CHAPTER TWO
TALYN
AEMONS'S SHADOWS DROP US BACK at the field outside of the denser part of the forest in the Gratandi Mountains we were at this morning. The encampment looks the same as when we left it, tents set up, extra supplies lie neatly near the camp fire in case we needed it. Everything is the same, except two of ours are dead. I clutch Millie’s vine-wrapped body closer.
It’s already cool to the touch. Why was she there?
This is all my fault. She warned me, but I’ve had this pull.
At first I thought I just wanted to escape but what if it was more?
What if my father did something to me? It wouldn’t put it past him.
He is sneaky and conniving and clearly knows a lot more than he’s let us believe, the other Lords too, because he knew where Ravina grew up the entire time, yet still pretended to look as shocked during the choosing at Phixmery.
But I refuse to unwillingly be a part of any more of his schemes.
A red stone flashes in my mind and I squeeze my eyes shut. No. Something is definitely wrong.
Zaddro moves towards me. “Rider… something troubles you.”
There’s a warring in my chest. It is worse now.
Before it was like a beacon in the distance, but now it’s like a dragon’s roar in my ear.
“Zaddro. I need you to let them lock me up. Something is wrong. Don’t fight them if I fight back.
Please,” I beg him as I place Millie on the ground.
“Aemon! Take me back to Vathia. Put me in iron.” Aemon takes a step closer, glancing at our mate who’s still huddled with her friends, grieving because of something I did. “NOW!”
His eyes widen with knowing fear, and before I know it I’m wrapped in shadows again and dropped on the cold, rocky floor of a dim prison cell.
The churning sea is an underground river outside my bars, telling me I am now trapped in the underbelly of Aemon’s castle—no more than I deserve.
Separation from my mate roars louder than the sea in the mouth of the cave.
I barely give myself a moment to breathe before I give into the overwhelming urges clawing at my mind and launch myself at my oldest friend with a curl of my lip. “Take me back there now!”
His shadows move whip-fast and sizzle against the iron of the chains before they attach them to me, and I end up only a foot away from my best friend’s face.
His expression is calculating, but his lavender eyes give away the shock he’s trying to so carefully mask.
“You asked for this ,Tal. What the fucking Fates is happening? Did you betray us? Melissandre is dead because we went there! Our mate is grieving! I don’t want to believe your father, but this behavior is irrational! ”
I collapse onto the damp ground, the burn of the iron somehow centering me.
“No. I would never intentionally betray you, but back there… something happened. I think…” I gulp as a red stone flashes in my mind’s eye again, iron around my wrists and tied to the bed where…
I shake off those memories as dread begins to sink in my gut.
“Everything was normal before The Choosing. We were focused on our role within the rebels. After I was taken by my father, my mind gets a little blurry. I thought it was the sleeping drought he gave me and that the images were just wild dreams. I woke up fine. Some part of me wanted to stay away, needed to, yet once I was back I wanted nothing more than to take Rav and hide in the mountains... Like something was pulling me there.” Aemon is quiet as my words sink in, yet I can’t help but whisper. “I think he did something to my mind.”
Angry waves crash against the rockface below us and ocean spray splatters the floor. The once comforting scent of the sea is now tainted with this memory of iron chains and betraying the ones closest to me.
“We will figure this out.” Aemon eyes the dark water, following my gaze.
“This chamber won’t be flooded, but it may get cold.
I’ll have some staff bring you some food and blankets until the group gets back, and I’ll check on you once I can, but I need to leave now to update the others and make sure they and our dragons get home safe. ”
Zaddro’s presence has been heavy in my mind since I demanded they take me. “I’m already on my way. Your mate is furious; I sense you’ll have some making up to do when she returns.”
“Go, take care of her and tell her…” A self-deprecating chuckle leaves me.
“She wouldn’t believe me if I apologized anyway.
Tell her we will work it out when it’s safe to be around me.
Oh, and Aemon? Give Millie a proper send-off, not like they give to servants.
” I blink away the tears and let the guilt consume me as I see her face with the light leaving her eyes.
“I will. She will have a warrior’s rite. I swear it.” A look of sympathy crosses his face before the shadows of the cave stretch towards him and he vanishes into them, leaving me with only my thoughts and the roaring of the ocean to keep me company.
TIME PASSES SLOWLY. The days and nights would blend together if it wasn’t for the gaping mouth of the cave entrance leading out to the ocean letting me know whether it was night or day. Staff bring me food and fresh blankets once a day but it doesn’t ease the disturbed presence pushing at my mind.
My father doing this to me is the only explanation.
Even with all the time in the world, down here alone in the dark, I can’t understand what made him like this.
What made him so evil and cruel? Life has always been fair to him; he holds a position of power, never went hungry, and yet he craves more.
Even as his son, I can’t fathom his reasoning.
Aemon has blinked in twice in the week I’ve had down here.
Checking on me, making sure this is what I want.
Ravina is in an uproar, angry at the Fates for everything that has happened.
I can just picture the jut of her chin as she lashes out.
She is magnificent even in her anger, but she doesn’t deserve what has happened, and I’m positive I somehow had a part in it.
Her mates are meant to protect their centers, and this is the best I can do to make sure I can’t harm her—even emotionally—any longer.
Not that she needs protection, I think bitterly as my mind wanders back to the training yards at Phixmery. I felt a pull to her and took it out on her in training—and yet, she always got back up and faced me head on. I hated myself for it, but a part of me loved it.
Finding out she was the young fledgling female my brothers and I adored, the one we’d thought was lost? It scared me, but I haven’t let myself remember that until now. Some part of me knew that because of my father she would be a danger to me. And worse—that I would be a danger to her.
The red flashes again in my mind. I circle like a raven around my thoughts, trying to figure out what my father has done to me, but as far as I know there’s nothing that can manipulate the mind other than Szellemi fae.
Even then, they would need to be in constant contact with me for it to work; otherwise the magick would fade.
My only other idea is the necklace Ravina wore that blocked her memories, but my skin is bare—I don’t wear jewelry often, and any I do decide to wear comes off easily. Why can’t I figure this out?
My head slams back against the jagged rock of the cave and the biting pain helps keep me centered.
Mumbled shouting coming from outside the room has me tilting my head to the side towards the door leading upstairs. Once the voices get clearer, my heart clenches with frigid fear.
“You will not stop me from seeing one of my mates Killian, so help me you mountain of a male I will blink your ass back upstairs and barr you from the room!” Ravina yells.
Killian growls. “Fine, but you will stay where he cannot touch you. You heard what Aemon said. He doesn’t trust himself; who knows what Craven might have done to him. He may not even want to see you.”
Oh but I do, I just can’t.
“Well then he can tell me that himself,” she states with the authority of a queen in the making.
The door slams open and the flicking light of flame illuminates her regal features, but the first thing I notice is her red-rimmed and puffy sapphire eyes. Her pouty lips are flattened into a straight line and her hair is wind-torn. They must have just gotten back…and she came straight to me.
My heart clenches. I don’t deserve her attention. Not right now, and maybe not ever. Yes we made progress, but I’m sure that all went up in shadowflame the moment we entered that Fates-forsaken cabin.
She takes a step toward me. “Talyn, what’s going on? Why are you doing this? Aemon says you think that what happened to… that what happened back at the cabin was your fault?”
There’s a frown marring her face like she doesn’t believe me, exhaustion slumping in her shoulders like she’s lost sleep over the fact I imprisoned myself.
My tongue tastes like ash as I go to speak, but I don’t look away. She doesn’t deserve a coward as her mate who won’t look at her while he confesses his sins. Even the ones I don’t fully understand.
I feel a slimy presence run along my mind, something I haven’t even noticed until recently. “I wanted to go to the mountains—”
“We all did. That isn’t on you.” She moves closer and Killian growls.
She throws him a glare over her shoulder.
“He won’t hurt me. He’s in fucking iron and I can handle myself.
” She crosses her arms, tucking her wrists into the crook of her elbows as she turns her glare down to the metal that encircles my limbs.
He glares back, mimicking her pose, crossing his massive arms over his leatherbound chest. The many silver scars that cover his body shimmer like ice in the dim lighting.
I struggle to stand, my body sore from sitting on the rocky ground for so long.
“It is on me. I wanted to go there, was drawn to go there even before the pixie delivered the news with a location. I see flashes of broken memories from when I was captured, things I... I know there’s something wrong, something controlling me.
In a way I still have my own mind, but I can feel myself slipping, and since being back here it’s gotten worse.
You are not safe with me, Ravina. Please listen to Killian.
He can do what I can’t and make sure no harm comes to you. ”
She shakes her head. “No, we can figure this out together. You don’t want to hurt me, otherwise you wouldn’t have done this.
” She gestures to the prison cave kept under Aemon’s family home.
“Please don’t shut me out again. I don’t know if what we were trying to build can survive that.
Try. For me. For us. I know in my soul, in our bond—” She’s somehow gotten close enough that she lays her hand on my scarred stomach, right over my skin bearing our shredded bonding mark—“that you will never purposely hurt me.”
My breath hitches and she’s peering at me with heartbreaking hope. Her warm hand is a balm to the chill of the air. “Rav…”
“No,” her voice is firm as she peers up at me. “Let me help. I couldn’t save Mel. Let’s try to figure this out. What memories?”
“I have memories of a red stone, being tied to the bed where my father kept me… of him whispering things I can’t hear. He’s fucked with my mind,” I growl. “I just can’t figure it out.”
“Talyn!” Killian snaps and when I glance down at her my hand is around the nape of her neck but I can’t seem to let go. I need her. I need her closer to me.
“He’s fine. He’s not hurting me,” she reassures him. And me. “What did the red stone look like, Talyn?” Her voice is etched with fear, but somehow I know it’s not directed at me.
“Like a thick chunk of uncut glass shimmering in the candlelight, its color as deep as scarlet blood,” I whisper, glancing down at her. It would be so easy to break her neck right now. Break it and get myself back. Just complete the task father gave you…
I fling myself away from her, the cave wall biting into my back as my voice cracks.
“You need to leave, Ravina. Please.” I desperately try to blink away the thought of killing my mate as bile builds in the back of my throat.
A shiver crawls down my spine but the whisper thoughts inside my head keep going—thoughts that can’t possibly be mine.
How did I never notice this before? Was I so wrapped up in my own anger that I couldn’t tell these thoughts from my own?
She takes a step toward me, her face layered in betrayal and hurt, but Killian pulls her out of my reach. So I do the only thing I can think of to make this better for her and I drop to my knees, the chains clinking as they hit the stone and the pain of the iron burning into me.
“I swore after I found out about my father that I would never kneel to him or anyone who thought they could rule this realm. But I’m kneeling for you.
You are my mate and my Queen, but not like this.
I will not serve you until I’m fixed or I’m dead.
You have always been my safe place as Maeven, but as Ravina, you have my heart.
I need you to leave me here. I will be okay, but you will not be if you stay.
” The admission pours out of my mouth, things I never even admitted to myself, but it’s out there and I can’t take it back.
Hardened male I am, soothed by this soft female before me, I grieve and my heart cracks at seeing tears run down her face.
The crack solidifies at the jarring sound of the cell door slamming shut as Killian hauls her to safety, leaving me alone to my own thoughts and the haunting sight of her crying.