CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bitter liquid spilled into my mouth, waking me up. Instinctively, I tried to spit it out, but a gentle hand covered my lips. “Swallow,” the owlish woman bid me. I blinked up at her face as I forced myself to swallow and accept more of the concoction when she pressed a vial to my mouth.
The world was hazy on the edges, and it was only as I drank the last drop of liquid that I became conscious of voices muttering nearby. My eyes flicked toward the corner across the room, where Garrick and Isolde were engaged in a heated conversation, apparently unaware that the healer had woken me. The room was dark, and the pair was shrouded in shadows from where the light of the candle at my bedside scarcely reached.
Night had fallen. My next trial was soon. Fear dug talons into my chest.
“You’re supposed to be the best healer in the kingdom,” Garrick was saying, his tone as harsh as a blade scraped against stone.
“I am,” Isolde responded, crossing her arms.
“Then if you won’t tell me what happened, answer me plainly. Did you fail to heal Ren completely?”
“Apparently so,” she said sharply. “The human is pathetic. It took much magic and was quite taxing on her frail body.”
Garrick cursed. “That’s no excuse. You’ve healed humans before—”
“Maybe she’s weaker than the rest,” Isolde interrupted. “Besides, what do you care? She’s nothing more than a worm that possibly has valuable blood. The idea that a Silverfrost ever considered bedding a human and creating that thing is...” She winced. “Disgusting.”
This time, the growl that rumbled out of Garrick’s throat was all animal. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as I imagined him transforming into a wolf right there and leaping at Isolde. “Was your failure to heal her completely deliberate?”
Isolde spun away, her long blonde hair whipping around her shoulders. “You insult me.”
“And you’re avoiding my question.”
Turning back to him, she stalked closer, her words venomous. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done on their orders, Garrick. Just like you. Except I find it to be an honor to obey them, and I don’t try to fight it. Remember your place, dog. That girl doesn’t deserve our allegiance. Even if she’s a Silverfrost, she isn’t fae. She’s mortal. Nothing like us. She can’t rule. All she can do is faithfully obey our sovereigns, same as us, and be the shield we need.”
Turning on her heel, the fae stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her. At my side, the healer shook her head, eyes full of anger as she glanced at Garrick. “Human or not, if Florentia Cantwell is a Silverfrost, tampering with her healing and her ability to pass a test is treasonous.”
Garrick strode across the room, towering over the small woman sitting in her chair. His gold eyes were fiery, but I couldn’t decide if his rage was all directed toward the healer, or also toward Isolde. “You will say nothing,” he said. “If you speak a word about this to anyone, I will hear of the rumors, and I will hunt you down and tear out your throat.”
From my prone position, I stared at him breathlessly, frozen in fear even though his threat had nothing to do with me. This was confirmation enough. Preston and Nerissa were sabotaging my trials, and Garrick was choosing their side once more. He was their faithful hunter and killer, through and through. From slipping me into unconsciousness so I couldn’t escape to covering up the king and queen’s deceitful ways, he was betraying me again and again. No matter what vows he’d made or what control they held over him, no matter how much of his actions went against his own will...it didn’t matter. I could never trust him.
As much as I longed to be able to believe the man underneath their control was my friend, he was theirs.
Not my ally, not my friend.
Never mine.
After Garrick had threatened the healer and made her vow to never tell a soul what she’d overheard, she’d brought me an outfit sent from the king and queen themselves and then promptly disappeared. I didn’t even know her name. Though her kindness toward me had been self-serving, I still wished I knew it, still wished I’d had a chance to thank her properly for preparing me for this fight. Even if I knew, healed or not, I still couldn’t win. Not as long as my magic remained unreachable to me.
Now, outfitted in leather boots, a pair of leggings—as she’d called the fitted trousers—a type of half-corset that rested comfortably over my chest without restraining my thankfully less sore ribs, and a loose tunic that allowed for free movement, I trailed Garrick out of my room and into the hall. I shoved my arms into my coat as I walked.
But then Garrick paused, turning to offer me a sheathed hunting knife, and I frowned. Like his others, the hilt was marked with the silhouette of a wolf before the full moon.
“I thought this fight was a test of my magical power,” I murmured, glancing down the hall to find no one else about.
“Just take it, Starlight,” he said, his expression unreadable. “Find a place to hide it. And finish buttoning your coat. We must hurry.”
“Turn around,” I ordered, and Garrick didn’t waste time questioning me. As soon as his back was to me, I hastily shoved the knife down the front of my tunic, letting the small corset hold and conceal it, and then buttoned my coat over it all.
I knew there was no hope in running, so as soon as I’d finished, I fell into step beside Garrick, going downstairs to exit the inn and meet the rest of our group outside the nearby stables. Everyone was already mounted.
“Don’t keep us waiting. The citizens are in such suspense,” King Preston said, a hint of mockery in his bored tone.
A cold sliver of light from the waxing moon pierced through the hazy clouds, reminding me that a full moon was gradually approaching. A moon I would likely never see. Would Preston and Nerissa keep my blood and use it that night anyway? My stomach hollowed at the thought.
My breaths streamed out in a frosty mist as I burrowed deeper into my fur coat and hurried over the cobblestones toward Garrick’s and my waiting horse. Garrick set his hands on my waist to help me onto the gelding first. I held still as Garrick swung up behind me and wrapped his arms around my torso as easily as if he held me all the time.
“Showtime,” Queen Nerissa murmured, and she and her brother took the lead, guiding our group in a trot through the city streets and toward one of the towering mountains hemming it in.
“You drugged me?” I asked Garrick under my breath as our horse lurched forward. When Queen Nerissa’s head turned, the starlight catching on her pointed ear, I froze. Of course her keener hearing had caught my words.
But Garrick didn’t seem concerned. “It was no drug. There is one other ability granted to us wolf shifters.”
Of course there was something else you didn’t tell me. I kept the thought to myself, bitter as it was. If Garrick couldn’t even speak about whatever magic kept him under the siblings’ control, then it stood to reason there’d been plenty of information he’d either been forced to withhold or hadn’t been eager to share with the woman he’d been ordered to hunt.
“We have the ability to subdue others—to calm them or put them to sleep,” Garrick continued. “I suppose because we are meant to be predators, it is another way our magic manifests and allows us to secure our targets.”
Glancing down at where Garrick’s hands rested at my waist, I reminded myself to be wary of his nearness in the future. If I found a way to survive past tonight.
And yet, he’d given me his knife. He’d admitted he was a prisoner as much as I was. I was starting to believe the man I’d met was the true Garrick. The trouble was knowing when it was him, and when he was under Preston or Nerissa’s control...and always being wary. His mercurial moods lately indicated their control was sporadic, but frequent. Unpredictable. And even when he wasn’t fully under their control—whatever strange sort of glamour or spell it was they used on him—he seemed to be bound by specific orders or promises all the time, like the one that compelled him to hunt me down, to guard me from escaping.
I gazed up at the craggy mass looming over us, blotting out a portion of the dark sky. Its snowy peak was ringed in mist that made the distant stars seem even colder and harsher. My eyes sought something familiar out of habit, scanning the patches of velvet sky visible through the clouds until I found aeveld. Though my heart ached at the sight, I also found a crumb of comfort in studying those stars and remembering the closeness Garrick and I had shared while stargazing. That easy camaraderie, his bright smiles...
As if sensing the turn of my thoughts, Garrick leaned forward. King Preston and Queen Nerissa rode a fair distance ahead, winding out of the city and into the shadow of the mountain. “Do you know what the Silverfrosts said about aeveld, the star of hope?” he murmured, his lips tickling my ear.
Afraid to turn back and meet his gold eyes when I was all-too conscious of the other fae trailing behind us, I forced myself to stare rigidly ahead. “What do they say?” I whispered.
“According to their stories, it represents their powerful line of fae, always able to banish the demons and creatures of the underworld to the darkness where they belong. It is a symbol of the light they carry, their crucial responsibility.” His arms pulled me against his chest so I could feel the beating of his heart. “You carry that light and power, Starlight. It’s in your blood. In your soul. No demon can defeat you.”
“I wish I had your confidence.” I paused, breathing deeply enough I could feel the edges of the hunting knife’s leather sheath digging into my skin beneath my bodice. A steadying reminder. “Will you stand by and watch if...if the worst happens?” I couldn’t help the note of accusation creeping into my voice.
Garrick’s fingers tightened, digging into my fur coat. “When I am under...” He hesitated, his voice strained. “Not even my words are my own. My body is not my own.” I sensed the way he trembled, either from fury or grief. Horror seeped into me at the idea of being a prisoner not only in their fortress, but also in my own body. Subject to the royals’ every whim and cruel order.
“How?” I demanded. I’d never heard of such powerful glamour.
“I cannot speak of it. They won’t... I cannot,” Garrick finished. His body tensed, his grasp on me loosening. Our horse trotted up closer to the royal siblings, and it seemed that the nearer we drew to them, the less Garrick was himself.
I wondered if it was out of a desire to not draw their attention, or if his proximity increased their level of control over him.
My heart throbbed in my ears at this information. In a way, it bolstered my hope and eased my pain to have this proof that Garrick cared, that he didn’t betray or entrap me willingly. But in another, it was far worse to know Garrick was as much a captive as I was. If I died facing this demon tonight, he would be forced to watch.
I would be forced to see his expressionless face in the crowd and know he could do nothing to spare either of us.
Time lost all meaning as we rode on in silence, the cold breeze unable to permeate my heavy fur coat or the warmth Garrick’s body heat surrounded me in, but the chill growing in my blood making me shiver anyway. Garrick spared no more comforting words as we ascended a rocky path leading up the mountainside. He didn’t tighten his grasp on me in quiet reassurance as our horses wound the final bend to face an imposing fortress set upon a cliffside partway up the mountain.
Clearly under the siblings’ control again, he was lost to me once more.
As King Preston and Queen Nerissa led us through the gates, already open and awaiting our arrival, my skin prickled, and I swore I could sense something unearthly. Attendants scurried forward to take the reins as we dismounted in the courtyard. My boots slipped on the icy cobblestones, but King Preston stepped forward in that moment, catching my elbow.
“Mortals are clumsy creatures,” he said, shaking his head and drawing me forward, away from Garrick and the rest of our company.
Queen Nerissa fell into step beside us, tossing me a smirk. “Citizens have already gathered in the arena, awaiting your test.”
My head was light with fear, the world turning hazy. I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to keep my feet but for Preston’s iron grip on my arm, tugging me relentlessly toward the fortress.
Two guards swung open the double doors, allowing us to step over the threshold into inky darkness punctuated only by pinpricks of light from flickering torches. The orange light cast by the flames painted the chiseled stonework of the floor and walls in eerie shades. Overhead, the ceiling was swallowed in shadows, giving the impression that there was nothing but emptiness above us. Despite the airy feel, it was somehow stifling and oppressive, like the darkness itself held weight and invisible eyes boring down upon me. The scent of smoke and earth and iron permeated my every breath.
Again, a sense of foreboding swept over me as our footsteps echoed in the empty space. Evil resided here.
And I had nothing to defend against it but the knife digging into my ribcage, a feeble weapon against undead creatures that could not be killed.
As Preston turned and half-dragged me down another hall, Nerissa and Garrick on our heels, I practically begged my magic to come back to me, like it was a living thing that could hear me. There was nothing but a hollow ache where that sense of power had once resided.
The air grew thicker, its scent turning stale as the hall ended in two sets of staircases. On the left, stone steps spiraled upward, lined with flickering candles. To the right, a few steps descended toward a heavy iron door, padlocked and guarded by two well-muscled ogres, each dripping with every manner of weapon I’d ever seen. An uneasy feeling settled in my gut as I stared at that door, until the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Preston paused, noticing the way the door drew my attention. His smile was sharp, his blood-red eyes piercing in the flickering light. “That is the door to the dungeons where we secure all the pesky creatures that escape at night.”
Somehow, I found my voice despite the way my throat seemed to be slowly closing up. “You don’t secure them in the castle?”
Preston scoffed. “Is that what you mortals would do? Invite an enemy to one of your civilized tea parties? Keep a monster in your bedchamber? Why would you hold that which could destroy you near at hand?” He shook his head. “No, we secure them here, in this mountain, away from the citizens of Northelm and the inhabitants of our castle. We will not have another massacre.”
I swallowed. “How many...of those creatures do you have here?”
“At first, we only saw one or two creatures slip through each month,” Queen Nerissa said, striding forward to dip her head in acknowledgement toward the guards. I thought I heard a sound like claws scraping against stone, but that was impossible. The door was too thick. “But as the years passed, and what Silverfrost blood was left to mark the entrance to the underworld faded away, the veil thinned. More and more skulked into our world at night, forcing us to erect this fortress to secure them all. Only a Silverfrost can banish a creature—and even then, only on a winter solstice, when the veil is the weakest of all. Now we see demons creep out nearly every night, haunting our castle halls or sneaking down to the city to feed.”
I ground my teeth at the thought.
“We have hundreds secured here now.”
My head whirled. Hundreds. An army from the underworld, contained by steel and might but never banished. Ever a threat to the people of this kingdom, and constantly increasing.
“Most nights are still manageable,” King Preston said, shifting his focus toward the ascending stairs. “Some, no creatures emerge at all. But others, we must prepare for an intense battle. So we are forced to always be on our guard once the sun goes down, never knowing what sort of night we will endure. This is why our people will not accept you, a mere mortal, unless you prove yourself. They have had to demonstrate their might and courage for two decades in order to survive. All we ask is that you subdue one creature. If you cannot even do that, then you’re no Silverfrost. They have no reason to put their hope in you.”
“If you want me to prove myself, then don’t sacrifice me. Allow me to use my magic.”
Preston and Nerissa burst into laughter.
“If you can’t access your magic,” Nerissa said, “then that is because your pathetic human nature won’t let you.” She shook her head. “You don’t wear forget-me-nots any longer, Snowflake. Whatever fae blood is in your veins must be something less powerful.”
Preston shrugged elegantly. “I’m not surprised. Can you imagine a royal fae choosing to breed with a mortal?” He grimaced. “Disgusting.”
Garrick’s voice was quiet. “Other royal families in Brytwilde marry humans.”
Nerissa startled, as if she’d forgotten the hunter was there. Then she turned, running a hand along his cheek. “Beautiful, I don’t keep you around for your thoughts. Silence.”
Obediently, Garrick clapped his mouth shut, his expression settling into one of cool indifference.
Footsteps echoed down the stairs to the left, and a man with ram’s horns and flowing blond hair emerged. He dipped into a hasty bow. “Your Majesties, the people began gathering hours ago. They grow impatient.”
“Good.” Preston shoved me forward. I stumbled, catching myself before I fell into the man. “Take her to the arena. My sister and I need to find our seats so we can enjoy the view.”