Chapter 31
VANN
Sound returns like knives stabbing into my eardrums. At first it’s only ringing. Then other noises become clear. I hear boots. And shouts. Someone sobs and is quickly shut up with a smack. Someone else prays in a language I don’t know.
I open my eyes into smoke. I blink away the sting.
The prison is dark and dank. I hate the smell of blood, oil, and sweat, and the way the iron beams supporting the stone are thick with rust and soot. We’re not in a cell—not yet.
My first breath burns. The second makes it worse. I push to one knee and the world pitches. Chains of light cinch my wrists and ankles. They tighten when I test them and bite into my flesh, which is already stinging with pins and needles from loss of blood.
Fuck. The seed. Arlet. My things. Where am I?
“Hold him,” someone calmly says above me.
Thorne.
He comes into shape through the haze, sword drawn, jaw locked, sweat dark on his collar. I look into his green eyes and feel the burn of hatred. One of his powers is smelling lies.
So this will be an interrogation.
“Lord Vann,” he spits, and he almost sounds regretful. “How far the mighty have fallen.”
“You fucking bastard,” I rasp.
“Language, troll,” he responds. “Or you won’t like how this ends.”
I glare at him. He’ll kill me, or he’ll wait for his precious king to come and do it. I don’t owe him or anyone else the kindness of bowing down to his torture.
He doesn’t say anything else for a while, just stands near one of the rough-hewn walls and watches me. I wait. I consider goading him, demanding that he explain what he wants. But if he isn’t going to torture me in this moment, then I won’t try to make this worse.
My eyes blur and my consciousness comes and goes.
Suddenly, the one that they called the Living Shadow is there. The smoke parts to make room for him and then closes.
“High Lord Castien,” Thorne says. “Thank you for coming. King Arion told me that you would be questioning the prisoner.”
The elven lord, no doubt old as dirt, stares at me with cold black eyes. He doesn’t respond. He considers me. Up close, he looks like someone who can exact pain and vengeance without a second thought.
“Bind his chest,” he says softly.
Thorne flicks two fingers. A band of light tightens across my ribs. The world narrows.
I move to reach for the cleaver no longer attached at my back, the bindings at my wrist burning and rattling. I twist, pull, and grind as a brute against magic. The chains hold.
“Vann,” Thorne says, almost weary. “You will not cut your way out of this.”
“I will cut you to pieces when I am let free,” I snarl.
The Living Shadow laughs. “How very childish, coming from a man who cannot even walk.” He leans closer, voice like black shadow. “Tell me, Vann—why did you come?”
The question ricochets through the cell like a stone. I spit into the dirt, catching a glimpse of blood. “To get Arlet,” I say. It comes out ragged.
Thorne moves then, like a hawk easing closer to a broken rabbit. He plants the flat of his blade against my collarbone, gentle enough to avoid cutting.
“You only came for that woman? Not to kill Arion?”
A laugh tears out of me that feels like the last breath of a drowning man. “I do not care if Arion lives or dies,” I rasp. “I just came for her.”
“Her?” The Living Shadow’s black eyes glitter. “You really lay claim to the consort? How romantic.” He steps back, and Thorne flicks his hand. The band of light around my ribs tightens until I hear it sizzle my skin. The pressure makes a rib pop. Panic bites sharp. Every breath is a bargain.
“Answer simply,” Thorne says, his green eyes boring into mine. “At any point, did you intend to kill Arion tonight?”
My jaw clenches. The memory of the greenhouse returns. My mind hazes against the pain of torture. I hadn’t come here to kill him…but then I hear Arion’s laugh like a blade as a collar flares gold at Arlet’s throat. Something deeper than the deepest part of me knows her, it claims her.
“No,” I say.
“Do not lie,” Thorne spits and the Living Shadow flicks his fingers. A wave of magic hits me, and my mouth opens again, “I would have cut his throat in the moonlight if it meant she walked away free.”
“You would kill a king for a woman?” Thorne’s tone is incredulous, almost amused. “That’s very trollish of you.”
Lord Castien crouches beside me. His fingers brush the outside of my wrist bindings as if testing how hot they are. The touch sends a flare of pain up my arm.
“You lied to us. I hate liars. So tell me now—what is your connection to the consort? Was she your lover?”
Thorne remains strangely silent. He observed us in the caverns; surely, he knew bits of gossip. Why withhold that now? Sweat beads all over my body, drenching the rags of clothes still left behind.
I bite my tongue against the Living Shadow’s magic, not wanting to reveal our matehood. Hopefully, my hair covers the marks. They already took her Fuegorra. What other abominable act would they force on her?
A new thought, more terrifying, enters my mind. If I am hurt, I have the Fuegorra to heal me.
She has nothing.
“She is a member of the Enduar Court,” I finally say.
Castien frowns. Thorne shifts uncomfortably against the wall.
“Were you working with Mrath?” Thorne presses, despite the annoyed look from his companion. “Or were you a lone wolf throwing itself at the gate? Which faction held your leash?”
“I answer for myself,” I growl. “No leash but my own. Unlike you, Thorne. You go from being one sibling’s pet to another.”
Something hard crashes into the side of my head—so sudden and sharp that the world whites out.
Pain detonates behind my eyes, exploding like firebursts inside my skull.
I taste metal, hot and wet, and realize I’ve bitten a chunk clean out of the inside of my cheek. My vision doubles, the walls bend.
The next blow follows before I can breathe. Thorne’s gauntleted hand fuses with the sound of my skull striking stone. Stars bloom—cold, violent stars that swim through my sight. My ears ring with the high, hissing tone of steel on bone.
When I come back to the world, I’m half slumped forward, blood dripping down my temple and into my mouth. Castien has straightened, and now he watches me with a long, slow attentiveness.
“How long were you spying on the consort?” he asks.
“I didn’t spy,” I grit out.
“Another lie,” Thorne quips. “Then how did you know when to find her? Was she meeting with you secretly at night?”
A cold, involuntary laugh escapes my throat. Thorne was the one who told me exactly where her rooms are. What game is he playing? Should I reveal that truth in front of the Living Shadow? Would that get Thorne killed?
I decide he might have something left to offer, so I only say, “I tortured a guard until he told me, then killed him.”
Thorne’s smile is cruel and thin. The back of his hand cracks across my face. I don’t fall, but my head whips sideways, blood spraying across the floor.
“Brute,” he says quietly. “Again, we ask you, Enduar. To whom do you answer? Was this the work of your king? Of Mrath?”
I look up at him through the blur of red dripping into my eye. “You do not know?”
Thorne’s jaw ticks. He picks up the sword again, then stops when Castien lifts a hand.
“Enough,” the Living Shadow says softly. His voice slides through the room like smoke. “The king called upon me to ask the questions.”
Thorne glares, but lowers the blade slightly. Castien’s eyes are black and bottomless.
“You came for her,” he says. “Did she call for you?”
I shake my head, trying to keep my breathing steady. “No,” I say.
“I don’t believe you,” Castien says, almost amused. “You drew your blade in the middle of a sacred rite. You would have killed our sovereign for a woman who isn’t even one of your own kind.”
I bare my teeth, a low sound in my throat. “She had nothing to do with this.”
Thorne takes a slow step forward. “She lived in your court, and you are in love with her. You are saying she has no loyalty to you?”
I think of the night she left on Thorne’s boat. I think of how much I hated that she felt it was her job to fix the mistakes made so that Enduvida could be safe. I hated that I lied to her.
“No.”
“Was she speaking to you through some magical bond?”
“No.”
“Was she feeding you information about the Dominion?”
“No!”
Each time I answer, the band across my ribs tightens. Each time, I feel my lungs stutter and claw for air.
“You stink of falsities,” Thorne says, interrupting yet again and earning himself another annoyed glare from the elven lord.
“You can lie all you like, but the king believes she conspired with you—that she distracted him. That she turned his own guards against him and provided a path for both of Mrath’s attacks. ”
My blood goes cold. “She did none of those things!” I practically shout.
Castien tilts his head. “What if I told you there was proof?”
The words gut me. I jerk forward, the chains burning into my wrists. Could they have hurt her? Killed her for this “proof”?
“Where is she?”
No answer.
“Is she alive?”
Nothing.
“I think you are using her to cover up Mrath’s destruction. You want a reason to execute her.” I twist harder, the bindings digging deep, the scent of my own blood sharp in the air. “If you hurt her—”
Thorne grabs my jaw and forces me to meet his eyes. “You’re in no position to make threats.”
I can barely breathe. My throat burns with it. “Tell me,” I choke out. “Tell me if she’s all right.”
Castien’s expression doesn’t change. He only studies me, like he’s cataloging what I am and what I’ll endure to protect her. “You should worry less about her, and more about yourself,” he says.
The soldiers drag me upright. The chains at my wrists jangle, heavy with my blood. My knees scrape against the stone as they haul me toward the door.
“Take him back,” Castien orders, voice soft, detached. “Let him think on what he’s willing to lose before tomorrow.”
They pull me through the narrow passageway, my body half-dead weight. My hands hang low, and I try to look for the small bag that was attached to my shirt.
Gone.
Fuck.
The torchlight flickers over wet stone, over iron doors and dark stains I don’t want to identify.
They shove me through the open gate of the lower cell. I hit the floor hard, the sound ringing like a cracked bell. The door slams behind me.
The torchlight fades. The only thing left is the cold and the slow, steady pulse of pain behind my eyes.
Blood and bruises cover my body, but my heart beats strong and my Fuegorra does not sing a song of pain.
In fact, I can almost hear a few of those sweet, beautiful notes of matehood plucked out gently.
She’s alive. She has to be.
But the seed is gone, and I don’t know what that means for Mrath. Could she prepare another? Or have I ruined everything yet again?