Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
M y throat constricted as the scent of dampness and suffering clogged my airways.
I was in Silas’s basement again, listening to the scrape of iron chains against the rough concrete floor.
Imogen was curled on a filthy mattress, her face wan, her expression helpless.
My bloody hands slipped as I crawled toward her, more blood seeping from the wound in my side.
I could hear Imogen’s labored breaths — smell the sour tang of death on her tongue.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded, taking her icy hand in mine. Already I could feel her fading — feel the weakening of her pulse.
“I’m sorry .”
This was all my fault.
I was the reason Silas had taken her, and I’d unwittingly dismantled the protective wards that he’d bound to Imogen’s life .
Her pale lips twisted in an attempt at a smile, but I could see how much it cost her. “I knew you’d come.”
“Of course I came.”
Imogen was all I had in this world — the one person since my mother whom I’d allowed myself to love. It was why I’d stayed away all those years. To protect her from Silas and his hunters.
It had only taken one mistake — one moment of terror and weakness — and I’d signed her death warrant.
Stay , I begged her silently as tears ran down my cheeks and into my mouth. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.
But Imogen was dying, and there was nothing I could do to save her.
All too quickly, she slipped away. Her head flopped to the side. Her hand went limp, and I felt the weight of her broken body slump into the mattress.
I jerked awake with a start, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. The giant feather bed was larger and more comfortable than any place I’d ever slept, but the dappled golden sunlight filtering in through the curtains seemed to mock my suffering.
Clammy and shaking, I climbed out of bed and peeled off my damp linen nightgown. I dressed quickly in a fresh set of clothes and sheathed my daggers at my thighs. Even though my weapons were useless against demons, the familiar routine was comforting.
Pulling back the curtains, I stared resentfully out at the sunbaked landscape as I nibbled a stale bit of bread from the tray Freydolf had left the night before.
The Adraeis River looked maddeningly peaceful, though I knew that looks could be deceiving .
If the faun was telling the truth, and only the Taker of Souls could traverse the river, I would have to convince Kaden to take me back to the mortal world or risk being trapped here forever. It certainly complicated my plan to kill the demon prince, but I would find a way.
Throwing open the door to my chamber, I stalked past Adriel without a word and made my way to the training room.
Perhaps it was futile to continue to hone my skills against immortals, but I had to do something to fill the endless stretch of time.
Hurling daggers at a target I could pretend was Kaden was the best thing I could think of.
But when I reached the double doors that led to the training room, I found a note nailed to the thick, oiled wood. The words were penned in a slanted, slightly unhinged-looking script that immediately made my blood boil:
Breakfast first, little huntress.
A low growl rumbled up my throat, and I gripped the heavy brass door handles and heaved.
They were locked.
I tugged harder, ready to rip the doors off their hinges if necessary, but they wouldn’t budge — even with my enhanced hunter strength.
My growl morphed into a cry of frustration, and I aimed a hard kick at the doors. They didn’t so much as rattle on their hinges, which told me they were sealed by magic.
Turning on my heel, I stormed past a smug-looking Adriel, who’d followed me silently from his post outside my chamber.
I made a left and headed in the direction of the courtyard I’d spotted from the window of my bathing chamber, but the house was so huge and the corridors so winding that twice I found myself in the same place I’d started with no clue how I’d gotten there.
Finally, I spied a sweeping arched doorway with an intricate iron grate near the top. Pushing it open, I squinted in the golden sunlight, breathing in the rich, spicy scent of Adraeis.
My footsteps echoed off the orange clay tiles, which had tiny green succulents with bulbous leaves growing up through the cracks. A riot of flowering vines crept up thick walls that rose ten feet in every direction, and I could hear the pleasant twitter of birds flitting from shrub to shrub.
Laurel trees grew from clay pots large enough for three of me to sit in.
Ancient-looking statues of the gods peered down from stone pedestals, and at the center of the courtyard stood a cracked fountain stained with algae.
The trickle of water was oddly calming, though I noticed it flowed much slower than water did in the mortal world.
It was the perfect prison — so beautiful one might not notice that the walls were too smooth to climb, even if they weren’t warded by magic.
All at once, the claustrophobia I’d felt in Silas’s basement came rushing back. Only this time, I was at the mercy of an immortal demon. Nothing more than a pawn in his game.
A fresh burst of fury thrummed in my veins. In one smooth motion, I drew a dagger and sent it flying at the head of the nearest statue.
The steel didn’t sink into the stone, but the serene face of the goddess fissured along the side of her nose with a satisfying crack.
Feeling slightly better, I drew another. This one I tossed at the head of a god with long, flowing curls. My blade grazed his stone cheek before skittering to the ground, but I was already palming another .
I turned back to the goddess, intent on taking off an ear, but to my immense irritation, her nose was intact — repaired by whatever magic permeated the house and courtyard.
I let out a huff and chucked my dagger at the ground, where it sank into the crack between two tiles.
“You’re in a fine mood this morning,” Adriel observed in a tone of wry amusement.
“How would you feel if the demon prick was trying to control your life?” I snarled, rounding on my guard.
“Oh, the demon prick does that to me at least once a week,” he quipped.
I narrowed my eyes in a glare. “You aren’t going to scold me for calling him a prick? Isn’t he your lord and master? The noble Ferryman and all-mighty savior?”
Adriel snorted. “ Gods , no. But I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear you think him noble.”
“I don’t.”
The corner of his mouth twisted in a smirk, the swirls of gold and green in his eyes flashing in the dying sun. “I see you’ve been talking to the faun.”
I opened my mouth and abruptly closed it again. Freydolf had said Adriel would flog him if he knew he’d brought me food. I didn’t want the faun getting into trouble on my account.
“I’m perfectly capable of putting things together on my own,” I said.
“Nice try. But Freydolf is the president and sole member of his lordship’s fan club.”
I stared at the Morkahlf in disbelief. Had he just made a joke?
“The sole member?” I questioned. “I thought you owed your very existence to Kaden.” I dropped my voice an octave to mimic Adriel’s deep, brooding timbre, and the Morkahlf ’s gaze turned steely.
“You don’t have to put someone on a pedestal to be loyal to them. And you certainly don’t spend five centuries at someone’s side without becoming intimately familiar with their shortcomings.”
“I imagine not,” I said, crossing the courtyard to retrieve my daggers and sheathing them at my thighs.
This had been a wholly unsatisfying exercise. Kaden didn’t even have to be physically present for me to feel as though he were lording over the place, mocking me.
“If you’re done defacing the courtyard, may I suggest —”
I wheeled around. “If you suggest that I have breakfast with the demon bastard, I will shear your testicles from your body.”
Adriel’s brows lifted in surprise. “Now I see why he likes you.”
“And why is that?”
The Morkahlf shrugged. “He’s a masochist. There’s nothing he loves more than a female with a sharp tongue and even sharper blades.”
“Oh, they won’t be sharp when I slice off your balls,” I said, batting my eyes sweetly. “I’ll make sure they’re very, very dull.”
Adriel gave an amused huff of laughter. “You go around talking like that, and the prince may just ask for your hand in marriage.”
“I can’t imagine he’d ask me for anything,” I grumbled. “I am his prisoner.”
“Good point,” said Adriel with an uncharacteristic amount of cheer. He jerked his head toward the manor. “Come on. I know something that might interest you.”
Adriel led me through the House of Perpetual Twilight, down yet another corridor that I hadn’t visited before. The passage was lit by narrow arched windows, which spilled puddles of golden light over the flagstone floor and made the stucco walls glow.
When we reached the end of the hallway, Adriel threw open the doors, and I gaped in astonishment as the smell of old books hit me full force.
I was standing in the largest library I had ever seen. Ten times the size of Caladwyn’s study, the room more closely resembled a cathedral than a repository of knowledge. The domed ceiling stretched three stories overhead, with intricately carved stone railings denoting each floor.
Shelves consumed every inch of wall space, and rolling ladders stood waiting to access the tomes on higher shelves.
Long trestle tables took up much of the open space, illuminated by brass lamps in the shape of goddesses in flowing tunics.
Here and there, tall windows ushered in a warm river breeze, making the room feel light and airy.
With so much literature, there had to be answers to all my burning questions. My fingers itched to begin pulling books off shelves and devouring as many as I could.
Slowly, I walked the perimeter of the first floor, running my fingertips along spines of leather, silk, linen, and an oily reptilian skin I couldn’t identify. The titles were embossed in gold and silver, many in strange tongues .
“Everything you want to know is here for the taking,” said Adriel, his soft voice carrying in the cavernous space.
“It would take me a lifetime to read all these books.”
“Several, in fact.”
Tilting my head back to take in the three stories of tomes, I began to feel overwhelmed. “Is there a card catalog or something?”
“No. The system here is a little more sophisticated than that.”
I crossed my arms, lifting a brow in annoyance. “Am I supposed to guess how I might go about locating a particular book?”
“All you have to do is ask. Go on, try it. Anything you want to know.”
I rolled my eyes. There was no end to the things I wanted to know.
Why the demon prince had worked so hard to earn my trust when he could have simply dragged me here against my will.
Why none of the witches who’d come before me had successfully dismantled the veil between realms.
Why Kaden would do his father’s bidding if he truly did care about the fate of the faerie kingdom.
Why his subjects seemed to revere him when he was the cause of Anvalyn’s destruction.
But rather than ask any of those things, I started with something that was likely common knowledge to those who resided in the Otherworld. “When did the Ravaging start?”
I’d barely finished forming the sentence when a thick blue tome on a nearby shelf slid out an inch or two.
My mouth fell open .
Moving half in a daze, I went to the shelf and pulled the book down, staring at the title on the spine.
Broken Continent: The Ravaging, Unrest, and Mass Displacement of the Faerie Peoples
My stomach clenched.
“I told you,” said Adriel. “Everything you want to know is here for the taking. All you have to do is ask.” He paused, seeming to consider his next words. “That includes anything you might wish to ask him .”
I rolled my eyes. “And here you were starting to grow on me.”
“Was I?”
“Well, besides the whole starving me thing.”
Adriel pressed his lips together and nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He turned to go but then stopped in the doorway, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I had a little talk with your friend, Freydolf.”
My heart sank. So much for protecting the faun. “And?”
“And he’s under strict orders not to bring you any more sustenance until you speak with a certain someone. Ten lashes if he disobeys me again.”
A fresh surge of anger bubbled in my gut.
How dare he?
Adriel wasn’t the one who’d been manipulated and deceived. He wasn’t the one who’d been dragged out of his realm and thrown in a tower until he agreed to do the prince’s bidding. It wasn’t his mother Kaden had murdered.
He had no right to ask me to speak with the prince. Not after everything he’d done.
Perhaps it was poor form to attack when my adversary’s back was turned, but I’d had enough .
I loosed a dagger, aiming just between Adriel’s shoulder blades, and gasped as he whipped around and caught my blade midair.
It happened so fast my brain hadn’t registered his movement, but that was definitely my dagger he was holding.
I stared in disbelief as he flipped it in his palm, admiring the heft and balance of the blade.
The Morkahlf met my gaze, his lip curling in disdain. “And here you were starting to grow on me.”