Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kane
Acaden stood across from me, staring at the war map, discussing the dead humans I had found, including the one who looked eerily like Deirdre, birthmark and all. “I've sent men to retrieve the human female you spoke of, Your Majesty. We’ll return her to their king. The rest will be buried.”
I leaned over the wooden table, examining the map of Saol etched into the giant landscape.
Wooden figures of the different kings and notable leaders of the lands were strategically placed.
The ancient model held both the surface and underground regions with the Life Tree in the center of it all.
Magic infused the structure, making it easy to move the pawns around the table.
I took one of the hunched figures representing the twisted and placed it on the fae settlement I had just been to.
“This is the farthest the Lich King has come in years. Why is he advancing now?” I looked at the different areas the Lich King had infiltrated. Always skirmishes on smaller settlements as he picked off the weaker ones one by one.
“You should meet with the human king.”
“We're still further away from any real conflict. This could have been a…” I paused, rethinking my words.
What could it have been? And why were humans there?
There was no love between our kind, not in the past few centuries.
“We need to wait and see who that girl was in that camp and why she looked like Deirdre.”
Tapping my fingers along the wooden edge of the table, I questioned whether I did have the right woman.
No. The way she fought, how she sacrificed her freedom to save her husband. If she wasn’t the child of prophecy, wouldn’t she have mentioned that?
A tinge of guilt swept through my thoughts when I thought of that day. Yes, I expected a fight, but death was not my intention. Pity her husband wouldn’t listen.
“Your Majesty,” Acaden said, hands pressed against the opposite side of the table. “We don't have enough fae to keep the land safe from the Lich King and fight the humans.”
In that, my trusted companion was right.
Someone banged on the door. “Your Majesty!"
No one had the audacity to disturb us unless it was an emergency. “Enter.”
The door opened and my chamberlain walked in, his stuffy black tunic making him seem more human than goblin.
“You know that I'm not to be disturbed when Acaden and I are in here.”
“I'm sorry, Your Majesty,” Gitz said, tapping his green fingers against each other. “We have an issue. Needs your immediate attention.”
Acaden, always ready to fight, moved around the table, his hand immediately going to the hilt of his blade.
“Well, what is it?” I said, knowing my golden commander would not sit idly for long if a threat was near.
“You, see?” the goblin stumbled on his words. “The… the… human has gone missing. We found her guards asleep.”
“What? I'm gone one day, and she's escaped?”
“Well, not really,” he continued. “See, there are no signs of escape. She agreed to wear the collar and her room was unlocked?” He ended it in a question.
“I gave Liora strict instructions to leave the human in the spire.” I ran a hand down my face, the past day's events draining me. “Have the men search the grounds and entire mountaintop. She couldn't have gotten far.”
When Gitz didn't respond, I folded my arms and leaned against the table. “I'm sorry. Maybe I misheard you. Did she escape or not?”
Holding his bulbous chin high, he said, “We believe she is in the palace.”
“Okay…” Acaden and I shared a questioning glance. “And why do we think she's still in the palace?”
The chamberlain cleared his throat, loosening the top button of his tunic. “We may have a witness.”
He whistled, and a bright light flew into the room. Will-o’-the-wisps were finicky little creatures. They were harmless unless they were agitated and when in a good mood, they were very pleasant houseguests.
Befriending a will-o’-the-wisp was considered a great honor, almost as grand as having a pixie call you a friend.
I didn’t know if will-o’-the-wisps were always drawn to the castle, but they had loved my mother, especially when she would cast illusionary rainbows across the room for them to dance on.
I held out my hand, and the wisp landed on it. Its body glowed, making its features almost indistinguishable. Two black eyes blinked within the golden glow.
“Did you see something?” I asked.
It nodded its head.
“Show me.”
The wisp flew out the door and I turned to Acaden. “Make sure the mess in that fae settlement is cleaned up. We're not ready for a war, as you said.”
Acaden nodded. “It will be done.”
I followed the creature through the castle. It darted down the royal wing, passing the servants’ quarters. Its light cast flickering shadows, the only movement in the quiet castle.
When had the halls become so silent?
My sister’s laugh echoed in my memory. Laoise, the youngest of my half-sisters, had filled the castle with such joy that it was hard to frown in her presence.
If I closed my eyes and thought hard enough, I could hear it, as if she were right beside me.
A growing sadness filled the fae court when she died, and then an empty silence invaded every stone once my mother left.
I couldn’t bring back the laughter because it wasn’t in me.
The wisp whistled, buzzing around my face.
“Sorry,” I said. “Sometimes I can still hear her.”
With a high-pitched coo, the wisp flew in tight patterns until a glowing outline of Laoise hovered in front of me.
“Yes.” The word left my lips in a sorrow-filled tone.
I walked through the image of my dead sister, causing the wisp to zip in front of me.
When it began taking the stairs down to the dungeon, I hesitated.
“She went this way?”
The creature bobbed up and down in the air, its glow brightening.
“You're sure of it?”
It bobbed again, this time whispering like a low teakettle.
I followed the wisp down toward the dungeon, where it stopped at the wooden doors.
Would the human even still be alive?
Redcaps made wonderful wardens, but they could also be troublesome if unwanted prey crept on their grounds, and since humans were exiled from the palace, I had a feeling I was about to walk into an unsettling situation.
“Thank you,” I said to the wisp. “Now go.”
The creature flew down the dark hallway that led outside.
I looked around and found a candlestick on the floor.
This human was a thorn in my side that dug deeper with every day.
If she had managed to get herself killed and word escaped that the fae king had killed the child of prophecy, the humans would be furious, and any trade would most certainly be put to a stop.
Opening the wooden doors, I stormed into the dungeon, steeling myself for any unpleasantries I was about to find.
Depending on the mood of the redcaps, she may still be alive, or she may already be in their bellies. I hoped for her sake they weren't hungry.
Two redcaps stood at the entrance to the cells, their hatchets pointed to block the entrance. As I approached, they immediately lifted their weapons, allowing me to enter.
A small staircase went down into an open room with a myriad of torture devices. I preferred not to look at the various barred cells lining the walls and the skeletal remains still sitting locked in there.
The warden sharpened his blade on a large stone wheel.
“Where's the human?”
It turned to me, its red eyes questioning. The only reason the redcaps respected me was not because I was their king, but because I was part dragon, and they had a strange fascination with my kind.
The redcap turned its head to a cell far in the corner. We didn't keep many prisoners here. They never lasted long.
“Give me the keys.” I held out my hand.
The warden unhooked the black iron keychain and handed it over, then went back to sharpening his weapon. I noticed his blade had blood on it—never a good sign.
The light from the hanging lanterns on the wall barely let me see inside with my natural eyesight. Deirdre huddled in the corner as far from the gate as possible. Blood covered the front of her gown, ruining the white material.
I unlocked the cell and tossed the key aside.
She flinched; her red-rimmed eyes were wide with fear.
I held up my hands, noticing the various cuts on her arms and the jagged one along her collarbone.
A rage burned in my chest, skin shifting from pale flesh to scales. I swung around to face my warden. “You dared to cut her?”
The redcap slowed his sharpening, looking at me, unafraid and unbothered.
“Do you realize who is in your cell?” I said.
“Human scum,” he replied.
Before another word left those bloodthirsty lips, I called a black blade to my right hand, turning my shadows into a weapon, and I shoved it through his ignorant face.
There was another redcap in the back of the room, feet up on a chair, sleeping. It woke, astonished that I'd killed the warden.
“Any of you touch her again and I'll kill you all.”
Pointing to the now awake gnome, I said, “You're in charge, and next time any of you decide to take someone from my castle, you better make sure it's with my authority. Clean up this mess.”
The gnome scrambled to the dead warden and dragged it away.
Dismissing the shadows, I turned to her. She trembled against the wall, her arms wrapped around herself in a protective hold.
Once, I’d cowered like that, shaking with fear in a corner. But where I had the comforting hum of a pixie, Deirdre only had me.
A shadow-wielding king who had just killed her husband.
“How bad are you hurt?” I said, kneeling in front of her.
“Just scrapes. Get me out of here.”
I held up my hand for her to take and she, of course, ignored it. Wobbling, she used the wall to support herself and stand.