Chapter 47
Chapter forty-seven
Alfrie
Istare after the enormous tiger as she sprints off into the dark depths of the Woodlands and takes what’s left of my heart with her.
A tiger.
After everything. I’m amazed. My shattered soul silently calls to her, and I want to follow. I want to make sure she’s safe. But that’s impossible until I can undo this glamour magic. I’m her biggest threat until then.
I fall onto my back in the dirt, wishing I was dead. She should’ve ended it. I wish she ended it. I hate that I wasn’t strong enough to stop the betrayal of my own body. The way she looked at me with those helpless hazel eyes as I drained the life from her beautiful face will haunt me forever.
I’ll never forgive myself, glamoured or not.
I slowly sit up. I’ll make it up to her. Even if it takes the rest of my life to earn her trust again. I’ve lost everything at the hands of the Unseelie Court. I will not lose her too.
Until then, I need to figure out how to convince Leer that I’ve followed his command and murdered Zara. Then I have to get Emlyn and Alix and get the hell out of Lanray. Or the Unseelie Court. Whichever it is. I guess they’re one and the same. Perhaps they always have been. It hardly matters now.
I’ll burn it all to the ground.
There’s a rustling in the brush a few feet from the clearing and I force my Fae features to return.
My ears pull to fine points, and my vision sharpens, allowing a keener sense of sight and sound.
It’s a deer. I strain to pinpoint its location, listening to its thumping heart to my left.
I reach for the dagger on the ground beside me.
I know what I have to do. It saddens me that I have to take a life to do it, but I need to bring a heart to Leer.
And I’ll do anything or kill anyone if it means Zara’s safe. I’ll take my own life if I can’t undo the compulsion spell that plagues me.
I crouch low and conjure the image of a wolf, easily transforming into the four-legged creature. I sneak upon the unsuspecting deer and take it down without much of a struggle, sinking my canines deep into its carotid artery, killing it as painlessly as possible.
I shift back into my given form and sit near the fallen animal. I stroke its fur and silently thank it for the sacrifice, then draw back the dagger, carefully carving out its heart. I stare at the bloodied organ in my hand. This could have been Zara’s. It was nearly Zara’s.
Because of me. Because I’m weak.
I shake away the thought. I’ll make it right. I pull off my tattered shirt and lay the animal’s heart in it, but there’s one more thing I have to do that may kill me. I hold the heart in my hands and use my own glamour magic to make it resemble a Fae’s heart.
Unlike Leer, using glamour this way will cost me. It’ll eat away at a part of my soul. But it’ll be worth whatever piece of me is stolen.
I wrap the glamoured heart in my shirt and start back toward the palace at Lanray. Night descends, and I’m practically limping with exhaustion when I approach the dried and brown grassy courtyard outside of the castle. It’s been two days since I’ve slept. Or eaten.
It isn’t surprising I was too weak to fight against Leer’s glamour.
Perhaps that’s the reason they chained and tortured me first. I expect it was mostly for their pleasure, but Leer had to have known I would put up a fight.
That I would give my very soul for Zara.
He knew I would do everything in my power to undo the effects of the magic.
He needed to make it difficult for me to fight, if not impossible. He needed me at my weakest.
I make it to the servant’s entrance and try to push open the door, but it’s too heavy.
I’m too worn out. I knock and lean my weight on the wood, nearly falling over the threshold as a guard pulls open the door.
His black eyes examine my state, but he makes no effort to break my fall, and I topple to the stone floor, but make sure not to drop the wrapped heart I cling to my chest.
I feebly get up from the floor and the guard strongarms me dragging me down the dreary hall. I stumble along the way and trip over my feet several times as he tows me down the spiral stairs to the dungeons.
Shit. I need to find a way to alert Emlyn that she isn’t safe here. That they have Alix. I can’t do that from chains. What if I’m already too late? What if they’ve already killed her and Alix? This is all my fault. I was na?ve and should’ve seen the signs.
There were so many signs. But I wanted to believe my friendship with Leer was real.
That, at some point, he and Hardin cared somewhat about me.
I needed to believe that. I was so alone when they found me.
Then again, they were the ones who destroyed me.
They erased my world and took advantage of my guilt that I’d somehow survived.
I survived and my family—my sister Cyra, my parents: the King and Queen of Gridan—they didn’t.
The guard tosses me into the cell I was freed from only hours before and rams his fist into my stomach, bringing me to my knees. He yanks the deer’s heart from me, and chains me to the walls again.
He unwraps the shirt and studies the organ inside. “Prince Leer will be pleased.” He wraps it back up and sets it on the ground in front of my knees. He slams the barred door shut behind him and I’m alone.
I need to think. But I’m so tired. My consciousness is fading and my head is too heavy. I yank my wrists against the chains sending pain into the irritated skin. I have to stay awake. I have to think. I need to send a message to Emlyn, but I can’t simply ask to see her without raising suspicions.
Boots stomp over the stone as they near the cell and I look up at the two evil royals looming over me. Leer smiles at me the way he always does. The way he has for the last ten years I’ve lived with him.
The way a friend smiles at a friend. I retch, bile spilling from my lips and onto my chin.
“Oh dear. You’re really in a state.” Elara sneers and reaches for the balled-up shirt on the dusty floor. Her long and pointed nails catch on to the material, making a horrible scratching sound. She lifts the heart to examine it closer. “She’s dead?”
The sour taste of vomit coats my tongue, and I spit some onto the ground. “I took her to the woods, and I cut out her heart.” The lie comes easy. It’s a glamoured command after all.
Leer takes my face in his hands and glares down at me. “Good boy. I wasn’t sure I could trust you to do what needed to be done. You’ve earned your rest.”
They begin to file out of the cell, leaving me chained uncomfortably to opposite walls. This might be my last chance to get a message to Emlyn.
“Leer?” I cough over the bile.
He nods for Elara to go on ahead then pivots to face me. He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to say something more.
“Can I see the healer’s apprentice?” I try to lift my head to look him in the eyes as I beg. “Please?”
He assesses me with onyx irises, gone are the icy blue eyes of his glamour.
I guess he’s tired of pretending too. “Hmm. I suppose. You’ve done as I asked.
I’ll offer you this kindness. As a friend.
” He comes closer. “Perhaps we should help her with her education a bit more. I feel it’s important to teach my healers as much as possible, don’t you? ”
Shit.
He grabs my hand and yanks it backward until the bones snap. I cry out at the unbearable pain shooting up my arm. He pats a hand over my pocket. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” I pant through the agony of my busted hand.
He sneers. “You must think me a fool.” He pulls out the hand mirror from his trouser pocket. “I saw her out there. Amazing, wasn’t it? I knew she was special. Don’t worry, Elara wasn’t watching. She believes Zara’s dead.”
“I—I killed her. You have the heart.”
He holds a finger to his lips. “Shh…I know you found a village out there and I know you sent her to find it. I know all your dirty little secrets.” He grips my chin in his hands, and his breath is hot and putrid against my face.
“I’m sending the healer out of my good graces, but once you’ve healed, you’ll take me to Zara.
And she’ll lead me to the village. I’ll finish what I started years ago, and you’ll finish her.
” He pushes my face away. “I own you, Prince Alfrie. My apologies, it’s Finn, right? ” He chuckles and leaves the cell.
I breathe through the pain in my wrist and fingers and hope the apprentice comes quickly. Not for me. For Emlyn. I hope there’s still time for me to save her, at least.
The apprentice tip toes to the cell door, and she hustles to attend to me.
She cleans up the stomach contents on my face and dabs an ointment onto the gashes along my cheeks.
She’s a small female. Meek and shy. Even now when I’m technically a prisoner, she appears nervous around me—waiting for me to tell her what to do. Instead, I simply thank her.
She nods. “This might hurt.” I brace myself as she aligns my broken bones to splint them. It doesn’t just hurt. It’s the most excruciating pain I’ve experienced. Physically, anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
When her work is complete, she curtsies and turns to exit.
“I need you to do something else for me.” I wait for her face me. “Discreetly.”
She glances through the bars into the hall then comes back and kneels beside me. “Is this about the missing princess?” She whispers and jerks her head back and forth between me and the door.
I pause. Leer could be watching this exchange.
It’s a risk, but I have to take it. I motion for her to come close, and whisper lowly, angling my chin to my chest to cover my lips as best as I can.
“I need to get a message to Princess Zara’s ladies maid.
Tell her Alix and I are prisoners and to sneak down in the early morning hours.
I need to speak with her urgently. Can you do this for me? ”
“Where is her Highness?”
I don’t respond. The less she knows, the better. “Please. Go to Lady Emlyn.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t mention this to anyone, do you understand?”
She dips her chin and slips from the cell. There’s a commotion down the hall. Screaming. Bones snapping.
Alix.
I pray he can hold on until I can figure out how to get us all out of here. Alive. My mind wanders to Zara. I wonder if she’s safe. If anything happens to her because of me…I can’t think like that. I’ll see her again. I’ll touch her face. Kiss her lips. Hold her, warm in my arms.
The memory of her lips on mine and the way her eyes ignite like fire in the sunlight will have to be enough until then. I close my eyes, surrendering to exhaustion. The image of her face clouds my thoughts and is the only thing that keeps me from giving up completely.