Chapter 4
four
This was the midden. The darkest place you could find in the entire kingdom.
Cut beneath the city, a prison for those who had harmed the crown or its people.
I knew of the dungeons, and that no one left their dank depths.
If they did, it was to hang their head over a block.
I’d always been too nervous to darken the thin stone passageways that fed down into it, let alone enter.
And now, I was caged.
Trapped like an animal, no better than the rats that infested the kitchens. They’d thrown me into the creaking and rusted cell, and despite running to the bars and shaking them, the door refused to give.
They’d tossed my mother into the cell across the dank corridor. She wrapped her hands around the bars and sobbed, but wouldn’t speak a word to me.
“Was this your plan all along?” I yelled across the passageway. “To put us in this forbidden place?” The stench burned my nostrils and made the Underquarter look like a field of damned roses. Thorny roses I wished to wrap around her throat.
She'd doomed me, doomed Deldren. Doomed us all with vague letters and guards, but not a direct whisper of truth. Had I been dodging her? Yes.
But only because of the uncertainty of her intentions.
How could I trust her after the many previous attempts to trick me into a marital meeting with a noble and the servants quiet, yet persistent gossip of her desire for me to take the throne?
If she'd told me how ill Deldren was in a single letter, I would have listened.
Not accepted the throne, but listened. Aided.
But I was the last in the castle to know anything, and my information was usually scoured from too loud whispers in the kitchen, or whatever Thelena dared tell me.
"You never told me he was this sick. You never mentioned it would wilt his magic!"
She didn’t respond, only sobbed louder.
And all she can do is weep.
I gritted my teeth. “Talk to me. We need to get Deldren out of this.”
“Foolish child,” she wept. “If only you’d listened, or answered one of my damned letters we wouldn’t be here. The crown was meant for your head.”
“What, you wished me to drain myself over those pikes? And you wonder why I fled from your very sight, you evil witch. Why did you say nothing?” My grip tightened around the bars. "You could have mentioned his condition! I'm not allowed to breathe the same air as him, let alone confirm his health."
There was a long quiet filled with sobs.
I slammed my side into the cell door, rattling it. "Answer me!"
She didn't so much as lift her head. “The less you know, the better.” She gulped in a breath as Hrothgir stomped down the corridor, his creaking armor announcing his presence.
He rolled his shoulders and crossed his arms, his face betraying no emotion as he turned to my mother. “The King wishes to know if you’d like to speak, or if we have to force the truth from you.”
The Queen shook her head.
“This is your final chance. Why could Deldren not strengthen the throne?”
I scraped my nails across the bars until shards of rust fell away, anything to keep from screaming. “He’s ill!”
Hrothgir spun on his heel toward me, malice radiating off him in waves. “You will keep your mouth shut, or I will cut out your tongue—on the king’s orders. Be lucky we don’t handle justice like the knights of the Underquarter.”
My blood chilled as I remembered the image of them trying to pour boiling water over Tennith. That wasn’t the first time they stole someone’s skin.
When I said nothing, Hrothgir turned back to my mother. “Bitch queen, do you have anything to say, or shall we hang you in the room with blades?”
She inhaled a staggered breath, her chest rising sharply before she spoke. “I am Queen Regent, and you will not speak to me in such a way.”
Without another word, Hrothgir ripped the cell open and encroached on her. She tried to put space between them, but he grabbed her head with a single, gloved hand and cracked her skull against the stone wall. Her screams echoed in the small space, piercing my ears.
I bit my tongue until I was certain I’d never be able to speak another word. Anything to hold in the scream.
But they hadn’t killed my mother. She never stopped fighting as they dragged her out of the cell and down the dark passage out of sight.
But not out of earshot. Her screams pierced the silence throughout the night.
My cell was nothing but a trash-filled hovel, with filthy hay, innumerable buckets, and squeaking vermin. But that wasn’t what scared me. No, that was the great darkness. I mourned the loss of twilight as the shadows swallowed me.
Most of all, I kept my gaze from the far corner. There was so little light that it was less of a dark and more of a void. Shapes would move when I stared for too long.
So I kept by the cell door, trying my best to pick the lock. I’d found a rusted shard of metal by one of the buckets. My lucky day.
My lids burned and begged me to break, but I wouldn’t give them that. They could lock me up, but I wouldn’t allow them my tears.
The night came in waves, and I thought I wouldn’t sleep.
I’d spent as long as I could fiddling with the damn lock until the bit of metal broke.
But eventually, sleep found me. My dreams were horrible things, sharp memories of what had happened on the stage, punctuated with memories of the man who had grabbed me in the street, and his unforgettable eyes.
Once, I woke and briefly ruminated on the fantasy of him coming to save me from the dungeons, but I brushed it away just as quickly.
I couldn’t allow myself those fruitless thoughts.
No mysterious man would come save me from the dark. Even our fairy tales didn't have happy endings. The maiden was stabbed to death after being kissed awake, and the beast came to lock another in a cage.
A blood bath was reduced to nothing but a slaughter and that was enough for us.
But when I couldn’t return to sleep, I turned back to the lock, and I forced my thoughts to helping Deldren. He didn’t deserve this.
So I sang and worked at the lock. I was no stranger to nightmares, but now I was living in one. Before, when I’d wake up with fits of terrors, I’d hum to myself, my chest would warm, and it would take with it the unease.
This time, I couldn’t find the right melody, so I made one. I sang of the blue-eyed stranger and dared to whisper how I wished he’d come.
Remember me.
And I did.
My chest heated, something tugging behind my breastbone. But in the rhythmic dirge of dripping water and prisoner groans, there was a sudden scratching and the distinct flap of wings.
I jumped, my heart thundering in my ears. It chased away the vague memories of the sapphire-eyed man. But when I looked around, nothing stirred.
It must have been the rats.
Then it came again. The scratching became a screeching and far louder than before. It came from the cursed corner persistently. I scooted back as far as I could until the cold metal bars dug into my back. Then there was nowhere left to run.
My chest tightened, so I hummed softly to myself. It gave me a few brief seconds of respite.
The shadows shifted. Feeling and seeking, they clawed at the bricks. They trembled and swirled, moving in ways that shade should not. With trembling lips, I did the only thing I could.
I sang.
My voice was a tenebrous whisper, no louder than the shuffling and scraping across from me. “Ovatar, great and mighty warrior, bless us high in the sky—”
The darkness crept forward until it was in the wan moonlight.
It rose and pooled, gurgling and forming a mass taller than I.
It grew and shuddered until it created the image of a robed man.
One that had spiraling horns that shot out from the hood.
It was pulled back just enough that his light blue chin and black eyes were visible. My song ceased.
Ice intruded into my veins, filling my body. Everything was cold. I shook. My nails splintered against the rock.
A devil himself had walked into my cell.
I tried to screech, but my voice was gone.
He stepped toward me. I sucked in a breath.
“Ovatar protect me from the monster that stands before me.” I’d been pious, but not that pious. Somehow I knew that only a god could help me now. Ovatar, save me!
He leaned too close. I skittered back against the bars. This was the Ifrei, the thing we were warned of. The demons those threads were meant to keep out. And now it was in my cell.
Deep in my chest swirled something I didn’t expect to find—an eternal rage. This thing, this messenger from hell, had made us sheep, hiding within our kingdom walls. We were fearful, afraid, and prisoners due to his bastard people. The Ifrei held our keys and always had.
I grappled at the floor and found a loose stone. Before I could think, I tossed it at his head, but he ducked. Shit.
He stepped closer.
“Keep away, demon,” I hissed. “I have nothing you seek. Haven’t you taken enough from us? Ovatar strike you down, beast!” I searched for more loose stones but only found hay.
He chuckled softly. “Is that what they’ve been teaching you? That Ovatar will scoop you up and save your soul?”
The color drained from me. It spoke.
I’d always known they were real, but seeing it before me, walking and mocking unraveled something inside. Hold on to the anger and throw it at their Demon Lord’s messenger. Don’t unravel now.
“Leave my kingdom. Ovatar binds me together, and I love him in return. I know he’ll protect me.” That was why I hadn’t burst into flames at the sight of this unholy thing.
“Leave? But you were the one who summoned me.”
He lied. He had to be. I didn’t summon him. I wouldn’t dare. I needed someone to get me a damn lockpick, not mock me.
“I asked for help!”
“Is that why you sing, little caged bird?” Beneath his dark hood, nothing was visible except the abysmal grin that taunted me. “Because you wish me to come and whisk you away from your filthy, tragic fate?”
“Enough!”