Chapter 52
Isca
The memory was so vivid, it felt like I was reliving a dream.
The clamor of steel on steel. Screaming.
My magic pulling me, tugging me toward something dark in the distance. Emrys?
Snatches of grass gone to brown from the summer heat. Another vial being poured into my mouth, gasping, coughing, but rough hands clamping down over my face so I had no choice but to swallow.
Jostling. Pain from a second set of careless hands pulling me upward. Smelling horses and blood. Moving. Moving so fast I almost lost my stomach.
That dark magic that felt like home to me fading in the distance.
Then only darkness.
***
Consciousness returned the way iron cools—slow and hissing with an aching, dull pain. This was not the castle in Darreth. It was too cold, the smells too unfamiliar even before I opened my eyes.
My limbs were leaden, my tongue dry. I blinked once, twice. Then I realized the ground beneath me wasn’t dirt, grass, or canvas. My face was pressed to a fine carpet, the cold of the stone beneath it leaching into my bones.
My fingers had become ice. My wrists were slick with my sweat. Rough bindings bit into them, leaving bruises that throbbed with each futile tug.
Stay calm, Isca.
My body ached in places that suggested I’d been slung over a saddle like a sack of grain. But I didn’t feel violated in any other way.
Thank the gods.
I lifted my head.
Stone walls. No fire in the hearth, only a few spare candles for light. A draft crawled beneath the dark, heavy iron-oak door, scented with peat and something unfamiliar. And a flickering figure paced on the other side of the room wearing a…gown?
A gleam of steel between damask folds—a sword belt where usually a decorative belt would hang.
I shifted and forced calm into my limbs. Panic was for people without options. I had magic. Not much, but some. More importantly, I had my mind. And I wasn’t afraid—yet.
“You’re awake,” came a woman’s voice—low, clipped, and laced with iron. “I worried we’d overdone the sleeping draught after the druid’s spell wore off.”
My heart sped up, but I kept my face still. She didn’t need to know I was afraid. I tilted my head. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh, we need you alive.”
She stepped closer, candlelight shimmering across her features. Her beauty was sharp, ice-and-honey spun into something too perfect. Light brown hair in a simple braided chignon. Flawless skin and rosy cheeks. Eyes so pale they were barely blue.
But so cold. Her eyes were colder than a winter’s storm. What had the world done to leave someone so empty?
My magic reached out before I gave it leave to act, testing on instinct.
It sensed nothing. Only silence. Silence that was as complete as what Emrys and Nisien had shown me.
She was either shielded somehow or, worse, a mage.
I didn’t feel any traces of the magic that had been used in my kidnaping within the room, so I doubted this woman was responsible for that.
Whatever the case might be, it wasn’t a good idea to try manipulating her emotions.
She likely had ways to protect herself, while I was unskilled in combat.
I’d thought Gelida hated mages. If my sparse memories were correct, I’d been kidnaped by one, handed off to another, and now they seem to have sent this mage to interrogate me.
At least… I hoped this would only be about asking questions.
With a jolt, Emrys’s caution flooded my thoughts.
I’d been so groggy, so disoriented that I hadn’t erected a mental barrier like he’d taught me for situations exactly like the one I’d found myself in.
I pulled my magic up over my mind like a blanket, hiding it from any prodding.
It probably wasn’t impenetrable, but it was the best I could do half-dazed.
She must’ve noticed the change because her smile went flat.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Tir Gelida.”
My stomach sank. The capital. Too far from Darreth.
I looked down at my clothing. I didn’t feel as though I’d been undressed in any way, but it was impossible that I hadn’t had to relieve myself in all that time.
My legs were tied at my ankles and thighs and my arms behind my back, so even sitting would take immense effort—not something I’d wound my scant pride trying to do in front of her.
“Don’t worry, lady.” She said my borrowed title with a sneer. “You haven’t been touched. A druid slowed your body functions for the journey. You’ll feel it all soon.” She gave me a terribly beautiful but frosty smile. “They said it would hurt. I was curious to see if they were right.”
Great, so I was being held by an insane woman. “Not exactly a warm greeting for your…guest.” I didn’t want to push her, but I was through being the meek, jumpy bird. “Who are you?”
“To you? Your Highness, Princess Anwen of Gelida.” She made a mock curtsy.
“Wow, a real princess. Why am I here?”
“Politics,” she said simply.
“Obviously,” I snapped.
They might start torturing you at any moment. I took a calming breath and asked, “What do you intend to do with me?”
“If we wanted to hurt you, you’d already be screaming, so stop twitching like a rabbit.”
I wasn’t twitching. I was trying to see if I could wiggle out of my bindings without drawing too much attention to my movements. However, what she’d said was so close to my thoughts that I began to worry she had psychic abilities.
Her voice was sharper than the sword she wore. “At least we won’t hurt you yet.”
“That’s…comforting,” I murmured. “Uh, Your Highness. Why exactly are you here?”
Some emotion twitched at the edge of her mouth but didn’t land. Amusement? She moved closer, studying me as if she might peel back my skin and read the layers underneath.
I still felt nothing from her. Surely, if she was being shielded, I would sense the magic streaming into her? I could come to only one conclusion: Princess Anwen was a mage.
“Congratulations. You’re valuable.” Anwen quickly walked away and picked up a letter that had been sitting on the fireplace mantel.
She tossed it in front of me. The seal on it wasn’t one I recognized, but I could guess that it was from a household in the Shipwreck Archipelago even farther north judging by the dreadful sea creature that formed its sigil.
“I stole you from my idiot cousin’s men. His plans would only have made Stormdan even more unreasonable than he’s already proving to be.”
Maelric. So the rumors were true. Anwen was at odds with him.
“Uhh, thank you? I think…”
“So you can read subtext. Maybe you aren’t as stupid as I’d feared.” Her voice turned to a whisper. “That will keep you alive.”
Yes. That was all that mattered now—staying alive until Emrys found me.
My thoughts drifted to the dream that still clung to me with the weight of memory: the clash of bodies, the screams, Emrys fighting his way toward me.
If that vision had been true and not just the fog of magic-induced sleep, then he was already coming.
I had to believe that because of the way he’d held me, his breathing even and his magic settled.
Because of the way he’d looked at me last night—like I was precious.
Like I was his. Like he felt the same way about me that I did him.
I just had to survive long enough to see him again.
Anwen moved to sit at the small breakfast table placed near the unlit hearth. There were apples in the bowl next to her. My treacherous stomach abruptly growled in the quiet, no longer used to missing meals.
She quirked another smile. “He’s riding here now.”
Oh gods.
Elation and terror warred within me. What was he facing? What if he got hurt? And beneath all that, beneath his skin, what would this do to him?
“The men under my control have been ordered to stay out of his way, to help if requested. They will not stop him. My cousin’s supporters… Well, you know exactly how that story goes.”
Ruination. Emrys would not stop.
If Anwen didn’t want her men to attack Emrys, did that mean there was a chance we could both leave Tir Gelida alive?
She must’ve seen the look of understanding blossom on my face because a warmer smile grew on hers. “Will you play nice?”
“Play nice?” I snapped, already tired of talking into a wool carpet. “I can’t even get up.”
But she was feeding me bits of information. And, in a way, she was protecting me by her presence. There was also something about her that made me think she was being honest with me, while putting on a show. But for whom?
Was she under scrutiny within her own castle?
Anwen said, “I will unbind your hands and feet if you promise to play nice. You are a prisoner but can be a pampered one if you’re polite. Can’t have our bargaining chip withering away.”
Bargaining chip? I wanted to telekinetically fling the silver bowl of apples straight at her forehead. But I’d survived long enough in Caervorn to know how stupid acting out was when you had other choices that would buy you time.
“On one condition,” I said, voice more confident than I felt.
Thoughts of how I might use this misfortune to achieve my loftiest goal—to undermine the Assembly—crystallized in my mind. But I needed more information first.
She waited, taking a bite out of an apple.
“Tell me how I can help you.” I met her gaze with steady fire then mouthed, Not Maelric. Only you.
A crack in her mask of iron. A flicker of uncertainty. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
Steel hissed from its sheath, the sound shrill in the silence.
Anwen advanced, blade catching the faint candlelight, her eyes unreadable. My heart started racing.
I saw it then. Another moment of decision that would change my life the second it was made.
This time the gods didn’t laugh; they watched from every direction, waiting.