Chapter 7
Where Is Crown Prince Mateo of Zaraga?
The door to my cell whined open near dawn, though I couldn’t be certain night was ending, nor which day this particular night followed.
I’d woken abruptly, feeling only slightly better than I had after waking in my underwater sarcophagus. I could have been out an hour, or it could have been days. I was still ravenous.
My cell—un-fucking-believable, yet another prison—had neither window nor any other light source.
To mark time, I relied on the snores and disgruntled moans of the other prisoners—two hundred and twenty-one of them, assuming no guards were stationed within the cells that occupied the back three-quarters of the building.
The pungent stink of bodies—reason alone to want to ditch this place—suggested the prison wasn’t often cleaned, and neither were its involuntary occupants. If Misery had a signature scent, I was smelling it.
A lumoon floated into my cell, preceding a guard with a large head so shiny it reflected the golden light. He regarded me while I rose to stand with my back to the wall and blinked against the lumoon, seemingly as bright as the sun itself after such absolute darkness.
His fingers twitched along the handle of a weapon I’d never seen before. Like a thick, blunt sorcerer’s wand, but black, shiny, and faintly buzzing.
“You gonna be good for the curera? Or do I gotta restrain you?”
He drew closer, his eyes taking on a leering glint as they trawled along my bare legs, then jumped across my hips and breasts. I hated that my thin, plain dress didn’t conceal the outline of my nipples.
“Can always restrain ya now n’ leave you that way.”
He stroked his wand-weapon a few times—up and down, up and down—in case I’d missed his not so implicit threat.
Though I meant no harm to the curera—it’d be pretty stupid to attack the one person presumably sent to heal me, or at least not hurt me—fingers out in front and curled into claws, I lunged forward and hissed like a serpunta. I jerked to a stop just short of shredding the skin from the guard’s face.
He leapt back with a gasp, knocking his lumoon, which bobbed away, and then the wall with a soft thump.
Betraying the slightest quake of his lower lip, he sneered, then drew his wand-weapon and pointed it at me. It crackled in a burst of pale green light, the magic arcing toward me.
I retreated back to the wall.
He stretched the wand closer. It crackled again but its magic didn’t touch me.
“No wonder that parvtit locked you up in here all by yourself. You’re a mean one.”
“You have no idea.”
“I’m gonna enjoy tying you up.”
“I highly doubt that.” My muscles tensed in the best readiness I had after their neglect.
A reedy voice wafted through the open door. “None of that will be necessary. I’m sure she won’t hurt me.”
A goblin stalked into my cell with her head held high, making her seem as tall as my hips, though she wasn’t quite. Her eyes were dark and warm in the now-gentle light of the lumoon.
“Will you?” she demanded of me.
I let my fists relax and drop to my sides. I met her eyes. “I won’t.”
“See?” she told the guard without turning. “We’re fine here.”
The guard scowled at the both of us. “Don’t look fine.”
“I assume the risk to myself. You’re off the spit. That will be all, sentry.”
His mouth hardened, then opened—
“You are dismissed.”
His mouth snapped shut into a ferocious frown. Shaking his head, he turned and marched out, muttering under his breath: “Have it your way. It’s your death, shitling.”
The goblin’s slender shoulders drew back sharply as the guard pulled the door closed behind him with a loud snick, taking his lumoon with him.
Darkness conquered the tiny room in an instant.
The goblin slapped a long, dragon-like foot against the stone floor with a sharp smack. “Apparently maturity isn’t a requirement of recruitment around here. Or decency, for that matter.”
A lumoon flickered to life in the palm of her hand, casting as much glow as shadow across her already ashen face.
At last, here was a creature I not only knew, but knew well.
“You really won’t hurt me, will you?” she asked. “You’re in for violent murder, three counts.”
My heart squeezed, though I didn’t know why—beyond Mateo, always Teo. “I won’t hurt you.”
She nodded. “Good. Now let me have a look at you. They wouldn’t let me bring my bag with me. Said I have to come check first. They don’t trust you.”
I stepped into the middle of the space with my arms out to my sides, then lowered myself slowly to the floor so she could examine all parts of me. “I don’t trust them.”
She merely harrumphed when it seemed she had plenty to say on the subject. After producing a second lumoon without any apparent effort, she illuminated me from two sides while she peered in my eyes, mouth, ears, and nose.
“My body’s fine,” I told her to see if she’d skip the effort. “Just … not quite as strong as usual.”
The goblin tapped against my breastbone, knees, elbows, and either side of my neck. She was about to stick all three of the fingers on one hand into my mouth when I pulled my head away.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“The parvnit says there’s something really wrong with you. I don’t see anything yet, and I have to find whatever it is.”
I met her big eyes. “I’m a s?nglure.”
She snorted a tiny chuckle, drawing my eye to her bulbous nose. “What sort of curera do you think I am?”
“One who shouldn’t put her hands in the mouth of a s?nglure who hasn’t fed in a very long time.”
Her fingers retreated as she eyed me. “I thought you drained two humans.”
“I did.”
“Mmm,” she said, but didn’t bring her fingers any closer to my fangs.
“You get that a lot, being called a shitling?”
She smiled tightly, revealing sharp, pointy teeth of her own. “Enough. So endearing, that.”
“If anyone’s a shitling, it’s him.”
“But he can kill me for saying it.” She skimmed open hands along my arms and legs, searching for an irregularity she wouldn’t find. “I don’t know how long he’ll stay away. I don’t actually have any authority over him. I’m surprised my dismissal worked.”
A thank you crouched on my tongue. “Why did you do it?”
She continued prodding me before eventually shrugging. “I’m a curera.” She pinched the back of my hand and tilted her head at my yelp, as if noting something in its pitch.
“Cureras aren’t supposed to hurt anyone,” I guessed. I was well familiar with goblins, yes. But never had I known one to be a healer, much less a curera.
She pinched the inside of my arm.
“Ow! You’re hurting me.”
She sucked on her teeth. “Don’t be such a gobloony.”
“I’m not being a baby.”
Suddenly hearing myself, and since surely the goblin would run out of body parts to examine, I added hesitantly, “My power is … gone. Do you know what was done to me?”
Flick, flick to the hollow of my cheek. “I do.” Flick, flick to the other side.
“Well? Will you tell me?”
“Your power has been dampened. And no, it can’t be fixed. You just have to wait for the effect to wear off.”
My heart, buoyant for once, fluttered. “But it does wear off?”
“Of course. No power dampening is permanent, and you were only administered a potion.”
A potion. Dark magic. Damn that parvnit!
“How long will its effects last, exactly?”
“Depends on the magic. A few more days, probably. But you won’t live that long, and if you do, they’ll just give you another dose. So long as you’re in here, no one’s allowed their powers. Not even the minor ones.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two days.”
Two more entire days lost that I could have used to search for my brother. “If you think I’m just going to die, why bother seeing if there’s something wrong with me?”
Another shrug. “I’m a curera.”
“Will you answer a condemned fae’s questions, then?”
“I’m not here for that.”
“Indulge me?” I gave her a closed-lip smile and my most charming I won’t drink and drain you eyes.
Eventually, she harrumphed. “Depends on the question.”
“Nothing that’ll endanger you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Where is Crown Prince Mateo of Zaraga?”
Her hands stopped mid-ear tug. Her eyes snapped to mine.
“You can’t ask me about him.”
“Why not?”
“If you don’t know, then there is definitely something most wrong with you, even if I can’t find it. Guard!”
“Wait—”
The door swung open. The goblin padded hurriedly toward it. Over her shoulder, she called a clipped, “May the Fuerin grant mercy to your essence.”
The door shut behind her.
The darkness was heavier, more foreboding, than it was before her arrival.