Chapter 17
We travel for hours without stopping. The pace is slow because the rest of the stolen are walking, while the other Core fae watch the group, riding up and down the line. The Piper keeps his horse at the front and keeps me stuck in the saddle with him.
We haven’t spoken.
Which gives me plenty of time to think and go through possible escape scenarios. But I know that fleeing and surviving all comes down to knowing the enemy.
Like Theo said, the Piper is probably the most famous Core fae in all of Brekon. Stories have painted plenty of pictures of him over the years, because his magic is so compelling. Ripe with possibilities for how he could use such a power for both good and bad.
But . . . he can’t be the Piper without his pipe. So that means his magic is limited. I’m mad at myself for botching the attempt to steal it. It was stupid. Impulsive.
I can’t be either of those things around him.
It’s going to take more than grit to get out from his clutches. And that’s worrying, considering the state I’m in. It’s also worrying because I have no idea what’s in store for us.
The longer we travel, the more anxious I become.
He said we would get to his territory today, but even I know we’re nowhere near Penbroge City.
I want to ask how we’re getting there, but I refuse to engage in any conversation with him.
Which is difficult, not just because of the questions sloshing in my skull, but because riding a horse for hours on end hurts.
My thighs ache, my butt has gone numb, and my muscles are tangled with knots from the strain of staying upright. And he’s never removed the rope from my wrist, so I’m still attached to the saddle. I could use some distraction, but there are none, except the thoughts in my head.
When the pain starts bearing down more forcefully, I try to scooch around to get comfortable. I adjust my position, but nothing helps to take away my aches. I need to get off this damn horse. I shift again, grimacing.
His voice suddenly shatters the quiet. “Stop. Moving.”
“Is that all you’re going to say to me?” I snap back, my ode to silence ruined. “Last night, it was stop shaking. Now I can’t even move on the saddle?”
“Not when your ass is up against my groin.”
I freeze, bones going to ice. Muscles glacial. All the blood in my veins turns to slush.
But him? Full blaze.
Now that he’s pointed it out, my entire focus drills down to the fact that I am between his thighs. Notched up against his groin and soaking up his heat.
So distracted with my discomforts, with my hate, I hadn’t really paid attention.
Now, I can’t notice anything else.
His irritation turns porous, making me absorb every word he unleashes. “For the last hour, you’ve been squirming and grinding—”
“I did not grind!” I say, horrified. “If you won’t let me walk, then let me go ride with someone else. The Needle will do. Maybe I can get her to stab me through the heart and be done with it. Or I’ll take the strong guy. He seems better company than you.”
His hand flexes over the reins, like he wants to squeeze me to a pulp. “No. I won’t burden anyone else with you, and I have the strongest horse. Now, stop moving or I’ll throw you out of the saddle and leave you to drag.”
I scoff. “Toss your threats. I don’t care.”
“Toss your disdain. I don’t care either.”
“At least my disdain is justified.”
He doesn’t offer a reply to that other than to flex his fist again. I stare down at his forearm where he’s rolled up the sleeve of his tunic. His muscles are tense with his grip, fingers tight around the reins.
“What’s this?” he asks, suddenly snatching my hand and flattening my fingers. He pinches them together, getting a better look at the burnt orange color streaking down my fingernails.
“Stained from dye,” I spit scathingly, before wrenching my hand out from his grip. “I work at a paper mill.”
“Worked,” he retorts.
Clenching my teeth, I curl my hands around the horn of the saddle, inwardly raging as I shut my mouth and stare straight ahead.
* * *
Hours later, the Needle’s magic has completely dried up. Pain throbs down my back, and I can feel the wetness gathered there, so I know I’ve soaked through my bandages again.
Getting kidnapped is terrible for open wounds.
But I don’t say a word, and I bite back every whimper that wants to escape. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of complaining, when it’s already clear how much he detests my injuries.
The forest festers around us, spread like its own infection. When I first entered it, I thought it beautiful. Now, I’m so sick of it that the sight turns my stomach.
We come to a break in the trees just as sunfall begins swelling in the sky. The red lump of the sun is searing past the pollution and casting us in fiery light.
“We’re here.”
We’ve been silent for so long that the Piper’s announcement makes me jump. Then I look around in confusion, trying to figure out what here means. There’s no city in the distance, no sea and boat. Nothing but more forest.
“What do you mean,we’re here?”
He doesn’t answer, and brings the horse to a stop right in front of the clearing. Something in the air has me pausing. Something charged, like the static that clings to your scalp right before a lightning strike.
Then I notice the seven large cairns that surround the clearing. The stacked stones are nearly as tall as the horses. In the center of them are thick vines trailing over the grass, so knotted it’s like they’ve knitted themselves into a blanket.
“Is this some sort of trap?” I ask. It looks like a hidden net of rope that hunters use to catch unsuspecting prey, though much larger.
“Of a sort.”
Well, that sounds great.
The Piper gets down off his horse, but he doesn’t release the reins. I drop my eyes to them, wondering if I can snatch them up and send the horse into a gallop.
“Don’t even try it.”
My gaze snaps to the Piper’s face, and warmth tinges my cheeks at how easily he read me.
I’m supposed to be the one who can read people.
He glares at me for another heartbeat and then turns away, ignoring me completely. The rest of the group gathers around, but no one steps past the stacked rocks. Some unspoken knowledge seems to keep them back, the cairns given a wide berth.
When the other Core gather, the Piper speaks to Lacera. “Everyone accounted for?”
She bobs her head. “All one hundred and thirty.”
I look over the group of the kidnapped, only to find a lot of them are staring at me. Stars flare to life all at once from many of them, and I try to rip my gaze away, but it’s too late. Words bombard me, tangling in my skull like frayed threads.
I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the overflow to stop, my head zinging with a blip of pain behind my eyes. Slowly, the words go muffled before dissipating completely. As soon as they do, I gingerly peel my eyes open again, losing the tail end of whatever the Core fae discussed.
Frid has swung his horse around to speak to everyone, and I catch the rest of it. “Step into the clearing one at a time, and we will be taken to Penbroge.”
People look around at each other with wary confusion, questions muttering between them. One man is brave enough to speak up, and I recognize it as the same fiend who jumped overboard. “Take us to Penbroge how? We’re not anywhere close to your territory.”
“You’ll see,” Frid replies.
“Is this place . . . magic?” a woman calls out.
I glance at the clearing again, my gaze jumping over the stacked rocks. I still feel that tingling in the air, and I think the woman might be right. There’s magic here, though I’m not sure how I know. It’s just a feeling.
Instead of answering, Garren tosses his scowl toward the crowd. I bet my aunt could go toe-to-toe with him. “Line up and start walking into the clearing. Get going!”
Some of the stolen shift on their feet, and I feel their dismay surging.
“What will you do to us once we get there?”
My eyes snap to Kaetir, his question spearing through the group with defiance and landing at the Piper’s feet.
The Piper steps forward, and my grip tightens on the saddle, my heart bumping against my ribs.
“Enough.” His hand drops to the scabbard at his belt, fingers tapping the black instrument, and everyone falls silent.
It doesn’t matter if we don’t want to go.
The Piper will make us do whatever he wants.
No one should have that kind of power.
With a hopeless procession, they begin to move forward in their line. A fiend man is at the very front and he’s visibly shaking, sweat gathered at his top lip. He goes past the stones and steps onto the woven vines.
My hands wring together with nerves.
The trees that circle the space seem to stand like guards around him, the vines stitched tight, deflating beneath his footsteps. Just as he reaches the very center of the space, he chokes on a gulp, body going rigid.
And then he disappears.
A cry of surprise rings out. The next fae, who was right behind him, tries to turn and rush away, but Frid is there to shove him back. He lands in a heap at the center, and he too vanishes. Then another person. Another.
A little fiend boy cries in the arms of his mother, while another pair of fae women clutch hands, their bodies shaking.
I worry my lip when I see Theo is next. His face is grim and as pale as a ghost. He shoots Kaetir a look behind him, and then he gets swallowed by the magic too.
Kaetir trips over one of the vines and starts to fall, but disappears before he can land.
I feel sick.
The Piper comes over, wrenching my attention away when he reaches up and hauls me off the horse. I hiss in pain from the movement, and he pauses, gaze swinging over me, and his lips press together in a firm line.
I can practically hear the words damaged goods spitting from his tongue.
He takes hold of the other end of the rope still bound to the saddle and tugs. “Come,” he says as he leads me forward, ignoring the livid curse I toss at his back.
My teeth chatter with anxiety, and my skin itches from the crackling air. I try to stop, but he has a firm grip on the rope.
“Please,” I beg, nerves spiking. “I don’t want to go.”
Another fae disappears, and then the Piper cuts in front of the line.
I try to pull away, but my wrist burns as he hauls me forward.
My breath pinches as we reach the center.
I open my mouth to let out a shout, but before I can, my existence pops like a bubble.
I’m sucked in, away from the forest with a weight that suffocates me.
For a moment, I’m stuck in pure panic, body gone, mind spilling.
Whatever magic this is, it chews me up until I feel like I’m being masticated by the ether, and then it finally spits me back out. I land hard on my hands and knees, dizzy and spent. Sputtering, I sag against a tiled ground, and when I lift my head, I gasp.
The Piper doesn’t even bother to look down at me as I stagger to my feet and take in the vast area of grass and shrubs. We’re outdoors, on a pathway that arcs up slightly, like a vein beneath the skin.
Marble tiles are set upon the bowed earth, and when I look up and down its length, I see the path isn’t quite straight. A wall of hedges runs along the right side, and white pillars go down the left. Some pillars are fluffed with moss, some wound with vines, some cracked with age.
“What was that?” I ask breathlessly.
“A tapped leyline,” the Piper says, finally deigning to look at me as he reaches over and leads me off the tiled ground, past a pillar and onto the grass.
My eyes widen as I look back at it. “A leyline? But they don’t exist anymore. Not since Brekon cracked.”
That was part of the magic we lost. Before the core burst, leylines were the veins that branched throughout all of Brekon, but they dried up, cutting fae off from transportive magic.
“An allied Core fae of mine can tap into some of the original lines and pull them back up into use. Makes travel quite convenient.”
“And nauseating,” I mumble, holding my hand over my stomach as I try to soothe it.
When I turn away from the leyline and face forward, my eyes go wide.
Past the smooth expanse of grass, the grounds dip down, and in the distance, I spot a breathtaking mountain coated with a foam of green.
Between the mountain and me lies a city.
From here, I can overlook the entire thing, see the winding roads that look as smooth as water, and the gray buildings that rise with rooftops scorched from the sunlight.
Tucked around it is a tufted forest and a glittering lake that looks almost as big as Dolven Bay.
It’s undeniably beautiful.
The last of the stolen come through, as do the other Core fae and the horses.
When we’re all accounted for, the Piper leads the way, stringing me along like a fish on a pole.
We veer from the pillared path, passing posted guards dressed in silver armor and gray leather cloaks.
Once we go around the tall hedges and trees, I see a castle across the lawn that takes my breath away.
I thought Lord Havlon’s manor was over the top, but it’s nothing compared to this. This castle could hold Havlon’s house ten times over and still have land to stretch. It looks ancient but well-kept, the mossy gray stone and twisting vines only adding to its charm.
“This is where you live?”
The Piper nods. “Penbroge Castle.”
We’re led through a garden that smells of soil and greenery, past a gazebo carved with frilled loops upon every beam. Then we approach the sprawling castle, and it all feels so wrong.
Because a place this beautiful shouldn’t belong to such a monster.