15. Darkness | Wilder
Aday and a night passed in excruciating silence.
There appeared to be no other prisoners in the High King’s private dungeon, and if it weren’t for the sporadic visits of his mother, there were no guards to ensure he was fed or given water.
Wilder listened for his mother’s footsteps, much quieter now that he had instructed her not to wear anything but slippers down here again. Water sloshed, and he licked his lips as she moved closer.
“Darling,” she whispered.
Wilder stuck his fingers through the gaps in the bars as she appeared.
“Every time I think I know what cell you’re in, it’s farther than I thought,” she muttered, shaking her head.
She looked different this afternoon—worse. Shadows bloomed like violets beneath her eyes, her cheeks appearing more gaunt. The black dress she wore hung off her shoulders and was drastically different from what she usually wore.
“Are you alright?” he asked, taking the water and bread from her trembling fingers.
“Am I alright?” she asked incredulously. “My kingdom is on the brink of ruin, my son is being accused of treason,” the sounds of shouting reached their ears, “and my husband is a monster.”
Wilder bit into the bread. “Thanks for the food.”
She shook her head, a light chuckle slipping through her lips.
“There has been pushback all across the kingdom,” she raised a finger in the air as the yelling grew. “Your father has tried to tighten his grip. And has faced violent criticism.”
“Tightened how?” Wilder asked.
Aine’s eyes fluttered closed with her sharp inhale. “Anyone siding with your accusation against him has been imprisoned.”
Wilder licked his dry lips. Leave it to King Oberon to try to stifle criticism with an iron fist.
“Maelys and Ridge cornered me this morning,” Aine spoke quickly.
Wilder’s brow rose. “And?”
“They demanded to know where you were and what I was doing to get you out.”
“They don’t know where I am?”
Queen Aine looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “No. This is a magic-less place. The animals here can not speak to her, and plants do not grow.”
Without their gifts, they would have to resort to following Queen Aine, and she had been stealthy enough to slip her guards and whoever was supposed to be monitoring this place.
“What else?”
She wrung her hands, biting her lower lip. “There have been uprisings on the border. Wulver’s slaughtering innocents and decimating trade routes. He refuses to do anything about them, and I fear—I fear a coup is on the horizon.”
Wilder drank deeply from the small copper water tin and wiped the droplets away.
“Good,” he muttered.
It felt like all he had done was beat his head against the wall since the moment he had woken up down here. He hadn’t felt so helpless since he had been taken by the wulvers, but even that couldn’t compare to this.
Then he had only let himself down—now he was letting her down. Her, the only thing in his life that had felt worth living for.
“I spoke with Baelwyn?—”
His mother’s words penetrated his spiraling and stopped him right in his tracks.
“Why?” Wilder growled. “He has partnered with Warick. They are behind this!”
Queen Aine shook her head. “Baelwyn is using his position as an emissary for the Mannereds to leverage your release. Queen Titania is also threatening war.”
Wilder reeled back in shock. Had Baelwyn not appeared that first night with Warick? Had Wilder hallucinated that?
“Mother, have Warick and Baelwyn allied with Otto?”
She shook her head adamantly. “I’m unsure. But Warick and Baelwyn are leading the rebellion to free you, son. They are the ones rallying the nobles against the King. Most of the skirmishes have been their doing.”
The world tilted, and then spun.
How was that possible?
And why?
“What makes you think that?” Wilder questioned her.
“The charges were brought against you on the basis of your reaching for your sword before you called the challenge,” Aine said, shaking her head.
“Warick is arguing that the rules of challenge were broken because Oberon had disowned you before you drew your sword. Therefore, the traditional rules of engagement had been voided.”
“That’s farce,” Wilder muttered. “And purely semantics.”
She nodded. “Yes, but you are well-loved throughout this kingdom. People are willing to overlook it after hearing what the High King subjected you to.”
Wilder shook his head. “I don’t care what he did to me—I just want to save her, Mother.”
“It’s politics, my darling. And we all play the game. Even King Oberon is looking for a way to block any advances that would further your cause. He would even stoop as low as allying with the wulvers if it meant keeping his throne.”
“Why would he ally with wulvers again?” Wilder scoffed. “I’ve lost. I’m stuck in here.”
She shook her head. “You’re clever and will find a way out of this. He knows this too and is trying to plan moves in advance. Adding chaos to the mix in the way of wulvers has served his purposes before. Gods, he might even involve the humans.”
“Why would the humans care what happens in the Wilds?”
The machinations of court were not something he was well rehearsed in, having avoided it like the plague his entire life. Queen Aine, however, was a master at this game.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?—”
Rocks skittered down the hall, and they both froze.
Several heartbeats later, after silence had remained, she faced him again.
“There’s no time to explain. They’re going to bring you before the court tomorrow,” she whispered, eyes darting towards the end of the hall. “I might have a plan, but you have to play the game.”
The rest of the day passed with unendurable slowness, like the slow trickle of water down the stone wall of his cell. It pooled near the pile of straw he lay his head on at night.
The small pricks of light that speared through the ceiling and bounced off the water cast tiny beams along the stone walls.
Wilder watched as they turned from white to gold.
He felt useless, worse than useless—he was trapped.
Wings ruffled above him, and he peered up just as dirt and debris rained down upon him.
“The fuck?” he ground out, wiping the dirt out of his eyes.
Wilder screwed his eyes shut and focused on quieting his mind.
Outside the three walls of his cell, he could hear the wind sing. It was torturous, being so close to the wind and not being able to reach it.
His fingers flexed, but his magic could not stir, nor would it in this cell.
The scent of something sour hit his nose, and he recoiled, half thinking it was himself, until he heard tiny claws clatter against the stone wall. A tiny white mouse slipped under the bars of his cell and sniffed, before tucking tail and turning around.
“Enjoy your freedom,” he muttered.
The mouse squeezed through the bars of his cell and hurried down the hallway.
Wilder would walk down that hallway soon enough to face his father.
He squeezed his fingers into his palms tighter and felt the prick of fingernails into the pads of his flesh.
Had it been stupid of him to storm through the castle walls without a plan?
No.
Even if he had paused and worked through the various possible scenarios, Otto betraying him would not have been one.
A breath worked its way out of his chest. Otto had been a permanent fixture in his life for as long as he could remember. His first memories held Otto’s face, and his darkest memories held Otto’s face.
What else had Otto been capable of?
Had everything been a lie?
Wilder thought back over the last couple of months, trying to decipher the depth of the treachery. Otto claimed to have not seen the attack on the beach and had not seen the wulvers surrounding their inn on their journey back.
That could have all been part of his treachery.
Rage and anguish twisting together expelled loudly from his chest. It poured out of him in waves. All the raw emotion that had writhed inside his veins.
The roar faded away, and the echoing silence pressed in.
Pointless, complete and utter uselessness.
He needed to focus and try to come up with an actual plan now instead of wallowing in self-pity.
Lyra was still out there, and she needed him.
He hadn’t been held down here long enough to become weak, despite the lack of magic in this place. So the best course of action would be between fighting and then fleeing.
They would have to move him from this cell to wherever he was meeting the High King.
So long as they didn’t drug him to the point of incapacitation, he could escape.
But had they drugged him initially?
Wilder couldn’t remember. The throbbing he woke with could have been from Otto’s punch or a sedative.
Wilder’s vision blurred. Golden light from the ceiling swam around the edges of his sight. It shifted and swirled to a lovely shade of red.
He blinked, focusing on the light spots that had returned to a normal shade of gold.
He hallucinated the color of her hair.
A horn blast swept through the air, and panic seized his chest.
The sound of a wooden door colliding with a rock wall echoed down the hallway, and Wilder pulled his feet closer to his body.
A set of booted footsteps thundered down the hall.
There were at least four guards.
Shadowed faces peered at him behind the bars of the gate. He didn’t recognize any of them.
The High King was smart not to enlist the likes of Dust or Oron to move him. Surely, they would not betray him as well.
“Wilder Vale,” a voice barked. “You’re wanted by the High King.”
Wilder rolled his eyes. “Sure, just let me tidy up, and I’ll be ready for his arrival.”
His attempt at a jest was met with silence. A frown tugged his lips down.
Lyra would have found that sarcasm hilarious.
The shatter of glass interrupted his thoughts, and he looked down as tiny pieces of emerald scattered across the stones.
Onyx smoke drifted up, and Wilder glared.
“Poison?” he asked without breathing through his nose.
“Sedative.”