Chapter 2
TWO
ALLERIA
The first blow snaps my head sideways and blood fills my mouth. I try to spit it out, but the next blow lands in exactly the same place, and the world whites out. It comes back wrong, with the room at an angle that won’t correct itself.
Someone grabs my hair and wrenches my head straight. I manage to suck in half a breath before the next blow takes it from me.
I can’t get my hands up, the chains around my wrists have me bound tight. I pull against them anyway, over and over, until the iron rips into my skin, because my body won’t stop trying even when it’s useless.
A fist connects with my ribs, and the impact empties my mind of everything except the burning reality of the pain. My mouth opens and nothing comes out. There isn’t enough air getting to my lungs.
They’ve even taken the ability to scream from me.
Another blow hits my cheek, and something beneath my skin shifts in a way it shouldn’t. That one I do scream for, the sound tearing out of me and taking what little breath I managed to draw in with it. And as if the sound is the sign they were waiting for, the blows rain down harder and faster.
No one asks me questions or makes any demands. They say nothing at all.
My head gets snapped left, then right. A fist finds my eye socket, and the world goes dark on that side entirely. I don’t know if it’s swollen shut or worse.
I can’t tell.
I can’t tell anything anymore, except that the pain keeps coming, and I can’t stop it. So I do the only thing I can. I turn my attention inward, and try to block it out.
Every time a blow lands and the white swallows everything, I focus on their names.
Therin. Vel. Serath. Caelum. Vessara. Sorel. Kaelith … Cairn.
My father’s mage, and his soldiers can do whatever they want to my body, but they won’t get this from me.
Not their names. Not their faces. And not anything that will track back to them or the humans who helped them.
Oh gods. The village. Brennan will send men. If they don’t leave, they’ll all be killed.
I have to trust that Cairn will protect them. He won’t let anything happen to the fae or the humans who live there.
I hold onto that thought until white is swallowed by black, and the pain is replaced with emptiness.
When consciousness returns, I’m lying on the floor, my cheek pressed against the stone. I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here. Long enough that when I try to think about moving, the thought arrives and … just sits there. The action itself is too difficult for my body to do.
My face feels wrong on one side. Swollen and tight, as though the skin might split if I open my mouth too wide. It hurts when I breathe. Everything hurts, so I stop trying to catalog it because the effort makes my head swim and the darkness threaten again.
I think my mind drifts. I’m not sure. One moment I’m lying here, then everything goes quiet and dark, and then I’m back again.
I have no way of knowing how much time passes during those times, but when I finally come round enough to stay conscious the blood coating my lips and damaged eye has dried and cracked.
An ache radiates through my jaw and skull with every intake of breath. I think my ribs are broken—the pain is similar to what I remember from when Cairn first got free. My wrists are bloodied and bruised.
And my head … My head feels like it’s been scraped from the inside by razor-sharp claws.
I draw in a careful breath and close my one functioning eye. I’m scared to touch the other. I don’t want to know how bad it is.
Instead, I lie in the dark and wonder why my father has allowed this to happen. Why does he hate the fae so much that he’s willing to see his daughter beaten and tortured for daring to speak up against their treatment?
My mind continues to float, and at the edges of my awareness I feel it—the barrier Cairn built. It’s wrapped around my mind, and I lean into it. As soon as I touch it, my breathing changes, slowing to something more normal.
It wasn’t my imagination.
Cairn was here. Inside my mind. He built this to protect me and it still holds, even though his presence has gone.
I move along the wall, imagining my hand trailing the length of it, and it thrums beneath my palm with an awareness that makes me feel less alone.
I stay there, clinging to the bond the same way I held onto the names, while my body curves around itself trying to reduce the pain in my ribs.
My damaged eye throbs. The sound of my breathing is raspy and loud in the silence of the cell.
Beyond that, distant footsteps echo along the hallways of these lower chambers where I’ve been locked away.
Are they going to forget about me and leave me here to die? What reasons for my absence will my father give? Will he bother saying anything at all, or will he tell the lords and ladies of the court the truth … or his version of the truth, anyway?
I shift on the floor, trying to find a more comfortable position.
I can’t stop shivering. I don’t know if it’s because of the cold or the pain.
With careful movements, I draw my knees up, and loop my arms around my legs, trying to warm myself.
The action sends pain flaring through my body, leaving me gasping for breath.
A sound I swallow when voices reach my ears, seconds before the lock clicks and the hinges creak.
Through my closed eyes, the dark becomes a little lighter as torchlight comes in from outside. I’m not given a chance to see who it is before hands close around my arms and haul me upright.
I cry out, my legs buckling, and my one good eye snaps open. A mistake when the room tilts, my stomach lurches, and I vomit all over the floor. Two of the guards jump back. One holds me up. None of them say a word.
They just stand there, watching, while I empty the contents of my stomach at their feet.
“Please,” I whimper. The word comes out slurred. My tongue feels too big for my mouth.
I don’t even know what I’m pleading for. A moment to catch my breath? Mercy? It doesn’t matter. Their only response is to adjust their grip and drag me out of the cell.
I can’t feel my legs properly. It’s the strangest feeling. I know they’re there. I can see them moving when I open my eye, but it’s as though they’re attached to someone else. Someone who stumbles more than once, and would fall to the ground if not for the guards’ grip.
I keep my gaze on the floor, trying to track where we are, but my mind keeps sliding away, losing the thread then finding it again half a step later.
East wing. There are stairs coming. I know this route.
The stairs are bad. I stifle pained sobs that the guards ignore.
I’m glad, because I’m not sure I could bear it if they didn’t.
I purposely don’t look at them. I don’t want to recognize them as men I’ve spoken to, grown up surrounded by.
I’d rather they were hostile strangers, so I do everything I can to avoid seeing their faces.
When the third stair from the top creaks, my heart skips a beat. I know that sound. I know this hallway. I know the door at the end of it.
What I don’t know is whether I should be scared or relieved about where they’ve brought me.
One of the guards knocks, and a voice I’ve known since childhood calls out for them to enter. The door swings open and warmth spills out. The guards holding me up start forward, guiding me into the room and across to one of the armchairs. They ease me down into it, then turn to face their captain.
My eye latches onto Brennan as he nods to his men. “Thank you. You can leave.”
The guards salute him and file out without a single glance in my direction.
Once the door closes behind them, Brennan moves across the room.
My gaze follows him as he walks to a side table and lifts the lid off a pot sitting there.
He ladles some of the contents into a bowl, then carries it across to where I’m sitting.
Placing it on the small table near my right side, he turns to drag another armchair over until it’s facing me.
I’m not really sure what to do or say. This is Brennan. I’ve known him my entire life. Yet over the past few days, I’ve discovered I don’t really know him at all.
“Eat something. After everything you’ve been through, your body needs food.” He uses the soft, coaxing tone I’ve known since childhood. “Eat, and we can talk.”
I don’t move.
“I’m sorry, Alleria. None of this is what your father wanted. He’s frightened. He doesn’t know how to—” He gives a small shake of his head. “Please eat something. Then I’ll call for a healer.” He leans forward, one hand reaching toward the bowl.
“I don’t want it.” I slur the words. My jaw doesn’t want to work properly, and the left side of my face isn’t moving the way it should.
Brennan freezes, one hand outstretched. His eyes flicker, and he lowers his lashes, masking the expression in them.
“You need to eat. Your body has been through something very traumatic, and—”
“My body was perfectly fine until your men broke it.” The accusation spills out before I can stop it.
His jaw tightens, and his fingers curl against his thigh, then he sighs.
“You must understand, Alleria.” He measures each word carefully.
“Your father was upset. I was upset. The mage couldn’t get through whatever that creature did to you.
They can’t break the spell it has you under.
” His lips twist as his gaze moves over my battered face.
“But the guards were a little … over-enthusiastic in following their orders. It won’t happen again. ”
I stare at him, trying to ignore the way the warmth from the fire chases the chill from my bones. I want to relax into the chair so badly, I’m shaking with the effort of holding still.
The smell of the soup in the bowl near my elbow teases my senses. It’s rich and salty, making my mouth water and my stomach gurgle.
Gods, I want it so much. I’m so hungry.
“Eat the soup, Alleria.”
My eye snaps to him as he leans forward again. Lifting the spoon, he brings it to my mouth. I press my lips together.