Chapter 10 #2
Seed magic made me sick. Look at what it could do down there. Prince Valance was well known for his skills with the earthly elements. Flowers and dirt and nasty vines. But these orchids were a step up from the branches in the forest.
Now to get out of here…
My skin crawled. Valance’s attention was on me more than Preston. In fact, he didn’t look at the Fomorian once. Which meant I’d be in for a lot worse.
“Firstly,” the prince spoke again, “there is something I’d really like to know.” He flipped his hair for dramatic effect. Another thing to set my teeth grinding.
“What?” I found myself asking.
What was I thinking blurting anything out?
“He speaks,” the prince responded. “Good. I like a loose tongue.” He purred those last words. Something in the tone of his melodious, warm voice sent heat to my groin.
Damn myself!
“Well, Kormac, I’d like to know more about your sorcerer friend.”
“How do you know my name?”
“My elves hear many things.”
I didn’t answer.
“Ren displayed some impressive skill in the forest, didn’t he?” he said. “Crude, yet impressive.”
“You hurt him,” I countered. “I heard him screaming.” Damn my mouth!
“I meant you to hear him. I’m pleased it worked.”
“He’s… He’s…”
“He’s what? Weak? A fragile man?”
I didn’t speak.
“You want to sell his fragilities to me, to plead some sort of case for your friend. Appeal for a man who cannot cope with this, who should have stayed in his insignificant life back home. A world away from the palace, from this.”
From here, his coal eyes were black fire. Dangerous.
“But, but, but…” He wagged a finger. “The thing is, Kormac, your friend is a deadly weapon. His level of shadow magic is rare. He was sent here to do damage, to cause chaos. I have no doubt he could have, going by what I saw. If only he were made of steel, not paper.” The prince paused for a long time, staring at me.
“He still could. He’s in the right place, isn’t he?
Is him being my prisoner a mistake? Have I allowed potential devastation into my sanctuary? ”
He couldn’t be that scared about it, seeing as he didn’t stop fucking grinning.
What did I say to him?
Nothing!
Yes, I went with nothing. Good inner voice.
“What was the plan, Kormac?” he asked after another long pause. “What did Lasair want to achieve by sending you both here?” He shook his head. “Foolish woman. Where was the adequate protection?”
“I was his protection!” I snarled at him.
“You? One human male?” Valance folded his arms. “I can see why, I suppose. A man of muscle and skill. Yet completely unsuitable for this mission.”
“Fuck you.”
“Come on, Kormac. Think about it. You’re sending out your best Fomorian shadow sorcerer in years, and you provide one human as support. What sort of strategy is that?”
I shook the cage, wanting at him. “Lasair wanted…” I stopped talking.
Idiot!
“She wanted what?”
I kept quiet.
“I see. I think I know what you’re going to say.
Stealth?” He shrugged. “You’ve been talking more than I’d expected you would.
So thank you, Kormac. But it’s not enough.
I require more information. I want all of Lasair’s plans and strategies.
Are there more of you hiding out there? Is there more than one Ren?
If you know anything helpful, now is the time to divulge. ”
The orchids chattered beneath me in response.
I watched Valance’s fingers dance, the green magic shimmering, feeding his insane spell.
“Lasair wants what she always wants,” the prince said.
“The death of me and mine. To be queen. To spread her unseelie filth across Faerie. Isn’t it what you all want?
” Slowly, he came down the platform stairs, taking a stroll through his garden.
The orchids didn’t attack him. They nuzzled him like happy dogs and cats. His pets. Was that purring I heard?
“There’s more,” he added. “So much more you’re hiding from me. Lasair isn’t a fool. She’s still alive and causing trouble for a reason. No, there’s something you’re hiding from me.”
I thought back to Lasair in the village, her big speech in the back rooms of the Spotty Toad Tavern. Me, her, and Ren huddled close by an open fire. She’d said to get to Summer, to infiltrate the palace. All we needed was to get inside and cause chaos and run.
Why hadn’t I asked more questions? Cause chaos and run? What did that really mean? I’d nodded and agreed and been so fired up to get things done.
Shit.
What if there was more? Did Ren know? Did Preston? Had I been kept in the dark?
“We came as the next step,” Preston said, his voice shaky.
The prince looked up at him, gently stroking the head of an orchid. “You and your party?”
“Yes. Sent to storm the palace and back up Kormac and Ren. The sorcerer was supposed to have the palace primed for us. We were so ready, so keen to get in and take it over.”
With ten bodies? Lasair hadn’t mentioned this.
I wasn’t here for my questions but for my fists.
Stupid me.
“Just the ten of you?” Valance asked. “Seems a ridiculously low number, doesn’t it?”
“Ye-Yes.”
I glared at Preston. “Don’t give him anything,” I said.
The prince wasn’t looking at either of us. He strolled some more through his garden, stroking the flowers and saying nothing. Unbothered, whistling even. What in the seven hells was his game now?
Preston’s mouth continued to spew information. “Lasair said we were the first wave. There’d be plenty more behind us. Several. One unit after another until her arrival. Some of them…” He hesitated for a moment. “Some of them are supposed to storm Titheden City.”
Valance tickled a pink orchid’s petals with a finger, cooing at it. Still didn’t say anything.
“That’s the truth, Your Highness.”
Your Highness? Preston really just addressed this royal filth formally like the rest of the sheep?
This whole situation grew more stupid as I turned it over properly.
It only took me an entire journey to the other side of the world to do so.
How in hellpiss’s name were we really supposed to get inside the royal palace other than smuggling inside as Lasair suggested?
What numbers had Lasair sent out? More batches of ten?
There needed to be thousands, more Rens even.
A lot more. Gods, why hadn’t I seen that before?
As much as I liked to have faith in this cause, we’d stumbled badly.
Braun before hellpissing brains.
Unless there was an army marching. Then why not have the army march before to distract the seelie while me and Ren slipped in? Didn’t that make much more sense? It did now. Again, I’d been blind. Ren and I both had.
We’d come here for nothing.
No. That couldn’t be true. There must be an army marching.
I watched the prince walk back and forth for several minutes, talking to the flowers as if there weren’t two men in cages above his head. Lost in his own universe, the sun reflecting off his silver and violet hair as if the strands were spun metal.
Finally, he went back up the stairs to the platform. He looked at me, then Preston. I expected a smirk, something cruel and face-crunching worthy. His face, my knuckles. But he didn’t. His expression was cold, completely empty of feeling.
“More of Lasair’s followers coming to my lands. You’re lying, aren’t you, Preston? There are more than what you say.”
“I…”
“Continued lying will not help you.”
Gods, he was terrified of those orchids. “Y-Yes…. More… Marching…”
“Sending an army, is she?” the prince replied.
“Y-Yes, Your Highness.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t… I don’t know. She moves around.”
Valance considered this. “In my lands.”
“Y-Yes…”
“Thank you, Preston. Praise Danu for your yellow belly.”
Lasair was really marching here? Why didn’t she tell us this?
The prince licked his lips. His hands clasped together, and he cracked his knuckles. A sign of nerves? Gods, I hoped so. Fingers crossed, as my dad always said, that Valance’s guts were in a twist, ready to splatter nervous shit in his underwear over this revelation.
I bit back a laugh. Watching the prince shit himself would be a great parting gift before I met the end.
No end here. Get out!
Yes. Get out. I’m not ending up as plant food.
If only you had a better brain.
You’re part of my brain! Get to work!
Why was I having this damn argument with myself?
As the prince repeated himself a few times, definitely worried about Lasair, I examined my surroundings as best I could.
The bottom of the cages opened. Fact. The rattling gave it away, as did the hinges.
Which meant we’d be dropped into the flowers.
But what if I held on tight to the bars, climbed out of the cage and up to the beam?
Leaped to the garden wall? The tops were spiked, but the points between the spikes might be good to grab should the landing be good.
Risky.
Two big problems there. First of all, the chains were part of a lowering mechanism. So the whole cage would go down. Secondly, some of the elves carried spears and bows. I’d no interest in being target practice for the pointy-eared fuckers.