by Tara Grayce
Yes, she had given the trolls information about Farrendel and his human wife. But she had done her best never to betray true military information to the trolls. All of the weapons smuggling had been Thanfardil’s doing, not hers. She was not fully a traitor. Not really.
And she was not about to start now, especially not after the trolls had played her for a fool once already. She was not about to help them kill Weylind, Jalissa, and the rest of her family, even if it meant Melantha would suffer in a troll dungeon.
She drew herself straight. “I will not give you any information. I am no traitor.”
King Charvod smirked. “Are you sure your brother sees it that way?”
“Which brother?” The question popped out before she caught herself.
“You’re going to claim him as your brother now?” King Charvod snorted, his fingers clenching on the stone armrests on his chair.
It was a little late to start claiming such filial connection. Melantha hugged her arms over her twisting stomach. What was Prince Rharreth doing to Farrendel down in that dungeon even as she was sitting here?
“You really should re-think your position.” King Charvod flattened his palms on the stone armrests of his chair. Icy magic swirled from his fingers and into the stone, traveling through the floor, before bursting into her chair.
Tendrils of stone reached out and circled her body, clamping her to the back of the chair and pinning her arms to her sides. She caught her breath at the pain as the troll magic touched her skin. Still, she gritted her teeth and faced King Charvod. “No.”
A knock sounded on the door, then it opened. Prince Rharreth strode inside, though he halted almost immediately, his gaze flicking to her, then to his brother. “I was under the impression she would not be tortured.”
“She is still an enemy. An elf.” King Charvod stroked the arm of his chair, as if he itched to send more magic into the stone. After a moment, he shook his head. “Do not give me a lecture on honor. She will not be harmed as long as she does nothing foolish. You won’t act foolishly, will you, elf princess?”
Melantha glared back and kept her mouth shut. She had already given these trolls too much ammunition to use against her family.
“Or unless her brother acts foolishly.” King Charvod leaned back in his chair, nodding as if agreeing with whatever debate he had been having in his head. “Lock her in a cell not far from her brother. It will be easier to fetch her if Laesornysh needs to be persuaded to cooperate.”
Prince Rharreth raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said my magic would be enough to contain him.”
“It should be, but it never hurts to take extra precautions when it comes to Laesornysh.” King Charvod stood and turned his back to them. “Take her away. I need to see to the preparations for war.”
War. Against her family and her home.
Melantha did not resist as Prince Rharreth used his magic to release her from the chair and hauled her to her feet. Being locked in the dungeon was exactly what she deserved.
HIS TOES WERE COLD.
He was in pain as well, head pounding, agony flaring all through his body, but he had expected the pain. Not the cold toes.
Farrendel blinked, his eyes gritty. It took several moments for the blur of darkness and orange light to focus into a stone ceiling above him, lit with torchlight stretching from the barred window set in the door, reinforced with stone and troll magic.
Not that he could reach the door. He lay spread-eagle on the floor, pain flaring from all the places the magic-laced stone pinned him down. Agony cut not just on top of his skin where the stone wrapped around his wrists and ankles, but also at points where the stone pierced through him.
He could turn and lift his head, relieving the ache where the back of his head had rested against the stone floor for far too long, but when he tried to shift, agony flared through his shoulders. He could wiggle his fingers, but stone held each of his wrists.
He was missing his shirt, his bare back pressed against the cold stone beneath him. Glancing down, he moved his bare feet, his boots and stockings also missing, but the stone around his ankles kept him from moving any more than that.
At least the trolls had left the Escarlish breeches he had been wearing when captured. If he had known he was going to be stuck in them this long, he might have thought longer before he had worn them for that ball.
Except...He closed his eyes, remembering the way Essie’s smile had brightened her eyes. It had been worth it to make Essie smile. Especially considering the way the evening had ended.
Essie...He squeezed his eyes tighter, chest aching. He could still feel her, the heart bond filled with weight and grief instead of the warmth and cheeriness he usually sensed from her. She slept, a fitful restless sleep, that gave him the impression she had cried herself to sleep.
Would he ever see her again? Or would he die here, pinned like a bug to the floor?
He was stuck in his own nightmare. Stone and pain and crushing darkness.
Memories haunted the darkness. His and Essie’s capture by the Escarlish traitors. The train ride. Melantha’s betrayal. The troll king. Thanfardil dying and a gun pointing at Melantha. Shouting trolls. Kicks. Stumbling over icy stone in his bare feet.
And...and...
The troll king cutting his hair.
Farrendel’s stomach churned, his breathing growing more ragged. Surely that was a nightmare. It could not have been a real memory. Surely not.
But as he turned his head, he felt the shortened strands brush his forehead. He could not see the strands around his shoulders or feel them caught beneath him as he should have if his hair was still long.
The trolls had cut his hair.
It would just be the beginning of the degradations he would suffer. Right now, they owned his body. They could do whatever they liked to him, and he would be absolutely helpless.
His heart pounded harder, a deeper darkness closing in at the edges of his vision. Too much stone. He could feel the weight of all the stone stretch far above him, hammering into his skull. Too much darkness wrapped around him, suffocating.
He needed to move. He strained against the stone, crying out as raw edges of pain cut deeper with his movements. Blood warmed the stones beneath him.
He had to get out. He flailed for his magic, and pain scorched through his head, flaring in his wrists.
Somewhere, far away, Essie stirred. The impression through the heart bond changed from sleep to waking awareness in a snap, filling him with a wave of her emotions. Tears. Worry.
Farrendel squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to relax, lie still, and breathe deeply. Panicking was hurting Essie. She was already burdened enough without having to feel his despair through the heart bond.
For Essie’s sake, he had to pull himself together. It would not be fair to her to expect her to carry the weight of his anguish along with her own. For her, he needed to be as mentally strong as he could manage.
Despair and hope to die. That was his first instinctual reaction, scarred into him through too much pain. He had fought and won a lot of battles, all while not caring whether he lived or died.
There on the train, he had told Essie he intended to fight to the death rather than face torture again. He had despaired. Given up on any hope of a future. Probably because it was a future he had never fully grasped, not the way Essie had.
Essie had not despaired. She had clung to hope, even in the face of his hopelessness.
This was not a battle he could win with despondency. This pain was only the beginning of torment and humiliation. He would never survive the weeks ahead if he broke now. Nor would Essie survive if she had to carry such unrelenting despair for him.
In the end in that battle at the Escarlish border, he had chosen Essie rather than a quick death. Hope rather than despair. A future of torture for a chance to return to her.
For the past three and a half months since marrying Essie, he had begun to hope. But he had still held back, fearing
he would break if he dared to dream of a future, only to have it snatched away when the worst happened.
Well, the worst had happened. And yet he was not broken.
What was a little pain? Torture? It was nothing he had not faced and survived before. It was just a few weeks. What was that compared to the decades—no, centuries—he could have with Essie if he lived through this?
If he survived, he was going to stop holding back and instead fully trust her with every shattered piece of him. He would dream of a future and build a life worth living instead of apathetically existing from day-to-day.
Far away in either Escarland or Tarenhiel, Essie was crying. She did not cry like Jalissa or Melantha, their nearly silent tears trailing an elegant sheen down their cheeks. No, Essie’s tears were loud with blotchy, red cheeks, puffy eyes, and drooling, wet sniffles.
How dare the trolls make Essie cry. He did not care what they did to him. But they had hurt Essie by capturing him. They would hurt her even more every time they hurt him.
The heat added strength to the core of raw steel inside him. Farrendel clenched his fists. “I chose this. I chose you.”
His words echoed against the cold stone of the ceiling. Essie could not hear them. She was far away. Though, perhaps, she could feel the sense of them from the strength welling in his chest. She stopped crying, and he could feel her internally reaching for the heart bond.
One of the last things he had told her was that he intended to die. He could not let her continue to think that. She needed to know he was going to fight with every shred in him to get back to her.
“I chose this.” Farrendel shouted the words this time, even though there was no one there to hear him. “I chose you, Essie. Do you hear that? I chose you, and I am going to survive this.”
There was the warmth he remembered flooding through the elishina.
This strength was intoxicating. He glared up at the stone ceiling, the cold darkness barely broken by the torchlight, and shouted with all the breath left in him, straining against the stone pinning him to the floor. “I am Farrendel Laesornysh, and I am going to survive! Do you hear that, troll king? I do not care what you do to me. I am going to survive.”
He could not control what the trolls did to him. He could not move more than his fingers and toes. But he could control his mind, mostly. And with his mind, he would win this battle.
Essie probably thought he was out of his head with pain, thanks to the rush of determination and exhilaration she must be feeling from him.
He collapsed back onto the floor, the stone searing his wrists and shoulders. His head pounded as if stabbed with a knife while his throat ached, his mouth far too dry.
But it had been worth it. Instead of giving in to the despair, he was ready to fight.
Perhaps Essie sensed as much through the elishina. She seemed to be trying to tell him something, her own determination sharp and raw. Maybe she was trying to reassure him that help was coming, as long as he was strong enough to wait for it.
Weylind would come for him. Of that much he was absolutely sure.
Essie’s brothers would come too. Averett, Julien, and Edmund had accepted him as he had never expected they would, even though he had only spent that one week with them. Strange how his trust in them was just as unshakable as his trust in Weylind, perhaps even more so. After all, his new Escarlish family had not betrayed him the way his own family had.
Farrendel forced himself to breathe evenly, relaxing his muscles and lying still against the stone. This was not going to be over quickly. He needed to prepare himself for that reality, accept it, and deal with it.
More than that, he had to keep his wits about him. If he saw an opportunity to escape, he would have to take it. When rescue came, he would help any way he could.
Last time, he had been too weak and broken to aid his father, and in the end, his father had died because of it. Now, Farrendel was older, wiser, than he had been fifteen years ago. A seasoned warrior, not the boy captured after only a few battles. This time, he would be ready so that none of his rescuers paid the price for him.
Yes, he was captured. But he was also strategically placed behind enemy lines. Maybe even inside the trolls’ fortress. He would have to figure out how to take advantage of that.
Essie, tell our brothers I will be ready.
She would not be able to understand his exact words, but perhaps enough of the meaning would come through anyway.
Something like determination came from Essie, and it almost felt like she was reaching for him, as if they could somehow hold hands across the distance.
How was it possible that he could still feel the elishina even though his own magic was blocked? He would have expected that it too would be blocked by the stone and troll magic.
But the magic of the heart bond was something deeper and far more mysterious than even the powerful magic he wielded. It could not be blocked by something as simple as stone.
Whatever he faced, he would not do it alone.
A shiver passed through him, not caused by the cold in his toes. How much would Essie feel through the heart bond? From talking with her, Farrendel had gathered that she did not feel the heart bond as constantly as he did, though she had experienced other effects, like learning elvish far faster than normal, that he had not. Yet she had awakened because of his panic earlier.
Would she feel something as intense as torture through the heart bond? Torture, he could handle. But if Essie suffered along with him...that was something he could not bear.
Was there a way he could block the heart bond somehow? He had to try if he was to protect her from this.
What would happen if he could not protect her? If the torture pushed him close to death, would the heart bond try to keep him alive, as it had when he had nearly been killed in that troll ambush? What if the trolls killed him, and it killed Essie along with him?
He could not allow that to happen. Whatever happened, he had to protect Essie.
Something clanked farther in the dungeon. A door creaked open. Boots tromped on stone in the passageway, along with a lighter, scuffling sound of a smaller person being hustled along.
A door grated, closer this time. Someone gave a muffled cry before the door thunked closed. The booted footsteps turned in the direction of Farrendel’s dungeon door.
Farrendel drew in a deep breath, bracing himself. Was the torture about to begin? Already? He had barely gathered his mental defenses in preparation.
Something scraped before the door swung open. The troll prince, Prince Rharreth, strode inside, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the top of the frame. The torchlight cast shadows across his hard face. In one hand, he held a bowl that wafted a faint hint of steam into the air, bringing with it a savory smell.
Food. Farrendel’s stomach clenched again. When was the last time he had eaten? In the haze of the drug they had used to keep him unconscious for the trip across Tarenhiel and Kostaria, he could not remember if he had been fed. Perhaps, unconscious as he was, they had only managed to force a little water down his throat to keep him alive.
Prince Rharreth flicked his gaze over him before he knelt beside him. Setting the bowl aside, Prince Rharreth touched one of the stone bindings around Farrendel’s wrist.
Pain flared, and Farrendel gritted his teeth against it. This was merely the troll checking that the bindings were secure. The real torture had yet to begin. Still, he imagined himself shutting an iron door between him and Essie, locking the heart bond deep inside his chest.
Prince Rharreth drew a canteen from his belt and uncapped it. “You should drink.”
He held it to Farrendel’s mouth, and Farrendel gulped at the cool water, struggling not to choke.
This was not a kindness. If the trolls wished to keep him alive to torture him and use him as bait for Weylind, then they needed to give him enough sustenance to survive. He had no need to fear poison. A quick death from poison was the last thing the trolls would want.
Se
eming to judge Farrendel had enough, Prince Rharreth withdrew the canteen, picked up the bowl, and dug out a small crust of bread. He dipped the bread in the broth. This close, Farrendel could tell that the broth was watery with only a few small pieces of vegetable. Hardly palatable, but, at this point, Farrendel did not care.
When Prince Rharreth shoved the crust toward him, Farrendel nearly refused to bite into it. Torture was probably coming. How likely was he to end up vomiting up this meal from the pain?
But he needed food if he was to survive, and he would not feel like eating later.
He tore a bite off with his teeth, the crust hard even with the broth soaking it. He refused to think about the humiliation of lying here, being fed bite by bite. The trolls did not dare loosen his bonds even for him to feed himself.
Concentrate on the things he could do. Right now, he needed to gather information.
As Prince Rharreth’s magic was strong, he was the logical choice to check Farrendel’s bindings. Yet feeding a prisoner was something that could have been delegated to someone else while Prince Rharreth stood by and watched in case Farrendel caused trouble. But it seemed that the troll prince took his duty to guard Farrendel so seriously that he did not trust anyone else, even to see to Farrendel’s basic care.
As Farrendel chewed another bite of the crust, he remembered the way Essie had chatted with their captors, trying to learn as much information as she could.
Farrendel could not manage her effortless chatter, but perhaps he could ask enough questions to gain vital intelligence. Talking to this troll was not as intimidating as talking when Farrendel actually cared about what the other person thought of him.
As the troll dipped the last bite of bread into the bowl, swiping it along the sides to soak up the last of the watery broth, Farrendel took a deep breath and forced himself to speak. “Where am I?”
Prince Rharreth’s dark blue eyes flicked to him, searching his face as if contemplating the repercussions of answering. “The fortress of Gror Grar.”