Chapter 57
S urrounded by darkness for hours, clad in nothing but her silken night robe and an endless throbbing on her face from Erissa’s slaps, Alora tried not to think of Garrik’s face.
Bone-white. Unmoving. Hardened in pain.
Tried not to hear the agony in the near-silent sounds of faeries sobbing and choked breaths echoing somewhere beside her.
Alora knew it was a dungeon. By the screech of rusted metal after they threw her into damp dirt and the turn of jangling keys, she speculated it was. Only when her hands wrapped around cold iron bars was she certain.
They had coerced her into the castle’s depths, separating her from Thalon immediately after they took Garrik.
And now, she counted the watery cadence like a heartbeat, turning the dirt in the corner of her cell to mud while she imagined it was Erissa’s blood—or Ladomyr’s. Or Silas’s and every starsdamned High Guardsman for what they’d done.
Hours later, by the count of the droplets, a lantern light glowed from farther down the hallway. Mere moments later, the harrowing grip of armed guardsmen ripped her from her cell and shoved her through the castle to a familiar set of doors.
Alora suppressed her smirk, remembering them. How the beauty of the hardwood glimmering with gold and rubies and branches webbing with emerald leaves shattered into splinters by her mate’s power when they’d first arrived.
Mate.
Her mate. Dying with every normal beat of his heart.
She didn’t have a moment to dwell on it. Those doors opened, and she was forced to stumble through the gathered court. Though the chatter was layered with laughter and whispers, she couldn’t determine of what entertained them. Only the ones who raised their noses at her and stared down the straight of it were easily interpreted—her.
The Dragon from her High Prince’s Shadow Order being dragged to the front of the throne room.
Ladomyr’s snicker was cruel and perverse, dragging shivers like scum and mildew over her skin as her knees slammed into the crimson rug. Garrik’s throne was transformed into warring bears, and a crown of golden tree branches and gemstones rested on Ladomyr’s bald head.
He lifted a hand, though it took much longer than Garrik’s sovereignty to silence the court. When Erissa climbed the dais and took her seat beside her father all stilled, and Ladomyr addressed them, “My subjects. It has been a harrowing week under the false rule of a traitor.”
Shocked gasps and murmurs of confusion waved over the court.
Erissa flashed her canines, silencing them as her father continued, “By my daughter’s careful eye, she has released us from the High Prince and his?—”
Alora stopped listening. Caring not about his false narration and the flowery bullshit he spewed to exult him higher. She fisted her hands in front of her, testing the strength of the chains when Ladomyr’s sinister laugh bit deep into her bones.
“—High Guardsmen dispatched to hunt down his Dragon encampment?—”
Alora’s blood drained. No. Her throat tightened. Eldacar. Deimon. Calla. Draven. All her Dragons.
“—and the traitorous bastard will be returned to Galdheir for his father’s judgment at the end of the festival. May he and all those who march with him be damned to Firekeeper for this act of treason and our kingdom enriched by bringing them to meet the High King’s fair hand.”
The court clanged their crystal glasses, stabbing Alora’s ears like sharpened blades.
Ladomyr’s smile brightened with malicious glee. “Enough misfortune casting darkness over our traditions.” He turned to the princess, extending his hand to usher her from his throne and urged, “Daughter.”
Erissa beamed brighter than the crown of rubies staining her golden waves, collecting the blood-red skirt in her hand as she stepped forward. With graceful fluttering lashes, it appeared she sought to become the epitome of purity. “By my divine right, I welcome you to the Festival of Cullings.”
Ladomyr stalked forward, stretched his hands to his side?—
The floor trembled, cracking marble in symmetrical locations marked with square painted lines. Those squares crumbled, creating darkened holes. Alora hitched a breath the moment Ladomyr closed his fists and wooden pillars ascended.
On those pillars … squirming and flailing … chained to the squared platforms …
Females—not a male in sight.
Like pyres waiting to burn faeries at the stake.
Alora meant to survey each face. Not only High Fae but the countless forms of faeries shackled … but fear gripped her so critically because … because the core pillar …
No.
Fiery red hair and a glare that stole souls burned into Ladomyr.
Jade.
Adorned in battle-black leathers and her crimson cloak, she writhed in bonds shackling her arms above her head. Gaged, groaning the wooden stake behind her as a deathly growl shuddered from her chest.
Alora’s body screamed to run to her, but the shackles on her wrists and ankles prevented that. Maybe— maybe she could have, but she didn’t have time to consider it.
Armored arms snaked around her waist and lifted her from the floor. Alora thrashed like a beast to wrap the chains around his neck, but another guardsman ripped them down, stopping her. Their movements were too fast—too swift—and in mere seconds, she was shackled to the other side of Jade’s pillar.
Jade mumbled something. Alora couldn’t decipher it but opened her mouth to speak when a cloth was shoved into hers. The warmth of Jade’s finger grasped Alora’s, interlocking them before Jade squeezed.
Alora squeezed back. Repeating the words she knew Jade couldn’t hear but hoped she could feel, I’m with you.
“My honored guests.”
Alora wanted to rip out Ladomyr’s throat—and she would. She would.
“I have lifted the decades-old decree. Tonight, enjoy yourselves in any way you please. Examine my crop however suits you best—touch, taste, bleed. Place your bid before nightfall and at dawn … we Hunt.” His sniveling voice halted as the court erupted in a display of repulsive exhilaration. Alora knew his attention had settled on her and Jade before he continued, “Be certain to give special attention to these two as our traitorous High Prince favored them above all else.”
Alora imagined their attention would be more than calculating eyes and snickering.
As if she heard Alora’s thoughts, Erissa, cold-heartedly sneered, “The white-haired … His Highness’s Marked One mate. ” The word sounded like hot coals burning her tongue— good . “Who can demonstrate how she bleeds?”
Jade thrashed, drawing her chains taut, and unleashed what Alora knew was a flood of curses behind her gag.
Hour after hour, Erissa got her wish.
Jade’s hands never stopped squeezing hers.
I’m with you. I’m with you. I’m with you.
Alora’s head was angled over her shoulder, eyes sealed as she trembled and leaned her tear-stained cheek against whatever part of Jade she could reach. She focused on Jade’s starfire ring, rolling it with her thumb as Jade did the same to Garrik’s Smokeshadow ring when a lord scraped a dull skewer dripping with juices of fire-roasted beef across Alora’s mate mark.
A male in an iridescent moonstone suit and amethyst tie said to Silas, “Seems to take well to pain. Perhaps a decent bid.” That voice … seemed familiar.
Silas revealed nothing, his face a work of cut stone, wholly bored.
“Come now, Silas. Are you not bidding this Hunt?” The male mused as others strolled around the platforms like they were window shopping for a new dress.
That bloodlust landed on a stream of crimson, which slowly disappeared inside Alora’s stained robe. “This crop intrigues me little,” was all Silas said before his attention faded. Cupping his hands behind him, the spymaster strolled along the offerings, to which most were claimed.
Alora trembled, taking in the rain-kissed celosia scent of Jade’s hair and another squeeze of her hand when Ladomyr announced, “Fortune has it that I am feeling charitable. A second Culling is yours for bidding.” Clapping stabbed her senses, causing her to wince as the throne room doors opened. Ladomyr continued, “My beasts for your consideration!”
Whimpers from the platforms were enough to imagine what terrible creatures—males—arrived. Snarls and animalistic shrieks tore through the room, but Alora didn’t carry the strength to open her eyes. She’d see them on the battlegrounds soon enough.
But Jade’s thrashing started again. The murderous growls from her throat worse than the beasts entering the room beckoned Alora to peer through slits at the metal cages passing by.
Something wrathful returned energy to her body. She wasn’t sure how the pillar withstood the force as she pulled and pulled and pulled against the chains, gaining as little as an inch.
That knife was still embedded in his shoulder, not allowing it to heal. He looked half-gone.
Alora screamed— screamed so terribly it tore her throat raw.
Garrik’s eyes fluttered open, dazed and lifeless.
She screamed again. Not for her own pain, but for his.
The cold clang of metal bounced over every bar of his cage. Ladomyr trailed the tip of a sword across each spindle as he circled, standing behind her mate slumped against it, tunic glistening with blood.
A golden wolf the size of a reike snarled the moment Ladomyr fisted Garrik’s hair, slamming his head back into the bars.
Garrik barely made a sound.
Then Ladomyr said, “I do love watching Magnelis’s son suffer by my hand.” The king slid his attention to Silas, who had appeared at the caged wolf’s side. “Spymaster, what beast shall I deem him to be?”
The corner of Silas’s lip curled upward, then melted to perfect calm. “Perhaps the High King would wish his heir to be returned to the castle instead of risking a merciful death. A spear to his neck doesn’t seem to suffice, wouldn’t the king agree?”
Far to the back of the room, a bestiary shriek of a nightdiver and the deafening screech of a griffin rattled the chandeliers while females whimpered.
The king frowned like a precious trinket had been taken away. He flicked Garrik’s head to the side, dropping him to the floor in a heap before wiping blood on Silas’s shoulder, who grimaced in disgust.
Ladomyr sighed. “Must you ruin my fun?” the king growled and began to walk away when movement in the cage stirred him to a stop.
“Listen very carefully, Ladomyr.” Even slurring, Garrik’s voice was edged with damnation. That thing of nightmares prowled just under the surface, demanding to be unleashed the moment his magic returned. “I will kill you. But before I do, I will ensure you suffer unimaginable pain. You will beg for death.” Garrik’s head pivoted on the blood-soaked floor, meeting the russet eyes of the pacing wolf before staring at Alora. For a moment, his dulled silver scanned the blood—and the crisp lines cut down her underarms and crisscrossed on her chest, on the mark that belonged to him.
Ladomyr merely snorted.
The thing of nightmares… It awakened.
Garrik slammed into the iron bars and crushed the king’s throat.
Weapons slipped from their sheaths as High Guardsmen swarmed.
Her mate’s hold tightened. Ladomyr scratched and clawed at shackle-scarred wrists.
Garrik growled with a voice like Darkness himself, “Death will be too gracious. When you wake in Firekeeper’s pits, you will not slumber in peace. You know why, Ladomyr?” He didn’t give him a breath to respond. “Because I will be there. Torturing you with the name of my mate haunting you for eternity.”
Garrik whipped his head to Silas the moment he slipped between Ladomyr. The spymaster shared a frown that was unlike him before his hand twisted the knife in Garrik’s shoulder and dropped him convulsing on the floor.
Jade and Alora jolted against their chains.
The wolf growled low and terrible.
Ladomyr coughed, backing into its cage before he took his sword and stabbed its side, screaming, “ Silence before I give you something to whine about!”
The wolf whimpered but submitted to the whims of its master.
Alora was going to kill them—kill them all.
Silas knelt and adjusted Garrik’s tunic with a smugness Alora hadn’t yet seen. She didn’t understand why he would care at all. The spymaster tapped Garrik’s cheek twice, and snickered, “Wouldn’t want you arriving unsightly in Galdheir, Your Highness.”
Garrik’s hand swung at Silas’s, attempting to pull it away, but the spymaster grabbed it, observing the rings as he ran his fingers along each, twisting them with a look of malice as he pulled one from Garrik’s finger and slipped it on his.
Ladomyr’s face morphed into a pleasing shade of crimson. Towering above Garrik from outside the cage, he snaked his boot through to press into the embed knife. “I do so love ruining mates. You should have bonded with my daughter. Mark my words, you will regret this. If your mate lives to see the end of the Hunt, she will warm my cock as my daughter warms yours, producing a claim to your father’s throne before I watch him reform you as a mindless slave.”
“It’s so cold.” The blood loss didn’t help. Alora shivered, rubbing her hands over the soaked silk covering her arms. Without starfire, she felt like she’d freeze over.
Rolling her shoulders, Jade removed her crimson cloak and blanketed it over Alora’s legs, then toweled her jacket around Alora’s shoulders. A grim smile ghosted the corners of her lips. “This should help,” Jade said, ripping a piece of fabric from her undershirt and pressing it to the slow-healing wounds carved into Alora’s chest. “You need to rest. Allow your blood time to heal before tomorrow.”
Sleep—that was impossible in this dungeon.
The guards were merciful enough to leave lanterns on the walls, igniting light in a few cells. Only females curled in positions of hopelessness and fear surrounded them. Sniffling and silently sobbing, awaiting if Destiny fated them to die by the hand of the faerie beside them or a beast locked in another cage.
“Did you see Aiden?” Alora ruptured the despair. She couldn’t let her mind fade to darkness. Couldn’t let her mind fade to Garrik. To where he might be and what they were doing to him.
Jade shook her head in answer, tearing another shred in Alora’s heart.
Their males. Two caged, one missing.
Alora swallowed her heartache and found Jade watching her. That emerald gaze not quite as stony as usual when she said, “You and Garrik have bonded.” And there was a small smile there, hopeful and light. “I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen.”
The snort escaped her of its own accord. If it didn’t hurt to knock her shoulder into Jade, she would have. “Yes. Thanks for telling me, by the way.”
That stony face returned. “I won’t apologize. It wasn’t my place. Besides, I was more determined to remove you from camp than gossip like faelings.”
“You probably could’ve removed me faster if you had told me,” Alora joked.
Jade quietly laughed and twirled the starfire ring on her finger. She was silent for a few heartbeats, her eyes flickering to the lantern. Then she looked down to the mud and dirt seeping into her pants and Alora’s bare legs.
A tightness settled in Alora’s throat as she watched her starfire encased in that claw-like gemstone. It flickered, reminding her of the ring adorning her finger. Garrik’s ring.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she twisted hers, pleading to feel him there. To return him to her.
Jade said carefully, as if she knew, “We’ll find him.”
But would Garrik still be alive when they did? “His heart, Jade,” Alora rasped, noticing golden dust under the band. She scraped her nail across it and watched the flecks fall to the dirt.
Jade clasped her hand, drawing her attention, and squeezed. “Garrik is too stubborn to allow his heart to be his end. He will see this through.” Alora wanted to believe her, and Jade must’ve read it on her face and did one of the kindest things Alora had ever seen from the female. Jade gave her a distraction and said, “Tomorrow, if it comes down to the two of us?—”
“Stop.”
“You’re my High Prin?—”
“If you’re going to use that then, as your High whatever, I command you to not say another word.” The words tasted like ash. She hated it. Hated giving commands simply because of a title she hadn’t earned. Jade was her sister, her equal—if not superior by duty and honor. This … she hated this. “Talk about something else, please. Anything else. Just not this,” Alora pleaded, watching shadows dance along the stone walls and iron bars.
When Alora shivered again and curled her knees to her chest, Jade leaned forward and began unlacing her own boots. She watched as Jade removed them, gesturing for Alora’s foot before she slipped them on and laced them up.
For a moment, their surroundings and the weight of tomorrow vanished. When Jade’s arms stretched, adjusting her socks, Alora took in what looked like a tattoo up Jade’s left shoulder blade and extended partly down the back of her arm to her elbow. Symbols and lettering inlaid with night-blue ink that almost looked like … like a dragon’s wing.
Jade regarded her assessment and leaned against the cold stone before she explained, “It’s Torgalian.”
“It’s beautiful,” Alora remarked.
Jade shrugged as if it was some meaningless thing, and she half-wondered if the marking was something like Thalon’s tattoos. How for every beast he felled, he earned another marking, proudly wearing it on his skin.
“What does it mean?”
Again, cold silence.
Caught in something like a daze, Jade stated flatly, “It means I loved someone once.” No emotion on her face.
Shocked, Alora gaped. “Who?”
Jade’s foot scuffed the floor, as it had regularly since the guards had thrown in the cell, but this time, she traced a pattern. Swooping but simple lines. Some straight. Some curved.
Alora watched quietly, half paying attention.
Jade sighed once she had completed the mud-forged drawing of a pawn. A chess piece. And then her foot swiped it away, scattering the wet clods. “I don’t know.” Something unsettling flashed in those eyes, the amber flecks almost snuffed out entirely. “I don’t remember. All I know is he’s from Sylvera.” And then grinned like she’d won a bet.
Alora arched a brow. “ What ?”
Jade scoffed. “My father’s greatest enemy’s territory— Killian’s .” She shook her head, continuing, “In Torgal, you’re marked with the Flame’s color of your bonded’s birthplace. Flame Killian is a black dragon. His bloodline sires offspring with night-blue flames. So, my bonded would’ve marked me in blue. I in return would’ve marked him on the opposite side of his back in mine—red from Alizarinthian. Dragons need two wings to fly. In a sense, the bonded cannot fly without the other. Or so the stories are told. I was never out of the pits to witness such a thing until I found it on my back.”
It sounded a lot like mates.
My mate. Tears welled in Alora’s eyes. Thankful for the darkness of the cell, she stroked the festering wounds and mark on her chest. Garrik.
Savoring his name, Alora damned herself that she’d waited so long to say it. By that small gleam of hope at the thought of him, Alora’s chest tightened. With painful effort, she swallowed the unbearable ache climbing from her soul and remained silent, listening.
Someone coughed as Jade’s foot squelched into the mud. She twisted it, digging a small crater there before murmuring, “I think … I think he died.” And fell silent.
When she finally spoke, Jade collected her necklace and lightly rubbed her thumb over the melted coin and ivory. “Before Aiden, I was injured in the Exalted City’s coliseum where my father ruled over Torgal. A blast destroyed most of the arena and killed countless spectators.” She didn’t blink, not once, as if locked in a trance. “I remember … a face … beside the explosion. Dark eyes like the blue of night. But oftentimes when I try to focus, he’s blurred. Unrecognizable.”
Jade shook her head, blinked, and turned those green irises to the floor. “My sisters-in-kind and I were horribly injured and made a fool of Flame Killian because of it. Our master, Kieran, punished us weeks later. They were all burned in front of me, and I was next.”
Alora’s attention flickered to the movement of Jade’s hand. To the necklace she ruthlessly squeezed. And Jade nodded.
“Garrik. Can he clarify the memories?” When they find him. Find Thalon and Aiden. When they are all together—because they all would be together again.
“He doesn’t need to be bothered with such things. If the male was alive, he would’ve come for me in the weeks after. Dragons love fiercely. Unless bound by a life debt or dead, whoever he was would’ve come for me.”
Sapphires swept over each cell. Over every poor soul curled up, shivering. And she wasn’t ready for the quiet, so asked, “What is a life debt?”
Jade seemed just as inclined to fill that silence and wrapped her arm around Alora, laying her head on her shoulder. Her voice careful as if she were avoiding a curse. “In my realm, you’re owed a life debt if you prevent someone’s death. It is an unending sentence, forever bound to the one who saved your life. They can be broken by the one who holds the debt, but it’s very rare. Dragons not only love fiercely, they horde everything and anything . A life is more valuable than gold.”
“What happens if someone runs from a life debt? Maybe he hasn’t broken away.”
“Then he would be dead,” Jade snarled softly but quickly frowned, offering a quiet apology. “In the histories, two Flames refused to honor their life debts. If one is owed and the debtor is a Flame, his entire kingdom perishes by an inferno created from the Everlasting Flames of the Evers. If of a lower bloodline, then all generations are annihilated. You don’t fuck around with a life debt. So, whoever he is … is better off dead. And I won’t go looking for him. I found my home. He means nothing to me.”
And that was the end of it.