Chapter fourteen
After Kaed had barged into the bathing chamber, I had trouble focusing my thoughts away from him. That male needed boundaries. Or at least someone to show him where they began. And if he didn’t understand boundaries, I didn’t trust his word on bargains.
He acted like no one ever told him no or denied him anything.
A twisted part of me had enjoyed landing a slap to that angular jaw. Watching his eyes flare afterward was like being held beneath fire. And I somewhat enjoyed the flames that had licked at me.
But maybe more, I enjoyed watching him restrain himself before me.
There was a quiet power in that. And in the way his eyes had trailed me as I’d dripped over the bathing chamber floor, only a towel around me. Had he bargained for his temptations to take root? It was to my advantage, regardless of whether he was pleased or displeased, that his eyes lingered on me.
I needed space from this “not-palace.” I donned the simple clothes that had been left for me while mine were still being cleaned. I wasn’t trying to sneak off exactly. I just didn’t want to have to explain anything to anyone. Least of all Kaed. Not after he’d ambushed me like that.
A walk in the cool night air would be just what I needed.
However, the house hadn’t slept until late, and now it was some grey hour of the middle morning.
The sun hadn’t risen, but it wasn’t full, inky night.
It was that strange time between waking and sleeping, where everything was still hushed with the blanket of dreams.
This excursion beyond the pale walls of the Alabaster Palace was partly to understand where I’d been taken to, and partly, I was just awake and alive with curiosity.
Eventually, the footfalls of servants around the house faded as sleep took them one by one. I wasn’t sure whether Denora or Gavrin even stayed here. The house was enormous; perhaps they had rooms here.
To my utter shock, the door was no longer magically locked, and I found my way out onto the streets of Viverna, the warm fae orbs lighting the way.
My feet made no sound as they skimmed the polished streets. After long hours circling my cage, my muscles welcomed the use. My body enjoyed the freedom to move.
Sleeping streets and lazy lanterns were my companions at this hour of the morning. A few early notes of birdsong rang out overhead.
A purple-ish sky hung over me as I meandered the streets, so grand and different from the muddy trails of Shadowfall. Trees lined the avenues, hemmed in by circles of cobblestones.
And some part of me was excited to know I was staying for a while and I would get to train with a sentinel.
One of the most skilled warriors the Four Corners had to offer.
Usually, they worked outside a structured army, from what I’d read.
And I would get a chance to learn from someone like Denora.
To rise to the rank of Head Sentinel of Hayden was beyond impressive.
I remembered the determination in her eyes when I’d first seen her astride her mount, bow pulled to its full weight.
Her aim had been piercing as she’d loosed that arrow into Gold Teeth’s hand. Unflinching. And under Kaed’s command.
It did make me wonder why Kaed travelled with Sentinels of Hayden. How important was he to the Crown that he’d receive such an escort?
Irrelevant, I thought, swiping the question from my mind.
My feet carried me downhill, towards the salty air of the waters.
While I wasn’t trying to leave, I also didn’t want any attention from Kaed this morning.
The walls were being watched, and the guards on duty might recognise me or have been warned by Kaed or Gavrin to look for me.
And I wanted to see the sea. Books were beautiful and a magic of their own, but I wanted to feel the sea on my skin.
The nearness of her wildness. The unbound power in her waves that the pages of my fables painted with words and ink.
Lost in my thoughts of longing, I smelled my way towards the harbour, its salty brine pulling me closer.
The city looked like it housed a multitude of entertainment. I passed parlours and tailors, taverns and markets. Even game halls and theatres. While I wasn’t exactly ready to stay long in this city, I was aware of how much I already liked the vibrancy of such a place.
Smooth with sea spray and algae, the worn flagstones of the docks finally fell beneath my feet. The silhouettes of the ships bobbed in the early morning pre-dawn, their masts like spears and tridents rising to pierce the gradient sky.
I’d never seen the sea. Not like this. I’d seen paintings and sketches.
But something about the lapping waters that were inked in lapis lazuli tones soothed a part in me.
My body felt an urge to move with the tide as she breathed in and caressed the land.
I’d never felt fully content in the hardened snow grounds of Shadowfall.
Even the mossy blankets of the forests weren’t what I longed for.
But seeing the sea for the first time, the hairs of my skin raised up, and my body tingled like listening to music that scintillated my senses.
I was so struck by the newness, the novelty of what lay before me, that I didn’t hear them as they crowded me.
“Lost, are we?”
I turned, my feet nearly tangling in the rough lines of the moored ships. Blood drained from my face when I took in the sight of the three human men who stood on the pier before me, cutting off my option to leave the way I’d come.
They weren’t dishevelled, but they weren’t nobility. The man who’d spoken had a scar through his cheek from ear to nose and a crop of tired hair that fell to his jaw. The other two were similar in that they both had dirty dark hair and wiry builds, one with stubble, one without.
They didn’t seem inebriated. In fact, they seemed calm. Poised.
Something cold slithered over me. This wasn’t happening by chance. Had they been waiting for me, or just someone unlucky enough to come this way?
I looked around. The towering breakwater rose to my left and to my right, the hull of a ship without a gangway to board. My only options were to swim or walk straight into their hands.
“I don’t have anything,” I stammered as my eyes darted in the dim light for anything, anywhere I could go.
“Maybe we don’t want anything.” The one with the scar took a half step towards me.
“Oh.” I unclenched my fist. I felt ashamed for assuming they were here to rob me. Or worse. In my defence, I’d had a bad run of luck these past few days. “I’m sorry. I just—I—nevermind.”
The man with the scar spoke again. “We don’t want anything from you. But we also can’t abide you being here.” His eyes stripped me from head to toe as he noted my appearance. He was surprisingly calm as he spoke. But I could hear the ice that pierced his tongue.
My back stiffened at his words, his demeanour. The way the other two flanked him, fanning out wide.
“What do you want, then?” I dared the question, and I took a tentative side step.
One of the dirty-haired men mimicked me.
“What we want is for your kind to leave this city.”
“Yeah. Out! With the lot of you. We don’t want your kind here.” The man with stubble sneered, his nose dripping something sticky.
“That’s okay. I’m leaving.” I tried, side stepping again.
This time, they all moved with me.
“It’s not about you leaving. It’s about your kind always finding a way to come back.
To infest this once-proud city. You are all the same.
Immortal cockroaches.” He spat the word immortal like it was a poison shard in his skin.
“Hard to hurt and just won’t die. But we’ve gotten better at that part.
” He spoke slowly, like he wanted me to savour his thoughts.
I tried to peer beyond them, for anyone to see, but there wasn’t a person awake at this hour at the docks.
“You shouldn’t. I …” I fumbled for a way to stall them.
“My—” What should I call him? My betrothed?
My intended? My abductor? All of them were as ridiculous as the last. “He won’t let you live if he finds you.
Just let me go, and he doesn’t need to know.
” Whether my words were true or not, I just hoped they would believe me.
“Oh?” the scarred-faced man drawled. “Is he worth worrying about?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t, Mirl,” the scrawny, cleanshaven one said, his voice trembling.
“No,” Mirl said, levelling his sight on me. “She’s lying. See? She’s shaking. If she had someone who cared about her, she wouldn’t be trying to walk around the city in the dead of night.”
Bleeding Crowns.
“I’m warning you, he’ll be here.” But my words lacked conviction. And they knew it.
They’d closed the gap between us, and I whirled to attempt an exit behind me, but the lines tangled in my feet. Blood rushed into my ears as adrenaline took over my senses.
Something heavy hit me on the back of the head. It was all I could do to protect my face with my hands before I crashed to the ground.
Tender to the touch, my head throbbed as my hand came away tacky with blood when I turned to face my attackers.
“Don’t normally get one so pretty.” My vision didn’t focus before one of them grabbed my hair.
“Pretty? She’s one of them.” Spit landed on the ground in front of me. “They’re all the same.”
Run! The silent plea rang in my head.
But my skull was pounding, and I wasn’t sure I could force my legs to stand.
“Let’s just finish this and be done with it. I’ve still to mend a godsdamned window after that storm. The missus won’t shut up about it.”
They were speaking like this was a chore. Like beating me to the ground was another job on their to-do list.
One of them grabbed my shoulders, and with an unsteady hand, I pushed back with all I had.
But my balance was knocked back with a kick to my ribs, and a shattered cry broke across the bay as I doubled over with the pain blooming in my chest. The warnings Jon and Leesha had given me rang through me with each blow that landed.
I knew cities and travelling were going to be dangerous, but gods!
“Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be,” one of them said as they readied themselves for the task before them.
I wished desperately that magic flowed in my veins. I felt its absence in me equal to the pain that was now seeping through my chest.
Something was broken inside.
These men were broken too. There was nothing seedy about them. Not lecherous in their pursuit of me. But wholly focused on their righteous judgement. Ridding this city of people like me.
Prejudices were on both sides of the divide, but maybe humans tended to be more short-sighted about it. Short lives meant more fear in them. Fear they’d lose any power they had to the long-lived fae. Fear made people do terrible things.
And fear took hold of me, gripping tighter with each kick and knock they punished me with as I crumbled into the hard slabs beneath.
Bruises flared and bones cracked.
Another deafening smash as a fist connected with my collarbone.
They were breaking me apart. Piece by piece.
But I didn’t stop pushing back. I wouldn’t be silent and let them win so easily. I let every scream and cry rip from my chest before my lungs and mouth filled with blood. Even if no one heard me, I would shatter my voice before they shattered me.
I batted their hands away as they attacked relentlessly.
They must be nearly done, a lilting voice murmured in my head.
Not long left.
My breath was claggy and stuck in my throat. I could taste iron on my tongue, and my teeth felt like they’d been rattled in my skull.
My fingers twitched as the nerves in them withstood another barrage of kicks to my back.
And then the beating stopped. Or I stopped feeling them.
Blood spilled past my lips and my heart rate slowed. The edges of my world were a little darker than the sky above me, which was now slowly peeling back to reveal the dawn.
Shadows fell over my lids.
A roar echoed over my body until my entire being shook from the force.
Noises I couldn’t place echoed around me; they were frantic as they faded into the distance.
My eyes blinked open, wet with tears or blood. It stung to open them.
Kaed held me.
Kneeling over me, he cradled me to him. His body was tense, strained, and seemed ready to rive.
Whether from shock or delirium from the blood that was now spilling freely from me, I tried to push from his grip on me. “Get off me!” My demand was strangled by a cry of pain as every broken bone and split section of skin screamed in agony at the movement.
His grip tightened around me.
“What are—you doing—” The words felt heavy on my tongue.
“Imogen! Imogen. Open your eyes.”
My head lolled.
“What in the hells happened?”
It sounded like Gavrin, but my ears were buzzing like I’d stumbled into a hive.
“I need you to take care of her. Get her to Celeste.” I understood none of what Kaed said.
“What are you going to do—Kaed. No. You can’t.”
I was moving as someone held me in their arms.
“Kaed, listen to me. You can’t go after them. There isn’t time. You’re faster. Take her yourself.”
I felt a heartbeat thump beside my ear. Once. Twice.
A low growl sounded around me, and the arms that held me strained and flexed.
“You do not have my permission to die.” The words were for me, but I barely heard them over the thundering blood in my head. “You are under my protection.” His voice was mordant.
I didn’t want to die. Didn’t he know that?
His hands were sticky with my blood. That felt important.
Or was it?
What was he doing here?
“I’m not … yours to protect.” I tried to push off of him again, to get free of his grip.
I don’t want to die.
“I won’t let you die.”
My eyes fluttered open to see his jaw tic. Had I said that out loud?
Without even an ounce of fae magic in my blood, I couldn’t heal. They might not have been fatal wounds to someone like Kaed, but the warmth was slipping from me into the aether.
The world faded into soft focus.
“Stay with me.” The darkness seemed to whisper.
What if that’s where I belonged? The dark. The waiting sleep for everyone. What if all that awaited us was darkness?
“Imogen! Stay with me!”
It was cold.
My fingers gripped onto the soft fabric around me, and I pressed into it, breathing in citrus air as everything else fell away. His touch was gentle.
In an instant, everything went pitch. Not black. Entirely void of anything.
There was nothing.
No sound. No sense of time.
No air. I thought my lungs might implode from the pressure. Or the absence of pressure.
Had the end come for me? Was this what it felt like? Crushing nothing and painful darkness?
There was nothing.
Only nothing.