Chapter 12 #2
I'm brought out of the dungeon and up a sparse corridor with an uneven stone floor. A wide staircase looms high in front of me. I’m hauled up it, and I suddenly find myself in an opulent ballroom.
Light streams through tall, open casements high in a vaulted ceiling.
There are flowers blooming everywhere, and the air is balmy and warm.
Trickling fountains line a walkway with shimmering water, and there are people milling around.
Many are fae, both male and female. They look wealthy and have airs of ennui about them.
Some have humans trailing on leashes behind them, or kneeling in front of them with their heads bowed in subjugation.
Is this Fiana’s court? I shiver in the fae guard’s grasp, hoping that Locke, Morgan, and Jak know where I am.
I still have the tracking conjure on me from Kitore. Locke said this one would last longer. If it’s still working, they have to know where I am.
Trying to stay calm, I look around as I'm brought up a central walkway lined with the members of the court. On a dais, a dark-haired fae female dressed in red sits regally on a black marble throne trimmed with gold. As I’m brought before her, she deigns to look down at me as a practically naked human slave pops a piece of fruit in her mouth.
She stares at me as she slowly chews, and then waves the man away.
'So, this is the human Kismet I’ve been hearing about,’ she says, her soft voice carrying across the huge space, clearly with the aid of some conjure. ‘You found her in the village as expected?’
She glances to her left, and I see Warrior standing there, giving her a nod. I sneer at him. The coward didn’t even fight me in Halsford, just hit me over the head.
But how did Fiana know I was going to be there, and not in Kitore?
Fiana tuts. 'Come forward, Warrior.’
‘My lady Fiana.' He sinks down to one knee.
'You’ve finally brought me what you promised.'
'I have.'
She raises a brow. 'Bring her closer.'
I'm pushed forward to the first step of the dais, and the fae queen rises, coming down to stand in front of me, over me. Her hand darts out and grasps my chin, squeezing, her nails digging into me. Her eyes bore into mine.
'Pretty little Kismet,' she murmurs.
Then, she lets go of me abruptly, pushing me away from her as if revolted.
'Take her to my private rooms. I wish to inspect her further.'
Warrior strides forward and grasps me by the scruff of the neck, jerking me toward an open door into an office-like room behind the dais with a round desk on one side. Fiana sweeps in a moment later, her eyes focusing on me.
'Well,' she says, sitting down with a sweep of her crimson skirts. ‘Show me, then.’ She says to Warrior. 'Your life might depend on it for making me wait.’
The fae male frowns. ‘Come, my lady. I had to loiter around that human village for ages for her to appear,’ he complains. ‘But I persevered for your pleasure.’
Fiana rolls her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t tried to keep her for yourself at the beginning.’
‘I’d never truly have kept her from you!’ Warrior grins at her and then turns, hitting me across the face with a speed that has me reeling.
I stagger back and hear him yowl as he trips over his own feet, falling heavily to the floor in a heap.
Fiana’s tinkling laugh makes me cringe.
'Delicious,' she murmurs as he stands, rubbing his shoulder where he struck it on the stone. ‘But how do I know that you didn’t do that by design? You’re quite the charlatan when you want to be.’
‘Never to you, my lady Fiana,’ Warrior gasps out, looking affronted.
Fiana purses her lips, clearly not believing him. She stands again and approaches me.
'How fortuitous for me,' she says quietly to me, 'that you returned to the village from Kitore when you did.'
'I don't understand,' I say, my hand still on my smarting cheek, hoping she tells me something useful, like who her informant is.
'Of course you wouldn't, silly little human.'
She taps me on the nose gently with one dainty finger, and then her hand caresses down my throat, promising violence but not delivering it just yet.
‘Let’s see how it works, shall we? Bring Tally to me.’
A guard I hadn’t noticed leaves his post by the door and returns a moment later with the human man dressed in a gold cloth around his waist in tow, the one who was feeding Fiana in her hall.
‘Tally, I want you to take this girl, bend her over my desk, and fuck her. Will you do that for me, pet?’
He bows as I take a step back, my heart racing.
He lurches toward me, grabbing me and thrusting me in front of him. He’s strong and his smirk makes my blood run cold. He reminds me of the bulls in that place in Dead City, who tried to breed me in Warrior’s little game.
I turn, balling my fist, and strike him hard in the face.
He lets out a grunt, a look of shock passing over his features before they harden at Fiana’s answering laugh.
‘Come now, Tally, you won’t be bested by this slip of a girl, will you?’
Tally’s jaw ticks and he grabs the hand that hit him, pulling it behind my back as he propels me to the desk. He pushes me over it, holding me with a massive hand over my head so that I can’t move.
I squeal, struggling hard as his hand raises my dress, baring my lower half to the room. I hear him spit into his hand and then feel him touch me. I grit my teeth. He hasn’t hurt me! I need something to happen.
NOW!
A large bird flies through the open window without warning, squawking and flapping, and I hear Tally yell as it goes right for him.
His hand releases me and I slither to the floor under the beating of frenzied wings, crawling under the desk as feathers fly through the room, and the human man wails loudly.
Fiana and Warrior simply watch, the fae female in fascination, as the raptor rips at her slave’s face with its sharp talons.
And then it hops to the windowsill and jumps off, spreading its wings and soaring away as if it had never been there, leaving Tally a groaning mess on the floor.
‘Tally, get up.’ Fiana snaps quietly, and the human does as he’s told, his bloody hands covering his face as he snivels.
‘Show me.’
Tally hesitates for a moment but lowers his hands. Fiana’s clearly amused giggle makes me remember all the times the masters hurt me, the other humans I knew, for their own diversions. I swallow hard.
‘Oh dear, Tally. Not so pretty anymore.’
The fae female waves a hand. ‘Take him down to the lower cells. The beasts can entertain us with him later.’
‘No, my lady. Not the games,’ Tally whimpers, but Fiana doesn’t even look at him again as he’s dragged from the room by two of her guards.
Then, the fae female beckons me, and I reluctantly crawl out from under the table.
‘Well, well, Warrior. She is what we were told. How shall I reward you?’
Warrior’s narrow eyes are watching me intently, a pensive look playing on his face.
'You promised that I could have her first when I brought her,' he answers, finally looking away from me and plucking at an invisible piece of fluff on his black tunic.
‘Not that, I’m afraid.’ Fiana rolls her eyes.
'If you had done what I had asked you before, I might have allowed it. But, instead, you played games and tried to take her for yourself. Delays cost me and you know the rare ones are for me first.’ She stamps her foot.
‘And you know why I need this one in particular.’
‘I do, Fiana,’ Warrior answers coolly, seemingly unruffled by his mistress’ ire.
‘Then why do you thwart me?’ she pouts, turning away from me to give him her full attention. 'I still haven't found my lake. Tell me, Warrior, how is it possible that Varrik, the bumbling fool that he was, was able to find it, and I cannot?'
The black lake from my dreams? The same one that the mage wanted my father to find?
‘Luck?’ Warrior questions facetiously, leaning nonchalantly against the wall.
Fiana chuckles and eyes me. ‘Or Fate, perhaps.’
‘But Varrik didn’t have a Kismet,’ Warrior argues.
Fiana tuts. ‘There’s more than one way of finding it, it’s just that this one is now within my grasp. Come here, my Kismet.’
She crooks a finger and takes an open book from her desk, turning it around to show me. On the page is a drawing I recognize. It is the lake from my dreams, complete with the boulders and rocks surrounding it. There’s writing on the parchment as well.
‘What does that say?’ she asks me.
I shake my head. ‘I cannot read.’
‘Pity.’ Fiana leans in close to me. ‘Well, my little Fate Touched slave, this is one of the only books in existence that tells of your kind, the rare Kismet, descended of the first who came from the lake’s power.
I know that because Varrik, in his wisdom, had every single tome he could find in every Realm and Circle that mentioned the Fate Touched destroyed bar this one which was in his personal library for his eyes alone. What do you say to that?’
I glance at her. ‘Varrik sounds as if he was a powerful mage, mistress.’
Fiana’s brow rises incrementally. ‘The fool was powerful, I’ll give him that. Because he found the lake. It says here,’ she taps the page with one long nail, ‘that you will be able to find it too.’
I stare at the picture, my mind working.
‘So I was told,’ I say airily, and I hope that she isn’t one of those fae who can sense lies as I continue. ‘I told the Underhill as much, but they didn’t believe me. They said the lake should remain lost, that it was too powerful.’
‘The Underhill.’ She sneers as she says it. ‘Wanting all the fae to dance to their tune. They think themselves so mighty, so clever. But I’ll tell you…’
She leans closer to me, her lips turning upward. ‘I knew they’d found out about my little plan for Kitore weeks ago, so, instead of taking the free folk from the First City, I took them from their precious village instead.'
Her fingers trail lightly up my arm. ‘And it was so very easy.’
She lets out another little laugh.
'But perhaps you can help me,' she says, her nails trailing across my collarbone, as if I’m some treasured pet.