Chapter 21
The pathdown the winding stairs makes me dizzy, the hem of my gown catching on the sharp edges of the stone steps and my hand slithering along the wooden handrail that is now the only thing keeping me upright. Erina is taking me somewhere, but it’s not a cheerful engagement party the way a normal king would do. Whether his court knows or not that he intends to marry the last living Milevishja royal, I can’t tell. There is little I can be certain about with everything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours.
I’m no longer a merchant’s daughter or that of a traitor. I’m the daughter of a king who was ready to put blood on his hands to take back what should have been his birthright. Treason of a very different sort. The question remains: On which side? Was Erina’s father’s order to execute my father treason or are my father’s attempts to hire an assassin? Is a traitor on the throne now?
My gaze snags on the glinting gold band resting atop Erina’s short hair. This man knows exactly what he wants and has no problem sacrificing others’ happiness for it. Their lives as well if his decision to send me to the Crow Court can be taken as a measure of his character. Had I died in the Seeing Forest, the Milevishja royal blood would have disappeared with me, and no one would have been any wiser.
But I didn’t die. Myron didn’t let me. And if the thick, moldy stench of the air greeting us as we reach the torch-lit bottom of the stairs is anything to go by, it’s safe to say that he just brought me to the dungeons. Whether he’ll lock me up here or Myron is actually down here, I don’t dare think about, or that relentless spark of hope will come to life all over again just to be stomped out by Erina’s boots with a finality I won’t recover from.
“Not far, Wolayna,” Erina narrates, his shoulders straight and posture regal as ever, even down here where the mere sight of bars and cells combined with the odor makes me cave in on myself. I’ve spent too many months in a dark hole like this, and if the shaking of my body is anything to go by, the trauma still roots deep. “At the end of the corridor.”
He gestures ahead where two men in leathers stand guard by a narrow, steel-reinforced door. They dip their chins but don’t fold into a full bow, their attention on the hulking form behind me.
Herinor has been as silent as only fairies can be, but his presence is a constant. Since Erina pulled me from the office, he’s followed us like a shadow, and I could swear the tension in his body has only increased.
Had it not been for him, I might have withdrawn the knife that now wanders from dress to dress, a fixture in my inventory, and stabbed Erina in the back. Herinor might even stand by and watch—unless Ephegos gave him orders to protect the King of Tavras from me. Maybe I’ll try on the way back—if there is a way back up for me. Erina might as well lock me in one of these cells.
But first, I need to see if he told the truth and Myron is alive. If I attack Erina, he won’t ever tell me, and I’ll be left to fight my way through the entire palace in hopes Myron is stored somewhere in these halls—or dungeons.
The guards unlock the door and step aside, making way for their king as their eyes swipe across my form quickly before returning to Herinor. He’s the threat, not me. I’m a puny human without magic.
The room we enter is even darker than the stairwell and the corridor. Not one single torch lines the rough stone walls. A tiny window allows a lone ray of cloud-diffused sunlight to sneak into the space, revealing enough of it to make my stomach clench with a fresh wave of nausea. I grab onto the nearest steel bar for support … and pull back my hand as the metal bites like poison.
“What was that?”
Erina smirks at me over his shoulder, the torch light falling in through the doorway illuminating his features. “This, my dear Wolayna, is my latest invention.” The pride in his gaze would have been adorable had he been a child and his invention not something enforcing the bars of a dungeon cell.
“A magic-neutralizing substance,” Herinor supplies, reaching a finger along the bar next to my shoulder, but before it can make contact, he pulls it back so fast the motion blurs before my slow, human eyes.
Of course. This blends right into what I already know about his experiments. Whether Clio was held in one of these cells, I try not to think about. Too much pain comes with the thought of her suffering because she returned to the Crow Palace to protect me.
“Ingenious.” With the energy draining from my system fast, it is no challenge to keep my voice so low Erina doesn’t hear it. He can lock in his magically gifted enemies even as a human king. Between the drug he keeps administering on Clio and me, the weapon to suck magic from fairies that he needs to spray on his opponents, and this, the playing field of an Eherean war is leveled.
“So … do you hold magical prisoners down here?” The bravado I muster comes as a true surprise as I hold Erina’s gaze.
He shrugs. “I needed to take precautions. Just in case, you know…” His words trail away as he turns and continues into the near darkness.
About halfway into the room, more bars come into view, more cells. My heart beats like a drum as images of Fort Perenis flash through my mind. The darkness, the dirt beneath my bloodied fingernails from etching lines into the wall for each day I spent in that shit hole. The walls are closing in. Tighter. Tighter. I can’t breathe. Can’t?—
Searching for anything that would allow me to ground myself, my eyes land on a still, human form at the back of the room.
My heart stops for the second time this morning, and I take a step closer to the bars, trying to get a better view of the prisoner.
“Myron—” Knees shaking, I stumble past Erina, uncaring of the little shocks running through my body every time I touch the bars.
Erina doesn’t hold me back. Neither does Herinor. They merely follow me as I push myself along the rows of cells until an iron fence blocks my path, and I can see the long, brown hair covering Royad’s scarred cheek. His chest rises and falls with slow, shallow breaths like in a restless slumber. Not dead. He’s not dead.
“Royad.” My gasp dies as I scan the cell for more prisoners. If he is here…
It takes half a heartbeat for me to spot the tall, muscled form with a black curtain of hair sprawled on the floor in the cell next to Royad’s.
Tears shoot to my eyes, spilling without permission. I don’t care.
My knees crash to the hard ground, screaming at the impact, hands sliding down the bars as I hold onto them like a lifeline. “Myron.” It’s less than a whisper, but my heart is flying.
He’s here. He’s alive.
“Myron.” This time, my voice doesn’t fail me. “Myron, can you hear me?”
A groan sounds through the dungeon as the male lifts his head, gazing at me with dark eyes.
Like a meteor, my moment of relief plummets behind Eroth’s Veil as the unfamiliar face twists and contorts with pain.
“I’m afraid … not,” the male croaks, pushing up to his hands and knees on the rough stone ground of his cell. His pointed ears peek through the straight lengths of his hair like beacons, as does the brutal tattoo inked to his arm. “Good. To.” He coughs and spits to the side. “See you, Ayna.” The smile he flashes me is more of a grimace, but I recognize it as genuine relief to see me. “Myron will be … pleased you’re alive.” Each word seems harder for him than the last, but he pushes out every last syllable, determined to speak what he has to say. “Don’t trust the … bastard of a king behind you.”
Myron. Myron is here. Myron is alive.
The bars rattle as Erina slams his hand against them, and the male cringes, almost slumping back to the ground.
“You didn’t have enough last time, did you?” Erina steps to my one side, Herinor to the other, framing me like I’m about to explode the way the fairy magic did at the battle. “I can send in General Katrijanov again, now that you’re awake. I’m sure he has more … questions for you.”
“What do you mean, questions?” The sour taste returns to my mouth at the meaning implied even when Erina ignores my demand.
I can’t keep my eyes from pivoting to scan the rest of the cells, though, until I spot two more sleeping forms to the right of Royad’s cell. It’s hard to tell if either of them is Myron. After guessing wrong two times already, I am cautious not to allow myself to hope before I’m sure it’s him. There could be more Crows trapped in more cells, and it could take all day for me to find him—if Erina doesn’t drag me away before I succeed. Or he might hold Myron isolated somewhere?—
Before horror scenarios can unfold in my mind, my gaze catches on the bare, pale back of the prisoner in the first cell to Royad’s right. It isn’t the muscled form or the black hair touching the neck and shoulder that hold my attention but the distinct black shape curling between streaks of blood and grime from his biceps to his neck.
My blood stills. My skin prickles. My breath catches as I recognize the crow mid-flight inked onto the male’s skin.
“Myron.” This time, I don’t need to see his face to be certain. The tattoo on my own shoulder stings as I scramble to kneel in front of Myron’s cell as close as the bars will allow. The steel no longer stings, probably having leeched all remaining magic from me for now, so I stick my arm between the barrier as far as I can reach, praying to the Guardians that it’s enough.
The bars bruise my shoulder, my neck, where I push farther and farther until my fingertips are mere inches from his elbow sticking out to the side, but I can’t quite reach him. Frustration creases my features as I strain against the unmovable barrier while Erina and Herinor watch on.
“Wake up,” I sob. “Please wake up, Myron.” I love you. I love you more than words can express.
He doesn’t as much as twitch.
“He’ll be out for another few hours if we can trust his usual pattern.” Erina crouches beside me, studying my face from up close with morbid interest. “If I’d known how much of a motivator he’d be, I’d have taken you down here the moment they brought them in.
The prisoners have arrived, Your Majesty.Odja’s words as he entered the throne room the first day come back to me.
That was them. Myron, Royad, and the male who’s awake. My gaze darts to the fourth fairy locked in the cell behind Myron’s.
“Who’s that?”
The question is directed at Erina, but it is Herinor who answers, speaking to Erina rather than to me. “Your Majesty has gotten hold of King Recienne of Askarea’s general. However did you capture him?”
All color leeches from my face as I realize two things at once: There aren’t only Crows in there but Crows and a fairy belonging to the royal Askarean court like Clio. And if Erina is truly holding an Askarean general prisoner, war with the fairy realm might be more imminent than I could have ever believed.