Chapter 22 – Neve
NEVE
Iopened my eyes to find bars. Bars in front of me. Behind. To the sides. Above and below, solid slabs of metal caged me, magic simmering on the surface.
Wards.
Sitting up, I blinked hard, trying to orient myself.
The air smelled cold, as though someone opened a window or door.
Each of my traveling party were also caged, all separate, all passed out.
Knocked out? I felt my head, which did not pound.
From a brief examination, I deduced I hadn’t been hit on the head.
“By the dead gods, it’s about time.” A voice cut through the silence.
Turning, I found stairs and to one side, cloaked in thick darkness, there was a single chair in which a female faerie sat. Locking eyes with me, she leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees.
My blood ran cold at the sight of the black-haired archer who had tried to kill me at the Royal Theater. She was there, just mere paces away, her expression haughty, her countenance cold, her body was strong and taut. Ready to strike.
This time, however, she wore black trousers, tunic, and cloak, with no Falk insignia on her arm, declaring her loyalty. Rather, she seemed to be prepared for the elements.
A memory surfaced. Shouting, running, ice-blue eyes—her eyes. Then darkness.
“What am I doing here?” I asked. “And why did you abduct me?”
She laughed, though there was no joy in her face. I wondered if there ever was.
“Abduct! We saved your arses. Your guard was knocked out and the rest of you were asleep, just waiting to be devoured.” She rolled her eyes, an action that drew my attention to the scar over her left eye.
“Of course, we wouldn’t have bothered had we known who you were, but no one stopped to have a meeting.
Not with the Dream Eater so close. Why would you camp there, anyway?
Don’t you know anything about this area? ”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What’s a Dream Eater?”
Low-hanging fruit. But that was all my muddled mind could manage. Somehow, this violent faerie found me. Which meant the rebellion had found me. And they hadn’t already killed us?
“Dream Eaters are a race of fae that directs and eats dreams, obviously,” she replied through tight lips.
I blinked. Those strange dreams, my last memories before I saw ice-blue eyes, came back to me. They’d been so fast. So odd—like the Dream Eater was pulling them from me. Creating them too, or so she claimed.
The archer snorted. “I guess what they’re saying might be true.”
“What are they saying?”
“That you’re not from here. If you have not a clue what a Dream Eater is, I can believe it. So, are you from here, Princess Isolde?”
“I was once a slave in the Blood Court,” I said, because why not? The fliers the king put out painted such a horrible picture of me that telling the truth could only benefit.
“And then you married into a family who has slaves. A violent past too. Not a surprise, seeing as you married the brute of the family.” The female stood, a sneer on her lips. “Mates too.”
A sense of violation came over us. “You searched us?”
“Searched, took any weapons on your persons, anything else of value too. And you can bet we warded those cages all the way to the afterworld.”
Yes, now that I was more alert, I felt more than simmering magic. A stifling sensation had taken over inside, over my magic. Still there, churning deep inside, but unusable.
“If you hate me so much, why haven’t you killed me already?”
A slow smile spread across her face. “I can’t say I wasn’t tempted.
The prince and his wife? What a prize! But since seeing the posters, we’re all wondering what’s happening.
Why a fae pretending to be Isolde Falk would be in the midlands.
Why she’d marry an Aaberg. You’re a puzzle, and I don’t like those unsolved. ”
“Then let me solve the puzzle for you. I am Isolde Falk.” I stopped there. To insist too much might put me in more danger. The rebels who attacked the Royal Theater had claimed to follow the true heir. Was I a threat to that person?
“What are you doing with that human?” the female brushed aside my claim.
I winced. If only Caelo’s powers had been at full strength, and he’d had the energy to glamour Anna. Everyone in the group, actually. Alas, that wasn’t the case, and the only option I had was to come clean.
“She’s my best friend. My sister.”
The faerie’s face hardened, and she approached my cage. I stood on wobbly legs. I had to assume that my general unsteadiness was an aftereffect of the Dream Eater, though I wouldn’t ask this female. I needed to stop revealing my weaknesses to her.
A hand’s width from the bars, the faerie stopped and flared her silver wings. Now that we were closer, and she wasn’t threatening my life, I could see that the color was a shade or two darker than my silver wings. “A human friend? Have you taken Liar’s Salvation?”
“No.” I closed in on her, not about to show the fear that her presence birthed in me. “If you aren’t sure, you could let me out of my cage and see for yourself.”
Had I taken the potion, I’d be powerless. This female knew that as well as I—better even, given she’d grown up here. I would bet that she also had a intricate knowledge of black markets where the forbidden potion was sold.
“Hmmm.” Her eyes, eerily like King Magnus’s ice-blue, shifted to Vale. Then the Riis brothers. “I like you all where you are. The human, though, needs to be moved. Maybe I can get real answers from her when she wakes.”
She spun on her heel and took three steps toward the cage where Anna lay, motionless.
“Don’t you touch her,” I commanded.
Still, no one else stirred. Not only did that mean no backup, but it brought up more questions. How long had we been out? Was this common after encountering a Dream Eater? Would they wake up soon, and would they be normal when they did?
I pushed all those questions down as the rebel laughed at my command.
“You think you have any power here? Do you think I will listen to you? A great pretender? Most likely, a liar?” She placed a hand on the door to Anna’s cell, and the metal glowed blue. A faint click answered the faerie and the door to the cell flew open.
She strode in, knelt, and with an ease I admired, hefted Anna’s body over her shoulder as if she weighed no more than a youngling. Then I remembered this fae had also run from a monster with me in her arms, and I weighed much more than Anna. Fates, the archer was strong, indeed.
“You should be happy to still have your heads.” The rebel powered back over to the stairs.
“Please!” My voice broke as I gripped the bars of my cage and tried to break out. The metal did not budge. “Please don’t take her!”
The faerie twisted. “She’s the only one I can trust. A human is no lord or lady or lackey. They see the world differently.”
“I’ve seen it that way too!” I roared.
“If that’s true, this human will know.”
I slumped. This rebel was dedicated to hating me, to writing my story for me and making it one that she understood. To her, I was a commoner who married a prince for luxury. A life that most others could not afford and would never achieve. I was safe. Others froze and starved.
And worse, what she thought had largely been true. Only when I went out on my own for revenge against Roar did anything change. Not that I’d say such a thing to her.
“Don’t harm her. I beg of you.”
For the first time, the fae’s eyes softened, though that softness did not land on me but on Anna. “I only wish to question her.” She gestured to the frozen ground. “And to get her out of this dungeon. It’s too cold for her kind.”
Something in the faerie’s face made me believe her. Or maybe it was the way she looked at and carried Anna, gently. Most fae didn’t physically harm humans, but they didn’t go out of their way to be kind to them either.
“We grew up together, so she’s very loyal to me. She might not tell you what you want to hear, so . . .” I trailed off. How to signal to Anna that I needed her to tell this fae the truth?
I did not like the rebels, but the enemy of my enemy might be my friend. If I played my cards right. If I got them to trust me.
“Tell her I wish for her to speak plainly to you. I swear on our twin scars I won’t be mad about what she says.”
I bore a crescent scar on my temple. Long ago, in another kingdom, another life, Anna had carved a similar one on her collarbone. Hopefully, what I said was enough for Anna to do as they wished.
And I prayed that the female was honest when she said Anna would be safe. If not, I’d never forgive myself.
“Very well.” The female climbed the stairs, pausing briefly at the top, almost as if she wished to say something more, before she exited the dungeon and left me alone in a cage, waiting for the others to wake.