Chapter 28
Xavi recognized the smell first—pepper, sulphur, and damp stone.
Fae magic.
But this time, it was accompanied by neither wood smoke nor tea.
The room they found themselves in was still round, but it was no longer a small, cozy, home-like space with cushioned chairs or a roaring fire.
It was cold stone, with high walls illuminated by torches that burned with icy blue flames.
In the center of the floor was a strange pattern that also glowed with pale blue light, and at the center of that pattern?
The fae who’d consigned them to these cursed trials.
Or was it? She smelled the same. Her eyes were the same, and yet…
She no longer appeared as a wizened old woman.
Her hair remained white, but she seemed to have grown until she was at least as tall as Ryn.
The swirling silver patterns on her skin glowed even brighter, and the staff in her hand was no longer gnarled or stumpy, but smooth and tipped with a softly glowing gem.
Either she had determined there was no more need to hide her power and her intentions, or something about these trials was feeding her strength.
Xavi glanced down at Ryn. Scanned her form. She appeared unhurt, though slightly bewildered.
“What do you mean, treason?” she echoed shakily. “You said we needed to pass your trials to break the curse. We’re doing everything we can, but I must say, this method of transportation is very disorienting.”
Before Xavi could respond, a familiar voice burst frantically into the silence of his mind.
Xavi? Can you hear me? Please talk to me.
Kel. Wherever they were, it must be close enough to the mountain for them to speak mind to mind.
I can hear you. Are you well?
I have never been less so, Kel replied, and even in his mental voice, Xavi could detect the fire of his frustration and anger.
I cannot see what is happening, but neither have I fallen back into sleep—not since the moment you disappeared from my chamber.
I know that you have taken on an even greater burden for my sake.
And now the human as well… Lady Camryn has already sacrificed far too much.
I beg you to convince her to stop now and save herself.
He expressed the very same sentiments that Xavi had when Ryn declared her intention to break the curse. But now, for the first time in many centuries, Xavi found himself bristling with anger towards the man he considered closer than a brother.
She chose this, Kel, just as I did. Do not cheapen her sacrifice by trying to take away her choices.
Perhaps it was only because he’d watched her confront her family—and those pompous old men at her university—that he finally understood.
Ryn had spent her whole life fighting for the right to choose her future.
Hoping to be understood, but willing to go her way alone if necessary.
She’d endured setback after setback, roadblock after roadblock, and then simply gone around and found her own way forward.
All with that absurdly cheerful and indomitable spirit.
Knowing what he now did, Xavi would never again be the one who stood in her way. Even if she walked into danger with her head held high, she deserved the right to make that choice for herself.
If she wants to see this through, I will remain by her side and clear her path. No matter what she chooses, no matter what path she takes, I will fight to ensure she survives.
It would be his purpose and his atonement. Not merely because of all he owed to Kel and to the brides who had gone before, but because of Ryn herself.
Xavi. Kel’s voice echoed with pain and regret.
You know I never meant for you to be bound to me all those years ago.
The promise you made my father… You have more than repaid his sacrifice.
You are the only family I have left, the truest friend, and the one person I trust with everything that I am.
Please. I don’t want to watch you sacrifice anything further for my sake.
Did Kel know something he did not?
Xavi turned an ear towards Ryn and the fae, who seemed to have been arguing the entire time.
“You can’t blame us for that,” Ryn snapped. “They’re your trials. Your own silly curse. Xavi followed me into this so he could defend me, and now you’re complaining because he did exactly what he said he was going to do?”
“Do you think I am blind?” the fae woman replied smoothly. “Did you truly believe no one would ever know, or that you could somehow cheat the curse and not pay the price?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The enchantress threw her head back and laughed before eyeing Ryn with a cruel smirk. “Friends?”
Xavi watched in confusion as Ryn’s face utterly changed. Went ashen, then crimson, then expressionless.
“So you’re watching us,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t know how, but you’re spying on everything we do and say.”
“These trials were formed by my own magic and the strength of my intentions. My heart and my lifeblood are contained within their toils. How could I not be aware?”
Xavi still could not understand why either of them would be so upset by that word. So he had admitted to a friendship with Ryn. It had shocked and annoyed him at first, but now he no longer minded.
“Who we choose to befriend is no one’s concern but our own,” he informed the fae icily. “You have no power to change it.”
“Nevertheless, this connection between you must be immediately renounced,” she countered sternly.
“Lest you risk it turning to more and thereby betray your king before these trials are even concluded. With the outcome of four lives at stake, I must insist that you relinquish your feelings for one another.”
Xavi stepped closer, ready to place himself between the enemy and Ryn as his own magic burned cold with rage.
“I will never betray my king,” he said, his tone soft and deadly.
“And while you might be able to pull us here against our will, you cannot control what we choose to feel, or whom we choose to protect.”
“Then I will ensure that you make a different choice,” the fae returned. “By force, if necessary.”
The hairs on Xavi’s neck suddenly rose as power choked the air. Before he could move or cry out, the floor beneath his feet began to soften and swirl, pulling him into a vortex of shadow and stone. Beside him, Ryn let out a cry as she, too, sank into the floor up to her knees.
The fae loomed over them, a strange sort of avarice glittering in those dark eyes. “Swear to abandon your traitorous feelings, and this torment will end. If you refuse, your suffering will be all the greater.”
“There is no treason in friendship,” Ryn protested, struggling to free herself from the stone.
“And anyway, feelings don’t change just because you tell them to.
Not for humans, at least, though I will certainly be making a note in my field journal that the fae don’t seem to have any hearts to speak of. ”
But their tormentor remained unmoved. “How can you possibly be a fit consort for a king if you permit yourself to indulge in illicit affection for another? If you do not turn back now and deny the wayward desires of your heart, these trials may well require your very life in payment for this choice of yours.”
“We are friends, not lovers,” Ryn snarled, now buried in the floor up to her waist. “And you’re insane, because if your trials kill us just for being friends, you’re still trapped, and then there will be no one to free you. No one to find more potential brides to break your ridiculous curse.”
She strained against the stone and then muttered a string of rather inventive epithets. “How are you even doing this? If you’re trapped by your own magic, how can you control the terms of the trial?”
Trust Ryn to be curious about entirely the wrong thing.
But Xavi himself said nothing. He was too busy testing the bounds of his own magic, preparing to free himself through shifting or whatever means necessary, so long as he could protect Ryn…
But he was too late.
“Very well,” the fae woman intoned, her voice seeming to echo and stretch as they sank deeper. “You have been warned. What you suffer now is of your own choice.”
And then the darkness closed over Xavi’s head.
He cried out in anger and desperation and reached for Ryn, but he could not find her.
Could feel nothing but the sensation that he was swimming through a heavy, viscous liquid, falling and falling to the bottom of some dark lake, a crushing weight on his lungs and a terrible fear opening a pit in the center of his chest.
He was going to suffocate. Ryn was going to suffocate if he could not reach her in time…
The pressure released.
He fell. Struck unyielding stone and bounced painfully, only saved from worse injury by the reflex that curled his arms around his head.
Spitting curses at the fae witch, he rolled to his feet and searched his surroundings.
He was underground again. But not in any place he had ever seen or dreamed of before.
It appeared he had fallen at a nexus of tunnels—though perhaps tunnels was the wrong word.
The room he stood in was high and arched, with six flat sides, a smooth floor, and open doorways leading off in six different directions.
The ceiling overhead was dimly lit, but clearly shaped by an artisan’s hand—covered in carvings he could not see well enough to identify.
This place had been built rather than naturally formed. And on every surface was a lightly glowing tracery of the same silver patterns that marked the fae woman’s skin.
But where was Ryn?
The faint pressure of watching eyes prickled at his neck and his arms, so he called out.
“Ryn?”
No answer.
Kel, are you there?
Again, no answer. But their brief conversation had made him wonder—could his king have somehow been aware of everything that had occurred so far?
Even if he could not see the obstacles Xavi and Ryn had encountered, had he sensed their uncertainty?
Experienced with them each moment of fear, doubt, and regret?