Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
It took five maddening days to collect the documents they needed to travel.
Finn had no issue. He already had counterfeit papers marking him as a common merchant, and Serafina was human enough to pass as his wife without difficulty.
And Raelle’s people had no trouble forging paperwork turning Caela into their fae servant.
A wealthy merchant traveling with his wife and their servant wouldn’t raise too many questions if they were stopped by the Arcanum.
Loren, on the other hand…
“Even if you hide your shadows you’ll never pass as anything other than a full-blooded fae male,” Raelle said bluntly. “The only reason for you to be on that road is as a prisoner.”
“I spent twenty-five years in iron,” Loren snapped. “I’m not letting you lock me in an iron cage.”
“Naeva and Brynn will be in irons too,” Finn pointed out. “It’s about plausibility. We have to craft a narrative that will hold up if we’re stopped by Arcanum soldiers.”
“I’ll travel alongside,” Loren argued. “I’m sure I can stay out of sight—”
“It’s different now, Loren,” Thorne said gently. “They’ve cut down the trees. Humans are everywhere. It’s not just soldiers you need to worry about—anyone we pass could report you.”
Loren clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth. “I wish you were coming.”
“Farhallow needs at least one healer.” Thorne smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I wish there was another way Loren, I really do. But a merchant transporting three fae prisoners in iron is the best cover story we can give you.”
The shadows shifted and writhed at Loren’s feet, as disquieted by the idea as he was.
“The manacles and collars will be lined,” Raelle said. “They won’t burn your skin. And they won’t be locked. You’ll be able to take them off if you need to.”
Like that was any comfort.
But Loren hadn’t come up with an alternative by the time Raelle’s people finally came back with identification papers bearing the Arcanum’s Eye, so he grit his teeth and held out his arms for Finn to close the iron manacles around his wrists.
There was no time for petty arguments when they should have been on the road to Elvanfal days ago.
Finn couldn’t meet his eyes as he did it, stepping back hastily as soon as the manacles clicked shut.
Loren rotated his wrists, testing his range of motion.
True to Raelle’s word, they weren’t locked.
And the length of chain between them was long enough that he had plenty of room to remove them if he needed to.
But the sickeningly familiar feeling of being cut off from his magic made Loren’s stomach lurch, every fiber of his being rebelling against the idea of setting a single foot inside the iron banded wagon they’d commandeered.
“It feels awful, doesn’t it?” The copper-haired female already in the wagon shuddered, tugging the end of her braid. “I never get used to it.”
“It’s not something you get used to.” Loren climbed into the wagon, clenching his teeth as he settled onto the bench opposite the two volunteers Raelle had selected.
The shadows curled under the bench, pressed flat against the floor like they too wished they could be anywhere else.
Too bad they had tied themselves to him.
“Oh—” the female’s moss-green eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about all the time you spent in iron. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.” Loren leaned gingerly back against the side of the wagon, relieved to find the ragged cloak they’d given him was enough of a shield against the iron. “I wasn’t offended.”
“There you go again, Brynn.” The other female in the wagon scoffed, jabbing an elbow into her friend’s side. “Letting your mouth run away with you.”
“You’re Raelle’s volunteers,” Loren said.
It wasn’t really a question—why else would any fae submit themselves to be bound in iron and climb into a cage? But the silver-haired female nodded.
“Naeva,” she said, introducing herself. “I manifested a gift for precognition. And this is Brynn—she got a gift for fire. And we know who you are, of course.”
“Precognition,” Loren said. “That’s a useful gift.”
Naeva shrugged. “Raelle thought it would help,” she said. “Of course, none of us are going to be using much magic while we’re in here, are we?”
“I suppose not,” Loren said heavily. He leaned back against the bars and closed his eyes, hoping they wouldn’t expect him to talk much.
The iron was already weighing on him, the strange dissonance of being cut off from his magic making his head ache.
His shadows curled around his feet, sluggish and subdued.
He felt the loss of his bond with Araya all the more in their absence, the empty place in his chest aching like a lost limb.
He’d never felt so alone. Not even in the darkness of his cell.
It should have been a simple plan. Their papers got them through the gate at the edge of Aetheris without any issue.
It took six more days to reach Faerwyn, the next true town between Aetheris and Elvanfal.
Before the New Dominion, Loren would have done that distance comfortably on horseback.
But now it meant six days of iron and rutted, bumpy road, Loren’s teeth rattling in his skull with every plodding step their carthorse took.
Thorne was right. It was nothing like the Valendral Loren remembered, where the smooth road had unspooled like a ribbon beneath the spreading branches of towering trees that had stood there for generations.
Those were gone too, chopped down for lumber to house the ever-growing number of humans that thronged the muddy road.
Arcanum soldiers mixed among the civilians, more than once stopping to peer through the bars at Finn’s cargo, though none of them demanded to see the papers Raelle had so painstakingly secured.
Still, it was enough that Loren didn’t dare loosen his cuffs or the collar around his neck. Not even at night when they stopped to camp beside the road. Brynn and Naeva kept theirs on too, even as their skin paled, the dark shadows under their eyes a visible marker of the strain it put on them.
“Do you think they’ll make any of us get out?” Brynn whispered as they approached the checkpoint outside Faerwyn. “I’ve heard sometimes they like to sample the goods—”
“We won’t let that happen,” Serafina said, her voice low. “Finn will show them the papers and they’ll let us through. They probably won’t even look at you.”
Loren hunched deeper under his ragged cloak, trying to calm the pounding of his heart.
It could all end here with him being dragged back to the Shaws in iron.
He wished he could believe that meant he would be reunited with Araya—but Loren knew in his heart that Jaxon Shaw would make sure he never saw her again.
The wagon lurched to a stop, Finn’s jovial voice rising to greet the guards. Papers rustled, changing hands. Loren closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the side of the wagon. He could do this. All he had to do was stay quiet and not draw attention to himself—
Pain. White hot and sharp, like someone had drawn a blade across his collarbone. Loren stifled a gasp, jerking against his bonds. His chains rattled loudly, drawing a sharp glance from Naeva.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured, speaking out the side of her mouth.
“I don’t know.” Loren looked down, half-expecting to see blood welling through his rags—but there was nothing there. “Something—”
It hit again. The stinging, familiar glide of a knife parting flesh. Loren clutched his chest, nearly falling from the bench. He could feel hot blood spilling across his skin. Taste the sharp, acrid bite of fear—
But not his fear.
Somewhere far away, Araya shuddered in her bonds, leather biting into her wrists and hot tears tracking down her cheeks.
It was her terror, her pain flooding that hollow cavity in his chest, drowning him as their minds tangled together.
He was there with her. In her. They both flinched, a soft sob escaping her lips as the knife came down again.
Loren groaned, his knees hitting the floor of the cart with a thud.
The shadows had woken up, their whispers rising in the back of his mind.
They were hurting her. They were hurting his mate—
“Stop!” Naeva’s hand closed around his shoulder, shaking him. “Whatever this is, you have to stop!”
The guard was walking toward the back of the cart now, peering through the iron bars. “Three for Elvanfal?” He frowned. “What’s wrong with that one?”
Loren looked up, meeting Serafina’s stony gaze.
“It’s a fit,” she said, her cool tone entirely unlike the caring healer Loren had come to know. “He gets them so frequently we have to drug him into uselessness—that’s why he’s going to Elvanfal.” She snapped her fingers. “You—did you dose him this morning like you were supposed to?”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Caela already had the silver flask in her hand, leaping up on the back of the cart. “I can—”
“No, don’t open it!” The soldier exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. “Make them give it to him. Gods.” He shook his head, eyeing Loren’s shaking, sweat-slicked body with open disgust. “We don’t need that thing getting out.”
Caela shoved the flask through the bars, a hiss slipping from her lips as her bare arm brushed iron. Then Brynn was there, kneeling beside him as Naeva held him steady.
“Drink,” she whispered. “Right now.”
She didn’t give him a chance to refuse, shoving the flask against his lips and pouring.
The tepid, bitter tea flooded his mouth—far more than he usually drank.
But it was swallow or drown, so he swallowed and swallowed until the flask ran dry.
He sagged in Naeva’s grip, his head spinning.
He couldn’t feel Araya anymore. The shadows keened, their grief threatening to consume him even as his own tears wet his face.
“—and what good is a male that can’t work?” Serafina was saying to the guard in that same unaffected tone. “I’ll be glad to be done with it all. Truly more trouble than it’s worth. But you can’t just put them down, can you?”
“No. You can’t.” The guard’s lip curled as he stared in at Loren. “Just keep him under control. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
“Of course,” Serafina said pleasantly. “We’re only stopping for supplies. We’ll be gone before you know it.”
The wagon lurched forward again, rolling through the rough-hewn gate. Serafina kept pace with the wagon, one hand resting on the bars as it trundled forward.
“Is he alright?” she asked softly once they were clear.
“I have no fucking clue.” Naeva’s hands gripped his shoulders. “Loren, talk to us.”
“They’re torturing her.” His words came out slow and thick. Loren pressed his palm flat against the floor of the wagon, but it did nothing to stop the world from tilting around him. “I felt it. The knife—”
“He needs to lie down,” Brynn said.
“He needs to stay upright until we’re through town,” Naeva answered. “Here, help me.”
They jammed him in the narrow space between them, holding him up with their own bodies as they rolled through town.
Loren was only vaguely aware of people staring at them.
How often did they see fae being transported to Elvanfal?
It had been a good-size town the last time he’d been there, one where humans and fae lived and worked side by side.
How many of his people were prisoners there now?
The bitter aftertaste of the tea lingered on his tongue. He’d never drank so much of it at once before. It had been enough to keep him from feeling what they were doing to her—but there was no amount of tea in this world that would keep him from remembering what it felt like.
After all, he’d lived it.
He would never forget how they layered the pain, drawing it out just enough to keep him conscious. The relentless rhythm of the cuts, interspersed with questions he had no chance of answering. He carried the scars to prove it across his entire body.
And now she would too.
“Loren?” Finn said, his voice careful. “We need you to stay with us. Just for a little bit longer.”
“I should be there,” he mumbled. “Not her.”
Your guilt does not help her, the shadows hissed.
They churned in the darkness beneath the bench, unnatural cold seeping through his boots. Brynn pulled her feet up with a squeak, watching frost spiderweb across the wood.
You locked her out. They lashed out, icy tendrils raking like claws across his skin. At the time she needs you the most—
“Loren,” Serafina’s soft voice cut through the darkness. “The Shaws know how the bond works. They’re trying to provoke you into doing something rash. It’s horrible, but we knew they would escalate eventually. You’re doing everything you can.”
Was he?
Loren shook his head, unable to form the words he needed to respond. He didn’t know what he needed. Space. Air. Her. The iron weighed heavily on his wrists and neck, the wagon suddenly claustrophobic.
What kind of a king couldn’t even protect his own queen?