33. Keira #2
Rainier kneels before me, placing his hands on either side of my head, and I gasp as his healing magic flows into me. “Just as I suspected. You have head trauma.”
The other two healers sit on the pallet on either side of me, and their gentle touches burn through my flesh and make my muscles cramp painfully.
Jasper walks through the open gate of my cell, then hesitates with his back to me.
He thinks for a long time, body completely stiff, then suddenly turns on the spot.
“Can you—would you mind if…” He grimaces when I jolt and suck in a harsh breath from the sharpness of muscles getting stitched back together.
“Never mind. I’m being selfish in asking anything of you while you are being healed. ”
“Jasper, I would honestly appreciate the distraction.”
“Can you use your bond and…I need you to ask Aldrin if Silvan was injured in the battle. He might not want to talk to me, but I need to know if he is okay.”
Aldrin? I ask gently, knowing he watches us.
Yeah, he replies, wincing at my pain despite the many cuts all over him and the way his own muscles burn with fatigue. Not a scratch on Silvan. At least, not anymore. He didn’t take any big injuries.
“Silvan is uninjured,” I breathe while the healers give me a momentary break.
“Thank you.” The tension flows out of Jasper and he leaves without another word.
“We need to do something about the two of them,” I murmur to Rainier, to avoid acknowledging the situation I am currently in.
“What can you do for men who don’t want to be helped?” he replies, shrugging, but his gaze lingers where Jasper stood.
Rainier and the healers leave and I fall into another fitful sleep.
Hands grip my shoulders, fingers digging in painfully, shaking me awake.
For a heartbeat, I think I am in a hut in the Sanctuary of Magic, in Strathia, and Finan is here to abduct me all over again.
I almost hear the screams of priestesses as his soldiers torment them, almost smell the burning of the world around us.
This fate is so much worse.
Torin hovers over me instead, the long strands of his black hair dangling between us, a cruel smile forming on his lips.
“Finally, I have you right where I want you.” He snickers, then pulls me roughly upright.
“Get used to this sight, Queen of Nothing. You are going to be down here for a long time.”
My heart stops, then hammers violently, drawing Aldrin’s attention. He stands in his base of operations, leaning over a map, and falters mid-argument.
A sharp pain blooms in my side, then Torin holds up a needle with droplets of my blood coating the tip. Immediately, the poison soaks into my flesh, blocking my magic bit by bit. “Just in case Jasper didn’t do his job right. The man is soft beneath all those muscles. I am nothing if not thorough.”
“Get. Off. Me!” I elbow him in the ribs and push him away with more force than he was expecting.
Torin lets out a low laugh. “I can’t wait to watch the fight slowly die in your eyes. When you are a broken shell of yourself, you will do whatever I ask of you and tell me everything I need to know.”
He clicks at the two guards hovering in the doorway, and they immediately enter, carrying a small foldout table between them, heavy iron chains and a case.
I recognize the man who strolls in behind them, whistling.
He is a part of Titania’s inner circle. Zedrick.
He leers at me with a nasty grin on his face.
Torin immediately opens the case and lays out a towel on the table. Then, one by one, he pulls out each shiny instrument and lines them up neatly. Scalpels. Small saws. Tongs. A branding iron. Each one is immaculately cleaned and looks razor-sharp.
My eyes turn wide as I watch each small movement, unable to look away.
It is like there is a wild beast in my chest, thrashing and trying to claw its way out of me.
This cannot be my reality. Surely the bargain will not let them torture me.
My hands shake so violently I have to shove them under my legs to hide it.
Keira. Keira, listen to me.
I jolt at Aldrin’s voice in my head, thanking the gods that our bond didn’t shut down with the poison, but wishing for his sake that it had all the same.
Even my reservoir of magic remains untouched, but there is a shield growing over it, slowly stopping me from tapping into my abilities and raw power.
Stay with me, he pleads. Stay in my body as much as you can. We will get through this together. I promise I won’t leave you. Not for a second. You have to fight that poison before it blocks your magic completely. I can guide you through it.
His thoughts are a chaotic mess, spinning around and around in a tempest, as he frantically tries to think of ways to get to me. As doubt creeps in that I will be able to counter the poison’s effects without the training he received with the Assassins of Belladonna.
I read it all in his mind.The fact that every way into the palace is choked with Titania’s guards. They stand with bows and arrows ready on each tower and battlement. In every window and doorway. The secret passages are blocked. None of the assassins can get him to me.
Aldrin cannot even send a message to Drake, Rainier or Jasper to save me.
Most fae have a natural block against Drake’s ability to cast out his consciousness and dip momentarily into the minds of others.
Even those he has trained to let him in, like Rainier, cannot reach out to him first. They can only receive him.
Aldrin is terrified to leave my mind for a single moment, to make me endure this alone. He is terrified of remaining, and witnessing the horrors they will inflict on me.
Around him, our most trusted people desperately attempt to find a way to rescue me.
My mother’s face is incredibly pale and she shakes violently, spouting ideas that Cyprien immediately counters.
My father paces restlessly, running his hand through his hair, then slamming his fist on the table as he breaks down.
The sight of them shatters my heart and amplifies my fear.
Focus on me, Keira. Only on me, Aldrin demands, wrapping his essence around me like a warm embrace. Put yourself into a meditative state, then focus on each particle of toxin floating in your blood. Find it, isolate it and attack it. Block Torin out.
Under Aldrin’s command, I concentrate on my breathing, the ragged drag of each shallow breath in and out, deepening them. Holding each one before letting it go. I take notice of my hammering heart thudding against my ribs, but it only accelerates under my attention, returning my breath to pants.
Keep trying. You have meditated so many times before—you just need to dip a little deeper into the layers of your body.
Have your breaths follow my instruction: in…
and out. Slow…and calm. Feel your heart soothe.
Pay attention to every muscle in your body and leach the tension from them one by one.
Your neck, your shoulders, back and limbs.
Stay with me and forget the room you are in.
I follow Aldrin’s every instruction. It is like a drug taking over me as he pours serenity into my body across the bond. He falls into meditation alongside me. I cannot close my eyes without drawing Torin’s attention, but I stare unseeing instead.
Travel down the layers of your consciousness, Aldrin instructs, his mind a physical presence within me, guiding me to where I need to be.
I can sense it: a highway of sprawling, interconnected roads, with foul black particles among the red of my blood.
They attack the shimmering white light of my magic that glitters through me.
You’re almost there, Aldrin says urgently. Have your magic smother and destroy every bit of that toxin.
My power curls at my command, fire to incinerate the invading particles. Right as the micro-wields curl around the spheres of toxins, ready to set them alight, pain resonates through my head in a hot flash, shattering my concentration.
Torin slaps me hard a second time, snapping my head to the side. I blink at him, taking in those eyes bright with thrill only inches from mine.
“Don’t you dare disappear from here,” he snarls.
“Is he in there with you? Your mate ?” Torin taps one of my temples hard enough to hurt.
“I made you a promise, Keira, and I do like to keep my promises. Tell me everything I need to know, or I will torture it out of you. I will make you scream and beg like you have never done before, and then I will send in healers, so we can do it all again. I am a patient man and I have cleared my schedule for days. I know Aldrin tells you all of his plans.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. He slaps me again and blood sprays from my lips.
Zedrick’s wolfish expression only grows as he leans against the bars, eyes fixed on us. “Torin, I do love a good show. It was so fucking hard to get decent entertainment in the capital before you and your mother took over. We had to go to all the effort of sourcing humans from their realm.”
My stomach turns at those words. The injustice of it has my blood boiling.
No wonder there is so much hate among humans for the fae, when men like this have gone undetected and unpunished.
Every generation of humans has been affected by fae cruelty in one way or another.
Every generation has produced women who have reciprocated the abuse toward fae on their pilgrimages.
Torin tosses the iron manacles at Zedrick, who catches them out of the air. “I know you like to play an active part. Bind her for me.”