Chapter 22 #2
She screamed as the guards dragged her out of her cell. The man with the silver hair inclined his head as they dragged her away, and stepped aside as the guards moved past, but didn’t try to help her.
I rushed to the bars. “Wait! Where are you taking her?”
Hot, burning anger rose in my blood, and I wished I had the kind of magic that could save the people I loved from dying.
It was Nani and Safiyya all over again. It was my mother, leaving her only child so that she could help our people, but never coming back.
Again and again I was useless in the face of injustice.
And it made me want to throw things.
They pulled Mishah down the hall, and her screaming dimmed to a low hum as they carried her out of the dungeon.
The rage built inside me, turning to molten gold, and I faced the Viceroy, who looked hardly older than me, but seemed to command so much power.
Then I spit in his face.
The silver-haired man gave an audible intake of breath, and my gaze flickered to his for the briefest moment. He watched me with a blank expression, so devoid of emotion that I almost thought I’d imagined the soft sound of surprise he emitted.
“Your general deserved everything he got,” I said, low and vicious.
The Viceroy smiled that same manic grin as he had in the library and slowly reached up to wipe his face with the back of his hand.
Then he nodded to the other soldiers with him. “Leave us.”
The other soldiers disappeared wordlessly, but the man with the silver hair stayed. He still showed no sign that he’d recognized me from the woods.
“Come to torture me?” I asked, my voice braver than I felt.
“Not if I don’t have to,” the Viceroy smiled thinly. Then he turned his head toward the silver-haired fae. “Have we tried to enthrall her?”
His eyes flickered to me, then back to the Viceroy. “No. This is the first I’ve seen her.”
It was a lie, since I’d already met him at the River, but I didn’t know what game we were playing.
He stepped forward, the planes of his face illuminated by the torchlight in the room.
He smelled the same as he had at the River—fresh earth and pine and the rushing wind.
It was as if he’d brought the outdoors inside with him.
He stared at me intently, muttering something under his breath. I stood still, unsure of what was happening, but something about his eyes made me want to look into them. Abruptly, he stepped back and shook his head, looking at the Viceroy.
“It can’t be done. Her magic must protect her from it.”
I frowned at that, since it appeared he hadn’t done anything to me at all, but the Viceroy moved toward me, and all thoughts fled from my mind.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small rust-colored book.
It was the book I’d found in the library, stamped with the jasmine flower. My heart stuttered at seeing it.
“You were searching for this book. Why?”
“I’m interested in the history of the ancient fae.”
“Lies.” He tilted his head and watched me, his eyes combing over my skin.
The silver-haired male still said nothing, instead he leaned against my prison bars, eyes trained on my face.
“You are looking for Queen Azari’s vault. You want her crown.” The Viceroy wasn’t asking a question, his words were an accusation.
I inhaled sharply, but it was too late to hide my confirmation.
“I’ve been searching for her crown for years. I’ve had soldiers scouring the other Courts for any mention of it. And yet you found the first real sign of it within seconds of being in my own library.”
He leaned forward, his face coming so close to the bars I could touch him, his eyes gleaming with a glint of obsession.
Uneasy, I looked over at the other fae, and this time I caught him when his cool mask had slipped. He looked very interested in what the Viceroy was about to say to me.
“I saw you in the library. You used magic to find the book—a kind I’ve never seen before. I could smell it on the air, feel it sizzle across my skin.”
He didn’t ask me any sort of question, so I waited for what I knew was coming. The same thing the Citadel would have asked, had they known about my powers. The things my mother warned me about.
In a world where locating hidden treasures was prized above all, the power to be able to find anything was valuable indeed.
“You’re going to help me find the Queen’s crown.”
My breath was trapped in my chest, his words repeating like a drumbeat.
Help me find the Queen’s crown.
This couldn’t be real.
I thought he was going to kill me, but instead I’d been given an opportunity.
There was still a way I could find the crown, still a way I could tear down the wall.
“Why do you need it?” I asked, my voice wary.
Was he planning to take down the wall to the human world?
The Viceroy barked out a laugh. “Every king in every Court would slaughter for a chance to possess it. Azari’s power was to unravel.
It gives you the magic to crush your enemies, to drain their power, to create something new.
It is both the power of creation and the master of all magic.
And you are going to be the key to me finding it. ”
My hands gripped the bars in front of me tightly. The silver-haired fae still hadn’t said a word, but he was looking at me just as intently as the Viceroy was.
“And if I don’t?”
He gave a small smile. “That isn’t an option. You either choose to assist me, or choose pain. Either way, the relic will be mine.”
I swallowed, sensing the truth of his words, and the power there. But I wasn’t going to refuse him. Finding the relic was always the goal, I just needed to steal it from him first.
The silver-haired fae finally straightened and spoke, his voice the same low timbre from the forest.
“You are a scholar.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I answered, the first true thing I could say. Then I repeated the same question I’d asked in the woods. “And who are you?”