Starting to get used to our uneasy truce. If this was to be my life in this hideous land, I could suffer this for a while.

I had never been that lucky, though, and even in the pits of my worst nightmare, I was not going to scrounge up some small nuggets of luck. It was a nice distraction, days of being left alone aside from my nightly eye-fucking, but it was not to last.

My cage, once again, came to a stop and was set down. Only this time, when the fog lifted, the bars melted away, and the cage that had held me shifted in a swirl of velvety fur into a cat the size of a golden retriever. It began licking its paws, ignoring me while I took in my surroundings.

The room I was in was tiny, barely a room at all, with space for a single cot-like bed, a small three-legged stool, a nearly spent taper candle, and a bucket in the corner. The half walls were solid stone, roughly hewn and damp from bedrock weeping for its wards. The only source of light was torches burning beyond the open maw where a door should’ve been.

The chill in the air bit through the sheer gown and settled on my prickled skin as if to mock me.

“Well, there she is. How’s it, princess?” asked a woman’s voice from behind me.

I turned and scowled. I didn’t know this person, and I certainly wasn’t a princess.

“Ah, yes. ’Tis I, the Princess of Slaves.” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms as she took my stock .

“Had the Masters eating out of your hand the entire journey from the Night Market. Must be some sort of princess,” the woman bit back.

“Look, lady. I don’t know what your issue is, but I’m down here just like you. Just because a bunch of dickheads liked looking at this flesh suit doesn’t make me a princess. But, by all means, call me princess again.”

A small gathering of people had wandered toward us, interested in the power play. I wasn’t interested in playing games, though, certainly not games I didn’t even know the rules of.

“Is it true that The Raven of the Dawn bought you from the Night Market?”

It was the soft whispered voice of a young girl, something odd twisting in the way she formed her words.

I nodded. “That’s what I was told.”

“How’d you survive so many nights with him?” another person asked.

A shiver of fear wound its way through the crowd as all eyes turned to me like I had the secret to some sort of riddle. One that would unshackle each one of them and release them back to their lives as surely as dawn would release you from the grips of a nightmare.

“I mostly ignored him.” The dull light showed only the large soft violet eyes blinking up at me in confusion. “Sorry. I’m not clever. If I was, I wouldn’t be here. All he did was feed me.”

A collective sigh of disappointment washed through the assembly, and one by one, they began to peel off into the warrens lurking outside of the torchlight that lit up the central room. Bodies disappeared into the dark, where hallways led deeper into the quarters. Some disappeared behind sheets of soiled fabric strung up with makeshift ropes that led to what I assumed were rooms like mine.

I turned back to retreat myself, wanting to hide in my own little hole while I figured out what to do next, but my hand was caught by the small girl. I sighed. A child should not be here. I’d lived through enough bad homes and shit living conditions to have my heart breaking when I looked down into her young face. She had to be all of maybe five or six. What horrors had she already seen?

“Did The Raven really not bother you?”

Her voice was so soft, pitched low, and conspiratorial I could almost sense the unnatural edge to the whisper, as if her voice was unable to lift to louder sounds.

I nodded and crouched to be on the same level with her. “Do you know much about him?”

She nodded, looking up to the two figures joining us, shielding our conversation from the others. “I’ve been here almost as long as the Laundress. I remember when The Ard Rí brought him back from the coronation ceremony. No one spoke to or of him for years—well, none of the Fae, that is. We saw things and heard things, though. We knew things.”

“Years?” I chuckled.

She frowned, the ire crunching her cherubic features into an expression that seemed to sit uncomfortably on her face.

“Violet is well clear of two hundred fifty years, princess,” one of the two who had joined us said in a masculine voice.

Beside him, a woman with gemlike skin the color of rich emeralds nodded. Ghostlike images of flowers in a bucolic meadow warmed by a midday sun played on candle smoke beneath the reflective surface of her naked body.

“She’s . . . what? That . . . that can’t be,” I hissed, fighting the urge to push up to my full height.

“You come into Magh Meall and get sold at the Night Market, arrive to an Ard Rí’s castle in a kin’tha cage, which now sits at your foot purring like a giant house cat. And I bet you didn’t get pushed out into the world looking like a tawdry gold pearl to boot, and you think Violet being over two hundred fifty years old is beyond belief?”

The scathing recounting of my exact circumstances came from the man who seemed to be made of rich green leaves, his eyes of ivy bark, and his hair of spears of a wild hemlock’s leaves.

He had me there. It was by no means the most unreasonable thing I had encountered since I stepped off the pavement and fell down the rabbit hole. I just needed to start accepting that my old bullshit meter needed to be recalibrated.

“Fair enough. I’m sorry, Miss Violet. I’m Cricket. Can you tell me more about The Raven of the Dawn?”

She frowned more and nodded her two guard dogs down. She might be stuffed into the package of a five-year-old girl with too-big eyes, soft white hair, and rose petal lips, but some instinct told me Violet was fiercer than the Laundress, who I assumed was the woman who’d called me princess. Sonny Rule #13: Listen to the whispers that tell you who someone is. And those whispers were screaming that Violet was a force to be reckoned with.

“In good time, Cricket. Ask me again with a treat in your hand. I don’t sell my stories for a simple question mark. But I will tell you this, of all the villains that lurk the corridors above, The Raven is the worst of them. He earned his reputation. All of it. From being the rake to being the Ard Rí’s executioner. If he has taken an interest in you, do whatever you have to do to get out of his focus.” Her eyes darted to the sleeping kin’tha. “And don’t trust those. They say when a kin’tha sleeps, its true master listens. Haven’t had one of them in the warrens in decades, but enough blood seeped into the stone from the last one to tell me this one is just as dangerous.”

I narrowed my eyes and the innocently napping black cat. “Noted.”

“Get some sleep, Cricket. Tomorrow will be your worst day here,” said the living bush man.

“What’s tomorrow?”

I should not have asked. Just because you see the gun and know the bullet is coming doesn’t mean you can dodge it any better.

“You’ll find out why you were bought from the Market.”