Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“WHERE IS SHE?” a male voice boomed as the back tavern doors were thrown open. The slamming of the doors coincided with Valkaryn hitting the bottom of the well, and the splash was concealed.
My heart nearly burst out of my chest as King Harrow’s gaze ran over me. But then, just as quickly, he went to the person next to me.
‘Godric is coming out,’ Kaelric told me.
‘No, my cover is not blown! Tell him to stay!’ I roared back inside my head.
One by one, the people around me began to move, forming a line at the back wall of the patio, so I followed suit. I mimicked their slow, deliberate steps and calm demeanor. I was somewhere near the back of the line, near the toilet, when everyone was lined up.
“I sense her,” the king said, and every head turned to look at him, including mine. Now that I was able to fully focus on him, I drank in the sight, feeling my stomach recoil.
His mixed blood was obvious at first glance.
He had the sharp-boned elegance of House Solvaris, those cold, refined angles that caught the morning light like carved gold, but his frame was too powerful, too animal, built on the broad-shouldered strength of the wolfkin.
His skin held an unnatural sheen, and thin veins of pale gold pulsed faintly at his neck and temples, as if magic crawled beneath the surface.
His eyes were the worst of all, molten amber fractured with black, shifting like smoke inside a candle flame, never still.
A long sword rested at his hip, its obsidian blade threaded with silver veins that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Mind Render. Even from here, the air around it seemed to shiver.
‘Val, tell me you’re okay.’ I tried to control my breathing.
The darkness below seemed to pulse like a living thing, cold and bottomless.
‘I’m okay. I don’t need oxygen like you do, dear, and I can still shield you and Godric from his control.’
Her response was way too playful for a time like this, a bright chime in a moment that should have felt chokingly dark.
Had she sunk to the bottom of some unknown depth, or was she floating at the top?
Last I checked, steel didn’t float. I was already trying to figure out a rescue plan—come back when it was dark, have Godric lower me in the bucket with a candle, and search for her.
The scent of wet stone and old moss clung to the thought, making it feel real and impossible all at once.
‘By my estimation, I’ve dropped about five hundred feet into the water,’ she informed me, and my heart fissured.
I pictured her sinking through layers of cold water, vanishing into darkness where sound struggled to exist.
No. I had to keep the whimper out of my throat, the tears out of my eyes. My lungs burned, every inhale too thin.
“Remove your cloaks,” the king commanded. Cloth rustled like quiet wings, and one by one we did as he asked, face forward, expressions neutral. The air seemed to hold its breath.
I wondered if the people beside me were freaking out in their heads but didn’t show it, or if he’d worn them down for so many years they didn’t even care anymore. Their eyes were blank, sunken, like hope had been scraped out long ago.
The king, flanked by two guards who’d walked in behind him, began to walk in front of each and every one of us. His steps were deliberate, patient, like he enjoyed stretching out the fear until it grew.
‘Tell me what’s going on,’ Kaelric commanded.
‘Tell you in ten minutes,’ I promised. When this was hopefully over, and I was still alive. My chest squeezed, praying he wouldn’t argue.
‘No, Brynn. Tell me now, or I tell Godric to go out there, and I start heading there with my entire army.’
The king was getting closer to me. I had to focus. His presence pressed against my skin, as though the very air thickened around him.
‘Talking to you is risking my life. Tell Godric to stay. I’m fine. Now, be quiet, my love.’
Kaelric went silent then, but his fear beat at the back of my skull, fast and frantic. I knew if I told him I was in danger by talking to him, he’d be quiet.
The king’s men were checking the waist and back and thighs of everyone present. Looking for weapons? Their hands moved like machines, rough and without pause, fingers pushing into cloth and leather.
‘He’s looking for me,’ Val said.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I feel it, I see it. His tentacles are scanning the entire city. And had you kept me on your hip, they would have found me.’
The image of invisible tendrils sweeping the streets like long shadows flickered across my mind, cold and invasive.
Before I knew it, the king had gotten to me. I focused behind him a little, not meeting his eyes, trying to look uninterested as his men felt my lower back, sides, and thighs for weapons. Their hands were impersonal, like they were searching sacks of grain, not living people.
When they stepped back and moved to the next person, the king didn’t move with them. He lingered, still staring at me. The weight of his attention burned like a brand.
My heart raced in my chest. Was Mind Render trying to get me to do something, and Val was blocking it? I didn’t know if that would out me with the king. My skin prickled, too tight, too aware of every breath.
The king cocked his head to the side and stepped closer to me, and I felt so very human in that moment. No Valkaryn to protect me. Not even a butter knife. His breath smelled faintly of metal, sharp, like blood exposed to the sun.
“I thought I knew all of the humans in my city,” the king said, and my stomach dropped.
His words rolled out smoothly and confident, like he was accustomed to playing with his prey before the first bite.
I had completely forgotten he could probably smell my lack of magic or wolf. A single sniff would tell him I was nothing.
“You may speak,” he said.
“I’m visiting my uncle, my king.” I prayed to the Creator that it was the right thing to say.
I’d seen some people going in and out of the front gate after checking in with the guards there, so I knew travelers did come here.
Though it looked like most would want to stay away unless they had family here.
“You should come to dinner at the castle as my guest. Six o'clock?” he asked, looking me up and down with a slight grin on his face. His smile did not reach his eyes, which glittered like polished amber over tar.
My stomach recoiled, but I smiled sheepishly. “If that would please you, my king.”
My tongue felt dry, thick against my teeth.
“Oh, it would please me very much,” he said.
His voice purred, a mockery of kindness. The guards behind him stiffened as if readying for orders.
Then the king moved to the next person, and the next, and I released the breath I’d been holding. My knees trembled once I allowed myself to feel them.
When he got to the last person, he peered around the courtyard. “Everyone out. I want four guards at the entrance and exit of this place. I can feel her. She’s here.”
Crap. Panic gripped me.
‘He’ll never find me. Just relax,’ Val said.
‘I’m safe,’ I told Kaelric. ‘Tell Godric to exit quietly and meet me in the street. Everyone is leaving the tavern.’
I moved with the crowd, slow, casual, and once we were on the street, it was like the hold he had over everyone dropped at once.
People sagged against the wall, slumping their uptight posture, looking left and right frantically to make sure they could move their bodies.
Their hands shook, touching their own faces and arms as if verifying they were real.
A woman who had been standing next to me in line when the king was examining us walked over to me. Her eyes darted around as though every shadow carried a voice.
“Don’t go,” she whispered.
I frowned. “What?”
“You’re visiting your uncle here? Don’t go to the castle. He collects humans. He likes their weakness. Don’t. Go,” she muttered and then walked off. Her footsteps were uneven, panicked.
“Collects them?”
The words tasted like rust.
Godric swam into view, panic on his face. “You okay?”
I nodded.
But my hands still trembled. The woman’s words had shaken me. I wasn’t planning on going, but thinking of humans as a collection made me sick.
He peered at my hip and the missing sword and dragged me by the underarm away from the tavern. His grip was firm, protective. We walked quickly, zigzagging through streets until we reached a pretty park with a small pond in the middle.
“Where is she?” Godric asked.
I winced. “Five hundred feet down the well.”
He winced. “I can’t believe of all the places he came there.”
“Val says he sensed her. Mind Render was looking for her.”
He rubbed his temples. “We need to leave. You’re in danger here. We both are.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “I can’t leave her here,” I whimpered.
He blew air through his lips, looking as lost as I felt. “You have to.”
“The Hades I do! I’ll go back when it’s dark and—”
“And what?” he pressed. “Swim five hundred feet into black, probably frigid, water?”
His voice cracked slightly, fear buried beneath frustration.
Tears filled my eyes, and his face softened. “I can’t leave her.”
‘You have to,’ Val said, and I ignored her.
‘No,’ I told her.
‘I’ll figure something out. But you need to get to safety.’
It was stupid to come here, to think that after over ten years of fighting this guy, I would be able to offer something new. The weight of my choices pressed on my ribs.
“The king invited me to his castle tonight for dinner. I could go and get Maelis and—”
“Have you gone mad? With no weapon? You’re human, Brynn! He’d have you barking like a dog and licking his floor if he wanted, and there’s nothing you could do about it.”
His words weren’t cruel, just painfully true.
‘He’s right, Brynn. Go back to my son. I’m not sure how much I can shield you if you are far away. I want Kaelric’s protection over you.’