Chapter 31
The threshold of the door is veiled with something when they pass through—a dark fog that insulates them, deadens every sound. The clamour of the Citadel is barely there as Torver and Bassen push through the hazy darkness.
When they emerge on the other side, Torver’s jaw and fists clench.
The room is as large and opulent as the rest of the Citadel’s upper levels.
But it’s untouched by the destruction. King Dunmail sits atop a filigreed dais, lounging on an intricately carved wooden throne.
The marble floors beneath are polished to a shine and they offer up a perfect reflection of the iron cage at the centre of the room.
A familiar dent deforms one of the bars and there are brackets at the bottom where the cage once had wheels.
The same iron cage that wheeled Wast to his doom; the same iron cage that has transported countless people to their deaths at the hands of the Meddera.
And in that cage is Lavellin, burning.
Dunmail has removed its shoes and stripped it to its undergarments.
The air is thick with the scent of seared flesh.
The fae hops from foot to foot, falling over itself, yowling and keening.
Its voice is raw and before Bassen’s hands can reach out and stop him, Torver rushes to the cage, his feet slapping on the marble.
“Lavellin, I’m here—I’ll get you out—did he—”
His heart twists inside him at the look of surprise on its agonised face. There are harsh red lines all over its perfect body where it’s fallen into the iron, been branded and scorched.
“You came.”
Tears well in Lavellin’s eyes even as the meat of its heels sizzles against the cage’s iron floor. Up close, the smell is overpowering.
“Despite your best efforts.” Torver’s voice wobbles.
He rips his shirt from his body and pushes it through the bars for Lavellin to stand on, to provide some respite from the insidious metal.
Lavellin rushes to get the cloth under and Torver presses himself against the bars, reaching in with both hands.
“Of course I would come for you, I’m—just—” He sniffs loudly, taking its hands in his, squeezing them hard. “Don’t you ever control me like that again, you hear? And how could you not tell me that you’re fae royalty? And—”
Dunmail clears his throat and Torver’s bubble bursts around him.
“I did wonder what all that racket was about,” Dunmail rises from his languid position atop his wooden throne—not gold, like Torver would’ve expected. Everything else in these levels seems to be gold. “Even through my veils and wards, I could hear you tearing apart my Citadel. Rather rude.”
Dunmail approaches the cage and Torver bristles. He straightens, suddenly very aware that he is shirtless.
“I only wonder how that creature is alive again. Did I not kill it right the first time?” Dunmail drawls. “I’ll have to try harder,” he muses, speaking slowly like he has all the time in the world.
Like he knows something Torver doesn’t.
“I suppose I underestimated the bond,” Dunmail adds, drawling.
Torver opens his mouth to speak, but instead, he flinches when Dunmail conjures more rowanwood with a sudden click of his fingers.
Not a cage this time, but a pillory that appears from the shimmering air, locking in place around Bassen’s wrists and neck. She gasps at the weight of it, spluttering when leaning back in shock makes the wood press hard across her windpipe.
Anger roils inside the dragon rider.
He growls, turning his fiery gaze on Dunmail.
“You shouldn’t underestimate me.” His eyes catch on Lavellin, ears pricking up at the sound of Bassen’s clunking struggles with the pillory. “I’ve been doing it for years, and I’ve learned it wasn’t the best use of my time.”
Torver reaches for the lock on the front of the iron cage, but Dunmail reacts loudly, reprimanding him as if he’s a child.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Dunmail’s voice is low. It reverberates over Torver’s skin as the Forever King shakes his head, unsheathing a blade from his jewelled belt.
“I should never have let you get near my cairn,” Dunmail twirls the blade in his hand. “You’re turning out to be a greater pain than I’d anticipated. Although, I suppose it was worth it to have the heir of the Rath walk right into my hands…”
Hoping that Dunmail is distracted by his own monologue, Torver reaches for the lock once more. But the ancient man moves like lightning, brandishing a streak of silver from his hip.
Torver darts out of the way of the blade, but it doesn’t come for him. Dunmail stabs at Lavellin, who leaps just in time out of the way, landing against the bars of the cage, whimpering when it’s branded shoulder to elbow with a smoking, red welt. The hiss of burned flesh rends the air.
“I told you not to do that.” Dunmail towers over Torver, smoke coiling from his fingertips, radiating from his skin.
He holds up the dagger in his hand.
“You can do an awful lot of damage to a fae with an iron blade,” he says. His eyes darken. “But I think your friend already knows that.”
Dunmail sends a coil of smoke into the cage that pulls Lavellin towards him by the throat. Torver’s teeth clamp down on his lip, watching as Dunmail grabs a fist of his love’s copper hair, slamming its perfect face against the bars. He points the dagger at its mouth, open in a strangled cry.
“Don’t you think the Rhegedian heir would look better with more marks of disgrace?” He smirks. “How many should I do? Four? Six? How much disgrace do you think it deserves?”
The tip of the blade is a hair’s breadth from Lavellin’s scars, but Dunmail stops above the surface of its skin. His crazed eyes glitter in satisfaction when he looks at Torver and it’s clear that his distraction has hit its target.
Because for a moment, Torver doubts himself, just how he used to.
He looks at Levellin. And it looks away.
“What—?” Torver looks at Dunmail, finds no explanation—only a wide grin between cracked lips. Drool coating the man’s crooked teeth. One of his ancient eyes twitching.
“Disgrace.” Torver says slowly. He turns his furrowed brow toward the cage, and steps beside Bassen, pushing up on the underside of wood around her throat to relieve her. “He said that under the cairn too.”
Lavellin won’t look at him. It stares ahead, eyes glistening, and Torver feels scared for the first time since he bonded with his Beast.
Dunmail laughs. A horrible, croaking sound.
“What are marks of disgrace?” Torver lowers his voice, is surprised when the words come out sounding cold. “What does he mean?”
Dunmail laughs again at the wide-eyed panic on Lavellin’s face.
“Tell him,” he sneers. “Tell him what you told me. Let’s see how eager he is to rescue you then. Maybe he’ll even join my side and we can eradicate all you filthy fae together…”
Dunmail wafts his dagger around with one hand and uses the other to throw Lavellin to the floor. The noise it makes is hoarse and desperate when its bare hands touch the iron floor of the cage.
It pushes itself up and returns to the safe haven of Torver’s shirt. It holds its hands out in front of it, looking him in the eye, finally.
The skin of its hands is blistered red and black, and somewhere to the side of him, Torver hears Bassen gasp.
“Lavellin…” Torver swallows hard. He wants so badly to reach out and take the fae in his arms but doubt and despair gnaw at him in equal measure as he glances side-eye at Dunmail. “What does he mean?”
Lavellin inhales a long and shuddering breath.
“Marks of disgrace,” it says slowly, reaching for its face with its ruined hands. “The scars on my face, given by an iron blade—I already told you this, Torver.”
“But there’s more—isn’t there?” Torver frowns.
Lavellin’s jaw hardens.
Then, at last, “Eveling gave them to me. Deep.” It swallows hard. “So the scars won’t ever fade. So I’ll always be marked by what I did.”
Torver’s pulse quickens. Dunmail chuckles in satisfaction.
“And what did you do?” Torver swallows.
There’s a silence in which Dunmail taps his foot on the cool marble floor.
“Tell him,” He taps his blade against the cage bars. “It made for very interesting listening when I beat it out of you.”
Lavelin’s eyes glisten, glazed with unshed tears.
“Don’t hate me, Torver,” it says quietly. “Please don’t hate me. I didn’t keep it from you to deceive you, I kept it from you out of shame. I was so ashamed of my people, what I found out we were doing—then before I knew it, I was part of it! The worst part of it. It’s all my fault.”
“Lavellin, you’re scaring me.”
The fae inhales.
“I let the changelings go.”
Torver’s stomach drops. “Changelings are real?”
The silence that follows is excruciating. The stench of burnt flesh hangs in the air as Lavellin looks away.
“Every year—the God Rite….” Its voice is small. “It’s how the fae maintain the favour of the gods, how we keep our many magics. Why they don’t release a dragon on Rheged,” it speaks to the ground, its burnt feet.
“I fucking knew it.” Anger moves inside Torver like the crash of a waterfall, drowning out his reason. “I asked you about that, Lavellin. I asked you about changelings and you lied to me!”
“No! I—”
“Oh, sorry,” he hisses. “I forgot! Fae can’t lie! You glamoured the truth. What other truths did you glamour, Lavellin?”
His furious gaze is caught by a single teardrop that falls from Lavellin’s eye and splashes onto its front. Dunmail steps back on his heels, satisfied by what he has wrought between them. Torver exchanges a heavy look with Bassen.
“Every year,” it continues, voice shaking. “Eveling commands fae courtiers to cross the border into the People’s Kingdom. It’s treated like a sport, an art, to go there and not get caught. To steal a child and make it back. I thought… I thought that’s all it was.”
Torver’s pulse continues to race, the throb of it in his temples.