My thoughts went quiet.
I couldn’t breathe anymore, the smoke stinging my lungs, the forest smoldering behind us. My brain teetered on the knife-edge between panic and survival, and panic was winning, making my limbs heavy. As I slowed, Aeron lost his grip on my arm .
I don’t know if it was exhaustion or fear, but my body simply wouldn’t move anymore, my muscles locking.
I slammed to my knees in the snow. Aeron whirled, gripping me around the ribs, like he was going to carry me to safety. And as much as I loved him for it, I knew we had nowhere left to run.
“I’m sorry!” I shouted at Aeron.
Guilt pierced me. If I hadn’t been here, Aeron would have found a way out.
Shouts rang out as the silver-clad soldiers descended on us and ripped Aeron away from me. His panicked eyes were locked on me as I felt the boot on my back and found myself facedown in the snow. Rough hands captured my wrists in freezing iron shackles, then clamped one around my throat.
When the soldier yanked me up again, I felt as if my arms would be pulled from their sockets.
I shivered wildly, trudging on through the snow. The soldiers led us to the castle. And as we got closer, a sharp tendril of horror wound through my chest.
Cages hung from the castle walls on long iron chains. In one of them, I glimpsed the pale, shivering figure of Princess Orla. She must be freezing to death.
I stared at her, my eyes stinging. I wondered if she’d been screaming, and when she’d stopped.
The other cages? I had a horrified feeling that they were empty, waiting for us.
30
TORIN
The queen had made me a throne of sorts of thick, barbed foliage and blood-hued leaves that bound me to a stone.
And today, anarchy reigned in the Court of Sorrows. From my spiky little throne, I’d listened to the sounds of shouting and screaming. Breaking glass. I felt the acrid miasma of panic sweep through the castle. I smelled blood on the air.
I had no idea what was happening, but I liked it.
I flexed my biceps and forearms, trying to weaken the plants. The queen’s dark tendrils came alive at her command and ripped my skin whenever I tried to break free.
Propelled by sheer rage and determination, I’d ripped through them four times so far, trying to get to Ava. Each time, the fucking things would score my flesh with bloody lacerations. And each time, I’d be captured again within minutes, strangled with spiked ropes of plants, and dragged back to the throne. The vines were everywhere, dark as bruises flecked with red. And the queen controlled them all, living nooses that sprawled around me. I’d grown to loathe the sight of them.
With every successful escape, the number of soldiers standing guard grew. Now, there must be around thirty of them, staring at me, fingers twitching at the hilts of their swords. Even as chaos ripped apart the castle, the soldiers stood guard, trapping me here.
Still, I was certain I’d break free again.
It had been worth it every time. In brief moments of escape, I’d managed to kill thirteen of her soldiers, and in my most bored moments, I would fondly remember their deaths. In fact, the highlight of the past month had been the one moment when I’d managed to steal one of their swords. For several glorious heartbeats, I’d felt like a god again. I’d felt alive, like I once more held the Sword of Whispers. Euphoric, I’d carved through the heads and bodies of seven of her soldiers, slaughtering as many as I could, until the winged maniac queen had returned with her prison of vines.
I had no idea why the fuck I was still alive. Initially, sure, I’d understood. She’d commanded her idiot son Morgant to heal me, and she’d set me up here like a broken statue, a triumphant display of her conquered Seelie king.
But how many weeks had passed now? Surely six?
Bruises covered my arms, and the queen’s scarlet-flecked vines scored my skin. Bizarrely, the queen had left the stains on the floor where Ava’s sword had pierced my heart, a burgundy smear across the moss and stone. It was all part of her pageantry, a display of power.
But what had they done with Ava?
She’d promised that if Ava killed me, they would let her go. That had been her oath. That had been the entire reason I’d thrown myself in front of Ava’s sword, so she could return to her normal life as if she’d never met me. As if I’d never dragged her from the safe world of the humans into the brutal and bloody world of the fae.
But as the days wore on, I started to doubt Mab’s word. Somehow, I could sense Ava’s presence still here, a breath of life in a barren world.
Sometimes, I imagined I could hear her, smell her. Right now, I felt her presence moving closer.