Chapter 48
The wind howled across the Whistling Sea like a dying thing, raw and relentless.
Beatryce stood on the rain-slicked deck of the Radiant vessel, her wrists bound in cold iron that bit into her skin with every pitch of the waves. Salt spray stung her face and eyes, mingling with the tears she’d shed. But no more. She would not give her guards the satisfaction.
She held her chin up, filled with disbelief that this was happening to her.
Somewhere on the other side of the ship, Elyra was also in shackles, but her ankles had been bound as well. The guards had separated her from Bea hours ago. They’d taken Dren and Merylynn away, too.
Beatryce was alone now, truly alone, maybe for the first time since she’d been born. It wouldn’t matter how loudly she called out for Lysette or Ishmyel or Wyett or even Krohl. No one would come.
Tenebrae rose ahead, a jagged stump of black rock that thrust up from the churning sea. No trees softened its silhouette. No lights shone from its cliffs. Only gray stone walls, watchtowers like broken teeth, and the constant screech of rockterns wheeling overhead.
A place where light and hope went to be swallowed. Fitting, she thought bitterly. The mortal-born pretender queen had sent her to the dark. That wretched, awful, horrible woman.
Bea swallowed. Humiliation burned hotter than the cold.
They had stripped her in a windowless room.
Her beautiful gown and jewels that had once belonged to her grandmother were taken away.
All her blades and hairpins. Even the key to the vault that she’d worn on a silver chain around her neck was gone.
She took solace in the fact that they had no idea what that key opened.
They’d dressed her in this shapeless gray shift of coarse wool that scratched like it was meant for penance.
No cloak against the wind. The only shoes a pair of canvas slippers already soaked through.
For her hair, which hung in damp tangles down her back, a single short length of ribbon to tie it back.
A guard prodded her forward as the barge scraped against the stone quay. “Forward, prisoner.”
She lifted her chin higher, the only defiance left to her. “I am Queen Beatryce Blackbryar, daughter of Queen Anyka, granddaughter of Queen Leda. You will address me with respect or lose your tongue when my mother comes for me.”
The guard, a thick Radiant fae with a face like weathered granite, just laughed. A few of the other guards joined in. “Your mother’s reach ends at these shores, prisoner. Welcome to Tenebrae.”
They marched her up a narrow path carved into the cliff face. It wasn’t the same route she’d taken with her mother when they’d come to confront the Radiant queen.
Here, iron rails guided prisoners in single file. There were spots where one slip, and the sea would swallow you. The wind tore at her gown, plastering the fabric to her body. Rockterns screamed overhead, their cries like sharp accusations. Failure. Weakling.
She clenched her jaw until her teeth ached.
Every step fed the darkness inside her. It had been with her since the moment she’d cut her hand on the blade in her mother’s back, she accepted that now.
The darkness whispered to her, a velvet voice in the hollows of her mind: They will pay. All of them. Your mother will burn their kingdom for this.
But the small part of her that remained untainted by the darkness doubted those promises.
She stumbled once, on purpose, to sneak a look behind her. Elyra wasn’t on the steps. They hadn’t taken her off the barge yet.
The guard moved to block her line of sight. “Get up.”
She got to her feet and started moving again. They reached the top of the island, the prison towering before her. The gates groaned open, metal against metal, and through they went.
Inside, the corridors seemed hewn from rock, damp and echoing. A man came to take her information down, jotting it into a book. She was given a wool coat as cheaply made as her gown, but at least it was warm. A number was stitched across the back and repeated on the breast.
Torches burned with sullen blue flame, giving off more shadow than light. The air smelled of brine, smoke, and the odor of bodies too long without water and soap.
Other prisoners watched from behind barred slits—hollow-eyed people she imagined had once been powerful. Or dangerous. Or both. Beatryce shifted her gaze straight ahead, but she felt their stares like brands burning into her.
Did they know who she was? The injustice that had been done to her?
Her cell was at the end of a long wing that butted the cliffs looking out over the sea. Waves crashed against the rocks far below, sending up spray that occasionally misted through the narrow, barred window.
A single cot with a flat straw mattress, a bucket and wash basin, a rough blanket, and a thin towel folded at the head of the cot like a pillow.
Nothing else. The guard unlocked her wrist shackles only after she was inside.
The wooden door clanged shut with a dreadful sound, followed by even worse ones.
A key turning and the bolt slamming home.
Beatryce stood in the center of the tiny space, fists clenched at her sides as the darkness did its best to take hold of her. The gray gown hung from her like a shroud. For a long moment, she simply breathed, the screech of the wretched terns and the roar of the waves filling her ears.
Then the rage broke free.
“This is injustice!” she screamed, spinning toward the door. Her voice cracked in the cold air. “I am the queen of Malveaux! I demand a trial! I demand to face my accusers! You cannot throw me into this vile place! I am the queen!”
No answer came except the distant crash of a wave.
She slammed her palms against the unyielding wood. “Sparrow Meadowcroft is not a true queen! She is a mortal usurper, a thief who stole the Summerton crown! Just like she stole Lady Cynzia’s grimoire that belongs to us—to the Grym! That alone should be seen as treason against the crown!”
Her fists ached. She didn’t care. The darkness surged, feeding on her fury, sharpening it into something colder and more lethal.
“They stripped me like a common criminal,” she snarled, pacing the narrow cell. Three steps one way, three the other.
“Took my grandmother’s jewels from my body. Dressed me in this…this sack. Me! The one who wears the Grym crown. I should be wearing the Radiant crown, too.”
No human voice answered her. The darkness urged her on.
She nodded. “All for what? For trying to take what is ours by right? For refusing to bow to a woman from the mortal realm who stumbled into power she cannot possibly understand, nor deserve?”
She laughed, the sound jagged and bitter. “The people will see it. They will rise up when they learn their precious Sparrow has locked away the rightful queen without a trial. No evidence against me has been presented. No defense has been allowed. Just her word and that cursed wizard’s spell.”
The cot creaked as she dropped onto it. The blanket smelled musty. She pulled it over her legs anyway for warmth. The darkness coiled tighter in her chest, promising strength if she would only stop resisting it.
A small metal panel in the door slid open. A guard’s face appeared. He wore the black uniform of Tenebrae.
“Prisoner,” he said flatly. “You are permitted one letter. It will be read before it’s sent, so choose your words wisely. Speak and I will transcribe.”
Beatryce’s heart lurched. One letter. It had to go to her mother. Possibly the only person who still believed in her. The one who had shaped her for greatness. Who had urged her to do what needed to be done.
She stood, tossing aside the blanket and smoothing the hideous gray gown as best she could. She approached the door. “Very well. Write exactly what I say.”
Through the window, she could see the guard had parchment and a quill.
“Dearest Mother,” Beatryce began, her voice steady despite the rage churning inside her.
“By the time this reaches you, I will be rotting in the depths of Tenebrae. The false queen has sent me here without trial and without evidence. She and her lackey wizard immobilized me in the great hall after I instructed my new magician to do her best to exact the vengeance you deserved. That wretched queen somehow got the upper hand and we were defeated.”
She paced again, the words pouring out faster. “They stripped me of everything I had. My gown, my jewels, my dignity. I wear the gray rags of a prisoner now, while that interloper sits on the throne that should be ours.
“All in my party were taken. Elyra is held here, too. I don’t know what’s become of Dren and Merylynn.” Bea sniffed, thinking of her husband and her friend.
“But hear me, Mother. The darkness that lives in me only grows stronger in this place. It whispers to me the way forward. Use the trolls. Burn Summerton to ash. The neph and the wyvern will not aid her forever. At some point, the cost will be too great. Make her pay.”
Bea stopped at the window slit, staring out at the gray sea and wheeling terns. The wind whistled past the bars.
“I remain unbroken. Waiting in the dark, sharpening my claws. And when the time comes, I will be ready.” The darkness hissed in pleasure, filling her head with new words.
She went on. “The blood we share will see us victorious. Do not mourn me. Use me. Let my imprisonment be the spark that ignites the final war.”
She turned back to the guard. “Sign it, ‘Your devoted daughter, Beatryce.’”
The scribe’s quill scratched across the parchment. When he finished, he looked up. “Anything else?”
“Tell her…” Bea’s voice dropped, the darkness threading through every syllable. “Tell her the Radiant queen’s pet—Nightborne—was wounded. And tell her I love her. Even in this place, despite everything, I love her.”
The guard sealed the letter without comment and slid the panel shut.
Bea sank back onto the cot, the rage momentarily spent. The cell pressed in around her, the cold stone, the salt air, the endless crying of the rockterns. Humiliation clawed at her throat. She had been meant for greater things, not this gray oblivion.
But the darkness did not abandon her. It settled deeper, a comforting shadow behind her ribs. Patience, it seemed to say. Your time will come. Your mother will not abandon you. Neither will your husband.
She held her hand out and attempted to form a small ball of fire. It sparked but immediately sputtered out. No worries. She would keep practicing. She would find a way to defeat whatever wards protected this cell.
She closed her eyes, smiling for the first time since the immobilization spell had frozen her in place. Let Sparrow enjoy her hollow victory. Let her lick her wounds and pretend to offer mercy, which she would undoubtedly do.
This game was far from over.