Stone Walls and Extravagant Eggs
SERAPHAE
Last night was a different kind of torture.
While I was trying to sleep, a sudden warmth coiled low in my stomach, intensifying into something I refused to call pleasure, but it definitely was. There was absolutely no reason for it. I clenched my eyes shut and breathed through it. Then it went away as fast as it had appeared.
Sleep didn’t come after that.
The prince could have used whatever magic he still had in him, but he hadn’t. I decided to feel offended by that. I’d spent the first ten seconds certain I was already dead. He’d spent them being politely physical about it.
The whole thing had gone in a direction I could not have expected and would struggle to explain to Xander. If I ever got to explain anything to Xander again.
My skin had lost a battle with the cuffs overnight. The cuffs had documented their victory in red imprints.
Stone lined the entire cell. Cold, damp stone that had been cold for so long it had given up on being anything else.
There was nothing in the cell other than me and a bucket situated in the corner that I refused to think about.
There was a small window in the top corner of the far wall.
Though calling it a window was generous.
It was more like a sizable gap that allowed wind to come in and spite you.
The amber glow in the corridors cast thin bars across the floor that didn’t reach the walls.
I sat against the stone. The cold worked through the fabric of my dress immediately.
My magic came to me when I reached for it. A small orb formed over my palm obediently.
The fae believed that humans drew magic from a source that was darker.
While most fae had elemental magic, some rarer forms were just as unpredictable.
Shapeshifting, glamour, manipulating metal.
Truth was, we drew magic the same way they did.
The only difference was that the Mother of Magic had given us our powers. Fae had them from the start.
I hovered the orb over the serpent wrapped around my arm like an artistic manacle, right next to the metal ones Riven had generously gifted me.
The serpent was detailed enough that I could see the scales. Dark enough that it looked permanent. I prayed to the gods that it wasn’t. That was a problem I was going to have feelings about later, when I had the luxury.
I thought about the dagger.
Maven had said it was charmed. Made things easier, she’d said, in the way of someone describing something while withholding half of the important parts.
I pressed my thumb against the ink and felt nothing unusual. Only warm skin and a tattoo that had not been there this morning and very much was now.
The realization that the dagger had caused it after I cut Caelan turned my stomach. Because that could mean it was blood magic, and blood magic was notorious for trying to kill you.
If it was a curse, at least the prince had the other half of it. If I were going to turn into something unpleasant, he was coming with me. That wasn't exactly comforting, but knowing that he was going to suffer carried its own kind of pleasure.
The only way to tell time was by the trays they brought in. It was lunch. The guard who delivered it didn't approach me. He’d left the tray by the door and slammed it shut before I got the chance to insult him.
I didn't want to eat. Not because I wasn't hungry. I was getting there. But because I refused to eat on principle. Eating their food touched my ego in ways I didn't want to name.
Then the smell hit me.
Rich and savory, warm enough to reach across the cell.
I reluctantly tugged the tray closer. One could look at the food without actually eating it.
A bowl of soup, roasted meat, a wedge of parsnip that looked caramelized. The soup steamed. They fed their prisoners meat. The complete smugness of this place. How dare they.
I ate everything.
The cell door opened as I was wiping my mouth clean.
Riven came through it and didn't bother closing the door behind him.
I took in his black armor, reinforced with shoulder plates.
The sleeveless design revealed muscles that were earned from experience rather than achieved through training.
The dark bracers on his forearms drank the torchlight.
A cloak attached on one shoulder, which indicated a high rank in Primoria.
The Captain of the Guard. I was certain of it.
His dark hair was windblown, with strands falling just above angular brows. He wore a sculpted face that was clean-shaven and quite pleasant to look at, if I were being honest.
He stood there looking at me as if he were deciding where he'd bruise me next.
Even though he was stoic, the dimples didn’t stop trying to soften his features. They were present even with a straight face. He’d be devastating if he smiled.
He gestured for me to get up.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “For what?”
He didn't tell me. Just pulled me up the same way he'd thrown me down. As if I were a sack of inconvenience. Then we were out of the cell and into the corridors.
“Where are we going?” I asked. Although I might as well have asked one of the paintings on the wall. The one with the bearded man looked particularly sympathetic.
He didn't look at me. Didn't speak. Just moved and expected me to follow.
I looked over my shoulder at the six guards behind us. Flattering, really. My cuffs had a chain attached to them. I was being walked like a dog.
Servants moved aside when they saw us, eyes following me with open curiosity. I tried to wave at one who gasped when I lifted my chained hands. The servants came and went through the same narrow door at the end of the corridor that I had clocked last night.
I noted the floor plan and the guards. This didn't look like another dungeon. He wasn't going to execute me. If he were, it would have been done on the cell floor. It would be a shame to stain the marble with human blood.
This wing of the estate had no windows, which suggested it was buried into the mountains rather than hanging off a cliff face.
Four guards stood in the narrow corridor.
We stopped in front of a door at the far end, and Riven pushed it open.
An actual room. It had a hearth that was already burning on one wall. A settee with burgundy upholstery sat before it. On the opposite wall stood a four-posted bed with thick linen, a nightstand, and a door that probably led to a bath.
I looked at Riven.
He looked at me and nodded toward the room.
I went in because the alternative was being thrown in by him.
“Cuffs,” he said.
“So he does speak,” I said too brightly as I raised my hands.
He ignored that and unlocked the chain leash from the cuffs with the efficiency of someone who found the whole thing distasteful. At the edge of his bracers, pale scars circled both his wrists. Thick and unmistakable.
A fae with scars.
I filed that detail away.
He was left-handed. Another detail that I noted for no apparent reason.
The cuffs stayed on, but they had short links between them that allowed movement.
“Why is he keeping me here?” I asked.
He answered by closing the door in my face.
Dinner came soon enough.
Despite myself, I had tried the bath. Thirty-six hours in a cell with nothing but a bucket made a person pragmatic about accepting things. Even if those things were provided by a captor prince who had opinions about prisoner comfort.
The cuffs made bathing creative and partially clothed, but I emerged clean enough. Still in the same dress, still angry.
After drying my hair, I sat on the floor with my back against the door and listened to the muted footsteps of the guards outside.
Still four sets of feet. Two of them were directly outside the door. Two hours per each rotation. Each guard took about forty seconds to settle into position. If meals came the same way they did in the dungeons, it would mean a single guard—likely one who stood by the door—would enter.
I waited until the dinner tray arrived.
My door opened and a guard came in. I heard him set the tray down on the settee. Then I heard his footsteps, careful and muted, as he wandered the empty room. The steps moved toward the bath, where I hid behind the open door.
He walked in with his back to me. I wrapped my chain around his neck, twisted it, and crossed my right hand over his left shoulder to cover his mouth.
When his body fell limp, I eased him onto the ground with great effort. He was heavy and I was not built for it.
I barely had time to react because the other guard at the door had come in to investigate. His sword came through the doorway before he did. My chain went around the arm it was attached to as I gripped his wrist and twisted.
The movement pulled him toward me, and a sound of surprise escaped him right before I broke his nose with my elbow. I kicked in his kneecap, then rammed his hilt into his skull hard enough that his face greeted the marble floor with a crack.
I slipped out of the room and moved against the wall.
Two more guards were around the corner. As I had expected, those two didn’t have magic.
Although magic was more common in fae than humans, not all of them had it.
They were still fast, but they were lesser fae.
Budget immortals. The next two would likely be the same.
There was no getting around them.
I was used to my targets being alone. By the time I cleared them, I was breathless and bleeding from a cut along my ribs and another on my forearm. There was no key to be found for my cuffs. Riven likely had the only set. I didn’t dwell on it.
I ran for the service door.
Servants scattered when they saw me but stayed out of the way.
I sprinted down the corridor just as guards shouted somewhere from behind.
I went through the service entrance. Narrow hallways led me to the back of the estate.
A walkway rounded toward a section that wasn’t cliff face or carved mountain. The part that led to freedom.
Four more guards stood between me and the gate. I kept to the wall and shadows as the last of the charmed sunlight faded and the lanterns flickered on.
By the time guards were shouting outside too, I had gone over the wall where the lighting was the weakest with great effort.
I dropped onto the other side without a sound and ran toward the tree line rather than the main path.
The estate faded behind me as I kept running, and I did not stop running.
Not until my lungs protested and the trees swallowed the cliffs behind me.
Not until I was certain that I had gotten away.
I was out of the estate.
It was suspiciously easy, if I were being honest. The wards would have alerted the prince that I had escaped by now. Yet, I did not hear an angry mob of fae coming for me.
I kept to the brush rather than the road.
The fact that I was bleeding in a formal gown while cuffed would draw attention.
The dark helped. I found a horse outside a stable yard by the edge of the city.
Stealing it was not my finest moment, but necessity had its own logic and I needed it more than the owner did.
There was a cloak on a hitching post outside a tavern on the main road. I pulled it on without stopping.
The gates would close at sixth bell, and I nearly didn’t make it.
The humans who visited the masquerade were still leaving Twilight.
There were groups of them filtering toward the main arch, which I joined with my hood pulled up.
The guards were managing people, not faces.
Nobody was looking for a prisoner. They were looking at the crowd and seeing guests.
I kept the cuffs inside my cloak. My hands held together in front of me the way a cold person held themselves. Nobody looked twice.
It was ironic, really. The masquerade that had brought me into this city was the same thing that let me leave it. One gate. One crowd. One window that opened once a year.
Then I was out completely, but I didn’t make it far.
Apparently, a horse could not outrun magic.
I was just halfway across the wildlands when it hit. I buckled over the saddle and was off it entirely.
The fall didn't hurt.
It was nothing. Irrelevant, even. Because every nerve in my body was on fire simultaneously, and that put things like falling off horses into perspective.
A sound came out of me that I would not be describing to anyone. My knees hit the earth and stayed there while my fingers clawed into the dirt. The smell of crushed grass and soil came up as I tried to find something to hold while my skin turned itself inside out.
The tattoo on my forearm glowed red. Angry, blazing red, as if it were as offended as I was.
My thoughts muddled. My lungs barely remembered how to do simple things, such as breathe. I couldn’t do anything except exist while I waited for it to stop.
It didn't stop.
It got worse.
I recoiled without meaning to and ended up on my back in the dirt, the stars overhead unconcerned, tears in my eyes. Then I rolled onto my side, curled around myself in a ruined gold dress while a magical snake tattoo attempted to kill me.
Eventually, it stopped.
I lay there. Breathless and sweating. The ground was cold against my cheek, and I didn't move. The cuffs rattled from my shaking hands, and the tattoo faded back to black as if nothing had happened. Completely innocent.
I drew a deep breath through my nose until my hands steadied. Then I pushed myself up, called the light into my palm, and looked around.
The horse was still there, watching me with an expression that closely resembled judgment.
I took the reins and stepped forward.
The tattoo glowed, and I nearly screamed before staggering backward. The glow ebbed. I took a tentative step forward. It glowed again.
Distance.
The bond resisted distance. I could not put space between myself and Primoria without the thing deciding to light every nerve on fire until I turned around.
I stood there for a moment with that information.
Then I said several things about the prince that I meant sincerely. When the anger faded to something more manageable, I smoothed my dress, which was ruined past the point of shame.
Despite it all, I got back on the horse with my spine straight and chin up. My dignity, if not entirely intact, was at least present and accounted for.
I rode back to the estate.