CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Shouts. The door slamming and countless footsteps. Jangling chains and muffled curses.
My body ached, but my arm wasn’t as ruined as I’d thought, like the demon had tricked me into experiencing more pain than it had truly inflicted. The scratches along my skin stung and bled, but I wasn’t bleeding out on the floor as I’d imagined, with an arm shredded down to the bone.
As a heavily armed group of fae approached the shackled creature, rough hands seized my arms and heaved me to my feet. I blinked at Preston as he glowered. His gaze flicked to the knife in the paralyzed demon’s body. He snapped his fingers, a silent order that one of the guards obeyed by rushing forward to yank the blade from the demon.
His voice was deadly quiet, indiscernible beneath the roar of our audience. But it was easy enough to read what he said by the way he enunciated the words. “After you, Your Majesty.”
I led the way toward the exit, my steps wooden. I hadn’t thought I could taste fear and misery as intense as what the underworld creature had forced upon me ever again...until this moment. Now I knew I’d been sadly, foolishly wrong.
What it had filled me with hadn’t been real, disintegrating as soon as its power over me slipped. But the emotions choking me now were rooted in a problem that wouldn’t vanish so easily.
Surely Preston had recognized the mark on Garrick’s hunting knife. They knew he’d broken the rule against weapons to aid me.
Outside the door, Nerissa and Isolde already waited with Garrick between them. His expression was blank, but I couldn’t tell if it was from fae control or an effort to appear unperturbed. The guards were nowhere in sight.
My gut twisted.
“How disappointing, my pet,” Nerissa said, her eyes latching onto the incriminating knife the guard held up for her to study. She turned to Garrick, reaching up to run her fingertips over the stubble on his jaw. “You knew better.”
A muscle jumped in Garrick’s cheek, but he didn’t look at Nerissa. He didn’t look at anyone. Even when I tried to meet his gaze, he stared resolutely at the stone floor.
Nerissa pulled back, frowning. “Do you have no excuse for yourself?”
Garrick said nothing. He barely even blinked.
“It was my faul-” I began, but Preston shot me a fierce look.
“No human lies,” he bit out.
“Very well,” Nerissa said, waving her arm. “Get it over with. A dog must be trained. I can’t have an unpredictable hunter. Garrick, hold still. You won’t move again until I command you.”
Nodding at his sister, Preston snapped his fingers. “Isolde.”
Isolde stepped forward, placing her hands on either side of Garrick’s head.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, trying to press forward, only to be held in place by Preston’s painful, unrelenting grasp on my arm. “Stop!”
My shouts turned to screaming as I thrashed against Preston.
“We are teaching our dog to obey,” Preston explained. “And since it’s clear you care for one another, we are, by extension, teaching you to as well. You may have proven you bear royal blood, but you are still a frail mortal. You will learn to defer to us in all things, as our healer, Isolde, does. Just as she can speed a body’s natural healing process with her magic, she can also cause the body great pain by attacking itself.”
I cried out in fury, in horror, as Garrick’s chiseled expression melted into agony. Blood trickled from his nose, but he was locked in place, compelled to hold still as Isolde did something that clearly wasn’t healing to him.
Tears burned my eyes. The raging storm inside reached a crescendo, its roar seeming to come alive through my own screams. My skin went cold, then hot, and something snapped within.
Black ice crackled along the floor, distracting Isolde enough that she loosened her grip and Garrick’s eyes flashed open, still glassy from pain.
“Stop,” Preston snapped, his fingernails digging into my skin, but there was a tremulous hint to his tone. He was afraid.
And I couldn’t stop. “Let. Him. Go!” I cried. “You’ll kill him!”
Isolde met my eyes, her own wide with fear and defiance. “I obey my fae king and queen.” She clapped her hands on Garrick again, and the hunter groaned, trembling from the pain she was inflicting. Though I knew the siblings wouldn’t want Garrick to die, Isolde’s eyes darkened with reckless malice, and I remembered their heated conversation over my unhealed ribs.
She was going to kill him.
And I wasn’t going to let that happen.
An unnatural calm settled over me as the strength of my magic returned to me fully. The connection was restored, and every one of my veins tingled with life and power. Quiet, kind Florentia was gone. I couldn’t abide this cruelty, this evil, one second more. She wouldn’t torment Garrick ever again.
I’d killed before with my magic to save Garrick. And now that I could feel its cold consuming me, its power surging through my body, I knew I wouldn’t hold back now.
“Then you’ve chosen the wrong sovereign,” I said.
Preston clutched my arm so I couldn’t pull free of him, but that wouldn’t stop my magic. Calling to the world around me, to the winter air and every ounce of liquid, to the land itself and my connection to it, I crafted icicles. They formed like tiny needles above each of my fingers, their tips sharp and gleaming in the torchlight. With a single gesture, I sent them hurling toward Isolde, piercing her face, throat, and chest.
They went straight through her, and she collapsed in a growing pool of blood.
My ears rang. The storm inside was assuaged, but only a little. I was still surrounded by monsters, and neither Garrick nor I were free. Not yet.
“Guards!” Nerissa screamed, a vein popping in her forehead as she glared at me. “How dare you touch an immortal fae.” She stomped toward me, slapping me across the cheek.
I laughed in her face, the sound coming out shrill. She thought slapping me would be enough to stop me?
But when I blinked, my cheek stinging, something about her face seemed all wrong. Her cheeks were hollow, her red eyes full of a dark threat. My stomach clenched in fear and revulsion.
Then the flickering torchlight changed, and I wondered if it had been a trick of the shadows, or fae glamour, even though their glamour wasn’t supposed to be able to work on me.
The distraction provided enough time for guards to clamor forward from the deeper parts of the dungeons. I slumped with weariness. For all my magical power, I was spent. Paralyzing the underworld creature and stopping Isolde had drained me. I couldn’t even pull free of Preston, let alone fend off half a dozen armed guards.
A pair of fae with gossamer wings, looking deceptively delicate and lovely, stomped over and clamped a set of forget-me-not shackles to my wrists. The pain and hollowness of losing my magic was instant, a fire tearing through me. I moaned and gritted my teeth to hold back the urge to scream.
“Just to be extra cautious...” Preston began behind me, and then something slammed into the back of my head and the world went dark.
Head pounding, I opened my eyes to find Preston leaning over me. My cheek smarted, and I scowled as my fuzzy thoughts gathered into one clear realization: he’d slapped me back to consciousness.
“At last,” he snapped, pacing before the fireplace. I blinked, the cozy atmosphere at odds with the violent tumult I’d last endured when awake. The cushioned armchair I sat in was also more luxurious than the dungeons I would have expected, and my wrists were blissfully bare, as if being shackled had been nothing but a painful nightmare. Even my arm was bandaged, the cuts apparently tended to while I’d been lost to the world. “We need to talk.”
I scanned the room, finding it was unfamiliar, though reminiscent of the inn room I’d occupied back when I’d dreamed of escaping. Back when I’d feared Garrick was my enemy.
Now, I’d killed for him. Again. I searched my heart, recalling the horror and remorse I’d experienced the first time I’d slain enemies in that unexpected avalanche. But I felt none, only the conviction that if Preston, Nerissa, or anyone else hurt him again—if anyone laid another finger on him—I’d kill to defend him. They won’t touch him again, I vowed. Even if I feared their control on my magic with forget-me-nots would hold me back. I had to try. I couldn’t watch Garrick suffer like that.
“Though you defied the rules by bringing a weapon to your test,” Preston went on, jolting me from my thoughts, “your display did prove there is power in your blood.” He paused, his form nothing but a silhouette against the crackling fire as he scanned me. “How powerful magic tolerates residing in your mere mortal vessel is beyond me.”
I folded my hands in my lap, squeezing my fingers together.
“Therefore, despite your disrespect toward our time-honored traditions, there is no denying that one of the Silverfrosts debased themselves by being with a human and producing...you. We can only assume your mother, being utterly insignificant, escaped the slaughter at the castle when the Silverfrosts were killed in order to bear you in the mortal world.”
Hot anger rose up my throat, but I swallowed it down. My memories of Mother were cloudy, but insignificant? Everything my stepfather had taught me about her made it clear she had loved with a fierceness few others had possessed. She’d been anything but insignificant.
Preston droned on, either heedless or—more likely—careless of my building fury. “The fact is, mortals do not rule in Silverfrost. Your kind is beneath us. Unlike other fae kingdoms, we don’t stoop to marrying more fertile human women in hopes of continuing our lines. We don’t mix immortal and mortal blood.” He sniffed, stopping to stare at me as if I’d committed the aforementioned act, which he spoke of as if it were a crime. “But as there is no denying you are the last living being with Silverfrost blood, capable of sealing the underworld’s entrance and dismissing the creatures that have already slipped into our world, it seems we are forced to adapt.”
My stomach churned. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed.
His bloody gaze latched onto my hands, where I clasped them tightly in my lap. “We have no choice but to wed.”
I froze, barely breathing.
“We will announce our engagement tomorrow to the public, reassure them that the throne will continue to be occupied by immortals, while we use our magic to the fullest of its abilities. You will be my consort, satisfying what sliver of a claim you have to the crown and the people’s need for a Silverfrost in a position of honor.”
The room spun and spots flashed before my eyes. The anger growing inside me roared and broke free. I stood, meeting Preston’s stare with a steady look. I refused to back down, refused to cower. “Never,” I spat.
If I’d hoped for a reaction, Preston disappointed me. His expression remaining cool, he shrugged. “I expected resistance. Trust me, our union can’t be any more distasteful to you as it is to me. But this is not a proposal, Snowflake. This is an order.” He stepped closer, seizing my chin roughly and tilting my head back so he could glare into my eyes. “I own you. Tomorrow you will smile, you will be agreeable, and you will convince the people we are engaged. And when the time comes, we will wed. If not, I’ll tie you to a chair and force you to watch me carve out that wolf shifter’s heart. Slowly.”
Ice trickled through my veins. Preston released me, and I staggered back, nearly falling into my chair.
Striding carelessly toward the door, Preston snapped his fingers. Guards entered the room, their faces impassive. “Lead us to the dungeons.”
All words were trapped in my tightening chest as I followed Preston and the guards, my temples throbbing while my mind raced. Down a stark hallway lined with torches, we turned toward a heavily barred door. Another set of guards unlatched it for us and stepped aside for us to descend an endless stone staircase. The walls were narrow and the steps steep, giving me a sense that the walls were closing in and a growing fear that I’d slip and fall into nothingness. Though additional torches lit the way, they seemed to cast more smoke than light, making me cough as we walked down, down, down.
My legs burned. Preston said nothing. He let my own thoughts be my torment.
Eventually, sounds drifted toward us from below. Scraping. Hissing. Whimpering. A scream.
Gooseflesh rose along my arms. That feeling of evil swept over me again, the same dread and wrongness I’d sensed first entering this fortress and again when facing the underworld being.
By the time we struck the bottom, I was trembling. A narrow corridor with scarcely enough light to see more than vague shapes stretched before us. Cells lined either side, though it was too dark for me to make out their occupants. The sounds grew louder. Someone was sobbing.
“When we deal with criminals and disobedient subjects,” Preston murmured at last, shooting me a sidelong look I couldn’t read in the blackness, “this is where most are sent. Some are given to the underworld creatures—might as well make the demons useful and let them torment the worst of us while they’re here.”
I shuddered.
“Others we deal with ourselves.”
My head pounded as Preston turned a corner. This one was brighter, with more torches spitting flames and painting the stonework a warning shade of red. My eyes darted to a cell on my left, where guards gathered around a fae man chained to the wall. He was marred by grime, blood, and scars to the point that he barely looked like a living being, but his cries made it clear he was still alive to suffer. One guard was using a wicked-looking tool to systematically break the man’s fingers. Snap. A shriek. A sob for mercy.
Bile rose to my throat, and I seized Preston’s arm. “This makes you no better than the demons you seek to dismiss!” I cried. “You’re a monster—”
Face expressionless, Preston turned, slapping me across the cheek. I reeled back from the force, almost collapsing. One of the guards behind us slammed a fist into my back, shoving me upright. I bit back a groan as Preston clutched my hand and dragged me forward.
“This is who I wanted you to see,” he said, pausing several cells down and gesturing like he was showing off a fine new exhibit.
“Garrick,” I choked out.
Wrists shackled, Garrick hung by his arms from chains extending from the ceiling of his cell, his feet brushing the stained stone floor. His face was beaten and bloody, one of his eyes swollen shut. At his side, Queen Nerissa looked startlingly pristine, her dark hair gleaming in the torchlight as she ran a dagger along his skin. She moved it with such gentleness, it looked deceptively like a caress but for the flash of steel and the trickle of blood leaking from each new cut. She was carefully tracing small incisions into his arms and chest. Not enough to seriously harm him—only enough to hurt him. To draw out his suffering.
“Let him go.” My voice sounded brittle in my ears. I knew that was the reaction Preston and Nerissa wanted from me, but I couldn’t help it. The sight broke something in my chest. My earlier promise to myself echoed in my ears: They won’t touch him again.
I let my emotions scream through me, releasing the building storm in my soul. Ice crackled, materializing in a shimmering rain of fatally sharp icicles. They soared through the air, flying toward Nerissa in a relentless assault.
But before they could touch her, one of the guards stepped forward, taking me by surprise as the fierce pain inflicted by forget-me-not shackles pummeled into me. The instant the cuffs clicked around my wrists and agony ignited in my veins, the ice I’d conjured crashed to the dungeon floor and melted into harmless puddles.
Nerissa laughed aloud, turning so I could more clearly see her blade and the mixture of blood and something tinted green shimmering on its edge. My stomach churned. What was she doing to Garrick? “He knows the price he must pay for disobedience.” Her deep red eyes gleamed with brutal delight. “And now, so do you.”
I gasped for air as both resignation and self-loathing washed over me. I had no other choice—not now, anyway. My pain was mounting, making it difficult to even think clearly. “Very well.” Sweat beading on my brow, I faced Preston, shoving my disgust deep down. “I accept your proposal. I’ll marry you.”