32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Ihadn’t expected to set foot inside these halls again so soon.
The council member who had been there when they took Kaed was now seated in one of the alcoves high in the rotunda.
Councillor Varris was maybe in his forties with brown hair and a pale beard.
The pall of desperation around him was clinging to him like the stench on a corpse. It rolled off him like sweat.
Kaed knelt on the dais in the centre of the room.
“Let him stand,” Celeste demanded of the other members.
“The prince is free to stand, should he wish,” Councillor Varris said, his sharp and uneven teeth showing behind his manicured beard.
Kaed looked to the man who’d spoken, and Councillor Varris actually leaned in. A grin stretched across his face as he savoured Kaed bent low as he bore the weight of the faebane poisoning him.
Kaed made a move to stand, but his body stayed where it was. As though the weight of the world pulled him down, he didn’t move except to shudder. His muscles strained, and the cords of his tendons were pulled tight.
“What are you doing to him?” I shouted. I went to go to him, but a guard held me. Not roughly, but just to ensure I knew who was in control.
It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t Kaed.
“Celeste?” I pleaded with the kind female who had healed me.
But it was the other redhead female who spoke.
Councillor Morgana Morningstar. “My dear.” Her voice was steady.
“I understand you are upset at the sight of your betrothed like this. And again, so soon.” There was an ancient patience in her eyes as she spoke.
“But he has broken our laws. For the second time. Prince Kaedian has two choices ahead of him now.” My throat constricted, and I didn’t dare interrupt.
“The first is that he may request a citizen of Viverna to speak on his behalf and take on the burden of his behaviours should they come to pass again.” Celeste shifted in her chair.
Clearly, we were on the same page as I had instantly thought of her.
“The second option is that Prince Kaedian remains here until such time as a truce or resumed alliance of trade has been signed with Hayden.”
Were they blackmailing him? Hayden? Leaving the city limits hardly seemed worthy of arresting him. But they had done it. And Kaed had let them shackle him until his powers were under a null blanket of faebane.
Did they even have the right to detain a prince of Hayden in this city in the first place? “Do you understand these terms, Prince Kaedian?”
With strained effort, Kaed looked up at Morgana. It was like there were chains around his neck, bowing his head. His muscles rippled like forge-beaten iron as he forced himself to stand.
Even cuffed and bound, he looked unassailable.
There were faces in the rotunda that went pale and wide-eyed.
Varris in particular looked bloodless as he saw Kaed rise.
“I understand, Councillor Morningstar. Thank you,” Kaed ground out.
Without missing a breath, Celeste stood in her alcove. “I will vouch for Kaedian.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t clear, Councillor, but no member of this council may speak for the prince.” Varris sneered and straightened the cuff of his sleeve. “It would be unethical to lay a law and use our own power to assuage it.” There was far too much glee in his voice.
My heart soared as it snagged on a thought.
“Lord Tymon will vouch for me,” Kaed said at the same time I’d thought it. But his words were laboured.
From above, a softer voice from a man with a sickly pallor to his skin spoke. “The Lord is out of town, travelling with his wife. I’m sorry.”
He sounded sincere.
“Thank you, Councillor Gossan.” Varris the man who had spoken with a sharp look. “If there is no one …?” Councillor Varris looked around at his eleven other council members. Each of them shifted as he watched them.
A strong female with warm brown hair and attire closer to that of Denora than Celeste glowered at Varris from her alcove.
A few stern faces clearly disapproved of what was happening, but they had laid the law of Kaed’s city confinement already. They needed to protect their trade.
They needed the son of Hayden here.
And for whatever motivation each of them had, they stayed silent.
“Very well,” Councillor Morningstar began.
Before she could finish, there was a crash from behind me just outside the chamber, and Gavrin barrelled into the room, knocking two guards down like they were wooden pins.
In her alcove high above, the tawny female who’d glared at Varris tensed as she locked onto Gavrin.
Denora skidded in behind him and moved to Kaed in the centre of the room but was stopped in her path by four soldiers.
“What’s going on here? Unchain my prince.” Denora’s voice was every bit the Head Sentinel as she spoke, her hand poised on the hilt of her sword.
My shoulders rose as Denora called for Kaed’s release. She was entirely fearless. The soldiers around her might have been sprites for all the heed she gave them. But she stilled when she noticed Kaed’s form.
He didn’t even blink at his sentinel. He looked like he could hardly hear her.
The soldiers around us held their hands with magic in each palm.
She splayed her hands defensively and came to my side.
Guards now surrounded Gavrin.
“He’s to have someone vouch for him before he can leave,” I explained, leaning into her. “It’s all my fault.”
How could they do this to a prince? The Crown Prince of the Four Corners?
Denora gripped my hand. “I’ll do it. I’ll vouch for him. Whatever you need.” Denora held the stare of each council member in her sight.
I held my breath.
A gust of silence swept the room.
“A fae life for a fae life,” a broad-shouldered male said in a gravelly voice. “Equal life, for equal life.” His hair was shorn short, and three scars raked from his temple to the back of his skull like claw marks. His ear tip had been cleaved by whatever had made the marks.
Denora’s shoulders stiffened beside me. “Councillor Merdia.” The name was acid on her tongue. A muscle in her jaw flexed.
I tugged her hand in mine to break the tension in her eyes as they locked on Councillor Merdia.
“Was that a yes or a no?” I asked her as she kept her eyes locked on Councillor Merdia.
Councillor Varris smiled and stood in the arch of his alcove.
“Yes. Yes. However”—he nodded to Councillor Merdia across from him—“only a citizen who is not of the prince’s home may vouch for him.
So you might all understand”—he held a pale finger up—“no member of his council and no people present may do this.” He reminded me of a rodent as more of his teeth showed as he grinned wider.
What was Varris really getting from this?
“If there is no one else at this time, we are done here. Guards, please escort the prince to the Cage.” Varris held out a hand. “We will resume this when there is a suitable candidate to vouch for him.” He lifted the tails of his tunic and sat back comfortably in his alcove.
I moved to protest, but Denora gripped my hand.
Guards pulled Kaed from the dais and out of the room, and I wanted to rip their asinine helmets off and throttle them. I wanted Kaed to do it. To unleash his magic on them and show them why they feared him.
“We’re going with him.” Denora squared off to the guards around us. “And if you try to stop us, you will have to find more cages. Try negotiating with Hayden when you’ve taken Tir’s sentinels and prince.”
And I supposed I fit in there too; Hayden’s future princess, or so they all thought. I swallowed the scorn that threatened to burst out.
With that, Denora, Gavrin and I followed after Kaed as he was led to the Cage for the second time.
“This is horse shit. At this point, they are making rules up to land you in it. I’ve smelled better things from Vega’s—”
“Enough, Gavrin,” Kaed commanded. And even caged, there was no room for argument in his voice. It was like he could turn it on. Allow the commander, the ruler and the prince in him out, like his magic that crept to the surface when he needed it.
Gavrin began pacing around the perimeter of the Cage.
The bones of the immuring structure looked more menacing in the dark of the night sky pouring through the glass roof.
The manacles had been removed. Which was only because the second the guards had put Kaed in the Cage, he had crashed to his knees again. The council member with warm brown hair, Rionna Darrion, had come with us. She was fae, tall and looked like a godstatue forged from bronze.
At first, I wasn’t sure if she was here to ensure Kaed remained in the Cage or otherwise. But when Celeste unlocked the manacles through the bars, Councillor Darrion relaxed somewhat. The escort guards parted and backed away at Rionna’s glare.
The shriek that came from Celeste when she grasped the manacles from Kaed’s wrists was deafening in the chamber.
“That snivelling—” Celeste bit down on her curse as she threw the metal bindings to the ground with a clatter.
As soon as Kaed’s wrists were free, he stood more easily. The chains of the faebane bindings were gone, but they’d done worse damage to his reserve than last time. His swagger and air of “bastard without a care” didn’t surface.
“What is it?” Rionna asked as she and Gavrin both went for the manacles, their eyes locking as they nearly knocked into one another.
“Don’t,” Celeste urged. “There’s probably ten times the faebane that should be on them. We don’t use things like this anymore. Cruelty is not what we offer here. Despite what some members of this council might have you believe.”
“Who?” Gavrin looked ready to rip bone from flesh.
“Varris. Who do you think?” Kaed’s voice was heavy. Tired.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” the warrior female said, with tightness laced in her throat.
“I had no idea Varris was planning something like this.” Rionna’s voice was kinder than her imposing structure would suggest. Beneath the hardened and muscled exterior, she had a softness to her.
If Viverna had taught me nothing else, it was that people wore masks over their true nature.
Kaed inclined his head to the councillor.
Gavrin sounded like a bear with the thunder in his chest. “I’ll kill him.”
“No. You won’t.” Denora’s voice was that of the Head Sentinel as she spoke. “Kaed is in here as a political prisoner. Do you think killing the council member who put him in here is going to get him out sooner?”
Gavrin folded his arms and began pacing again.
Kaed braced his legs and turned to face Denora, arms across his chest. Looking at him, I tried to discern why he had surrendered to them so easily. But Kaed’s eyes never met mine.
“We have to do this the right way,” she continued.
“We still have our magic. We’re not in the Cage.” Gavrin ignored Denora.
“No,” Celeste said, “but you are in a magically barren room. Can’t you feel it?”
The same dead air that had been here the first time clawed at my throat. Despite it having nothing to latch onto in me, no magic to smother in me, it still felt strange to breathe it in.
Gavrin put a hand to his throat as if he’d only just now noticed the air he was breathing. “So what do we do, then?” Gavrin paced again.
“You’re going to have to play by the rules,” Rionna said simply.
“Gah! Your rules. Not ours.” I felt bad for Gavrin. His answer to a fight was to hit something. To cut it out of his way. He wasn’t brutish. He just wasn’t used to an enemy he couldn’t knock down and punch a few times.
Celeste spoke to no one in particular. “Tymon is gone, and if Sapphine hears about Kaedian’s predicament, she will do anything in her power to keep Tymon away.”
“Honestly, brother, could you not try a little harder for people to like you?” Gavrin huffed.
Kaed chuckled. “But then you wouldn’t like me.” Kaed smirked at his friend.
It seemed few people spoke to Kaed at all. And fewer still liked him. Eryk had only spoken to Kaed because he’d been dancing with me.
Gavrin was on the other side of the room, animated in his proposed decapitation of someone I could only assume was Councillor Varris while Councillor Darrion seemed to be restraining a smile at the display.
It was ghoulish the way he was miming the detail, but Kaed was more relaxed as Denora spoke to Celeste. No doubt the more productive conversation in the room.
And then it hit me.
I could solve this. There was a slim sliver of hope that I could do this. But I had to get out of here first.
“So what do we do?” Gavrin eventually asked. Calmer now or resigned.
“We wait.” Kaed’s voice was like a bell that had finished chiming in the room, its sound ringing out in a single tone, unending. It commanded the space and forced a pause on all other words. “Until Tymon is back.”
“That could be weeks. And you’ll be in here that entire time. They’re not going to just let you wander out while we wait for Tymon to come back,” Denora said.
“Do you have a better option?” Kaed looked defeated.
I didn’t hear who answered next. I let the conversation continue as I backed out of the room. Preoccupied with their strategies, they didn’t see me slip out the door.