I whirled around, taking it all in, and claustrophobia prickled at the edges of my mind. Then I craned my head up, trying to see where the light was coming from, and immediately grew dizzy. The walls… the tree… rose far above my head. Like, dozens of feet above my head, at a minimum. It looked completely unclimbable, with no hand or footholds that I could see. The illumination filtering in from the top appeared to be natural daylight.
“No,” I said a bit desperately as the reality of what was happening set in. “Please… don’t leave me in here.”
The guard who had been holding onto me gave me a shove, sending me crashing against the unforgiving wood of what was to become my living prison. He and Shaky Portal-Making Guy stepped back through the hazy ring hovering in the air. I pushed away from the wall and tried to lunge after them, but the portal snapped shut before I could reach it. All I succeeded in doing was staggering to a halt against the other side of the tree.
“Shit!” I yelled. The sound echoed hollowly around me.
I tried to quiet my uneven breathing. I was okay. No one had hurt me, unless you counted the bruise where my shoulder had hit the inside of the tree. I needed to slow down and assess things without panicking.
The hole in the floor was meant as a primitive latrine, judging by the stench. A pile of objects lay on the floor, directly across from the shit pit. I’d barely noticed them sitting there during my brief flirtation with hysteria. I approached the pile and crouched, examining the items in the uncertain light filtering down from above.
There was a blanket, along with clean clothes that looked to be roughly the right size to fit me. On top of the pile of folded cloth was a loaf of crusty bread wrapped in thin paper and what looked like a hollow gourd with a cork stopper in the top. There was liquid sloshing inside. I uncorked it and took a sniff. It was odorless, so I stuck my finger inside. Plain water, I was pretty sure.
And that made sense, I supposed. Weren’t bread and water supposed to be the standard prisoner rations? I was both hungry and thirsty at this point, too. My last drink had been after the self-defense training with Rans yesterday afternoon, and my last food had been an apple and a banana not much later. I winced at the reminder of the vampire I’d left behind, making an effort to put him out of my mind.
My fingers itched to lift the water to my lips, but memory stopped me. Doesn’t your generation read fairy tales anymore? I mean, is it seriously not common knowledge that you don’t eat Fae food or drink Fae wine?
Albigard had said I was connected to him now because I’d accepted his gift. Suddenly the pile of items looked less like a bounty and more like a trap. I set the water down and stared at it, sitting back on my heels and crossing my arms over my knees.
No one had said anything specifically about accepting Fae clothing or blankets, but I wasn’t inclined to take the chance. Nothing I had seen so far indicated that any of them gave a shit about my wellbeing. Why would they do things for my comfort if there wasn’t a catch involved somewhere?
I stood up and went to sit against the wall midway between the pile of temptations and the stinking hole. How long would they let me stew in here alone, before they came back and did something worse to me?
I tried to tell myself that being in this cell was a good thing. I tried to tell myself that Albigard was out there somewhere trying to get my dad free right now. Maybe it was like the legal system back home, where you could be held in jail for a long time waiting for a trial. Especially when something as important as an execution was on the line.
That would also be consistent with what Albigard had said about the Court barely being able to come to an agreement on simple issues. It should have been comforting. Instead I felt panic threatening again.
Fucking Christ. What was I doing? What the hell had I done? Would I be trapped in here with food I couldn’t eat and water I couldn’t drink until I died of thirst? If I did give in and eat or drink the Fae gifts, what would happen?
My breathing grew ragged, my heart pounding as a panic attack rose up and took over. I huddled in a ball on the dirt floor at the base of the hollow tree trunk, lightheadedness and nausea fighting for dominance inside me.
Damn it. Goddamn it.
Why couldn’t I be strong, like my mother had always been? Strong like Rans? I bet he’d never had a full-on, proper panic attack in his centuries-long life. I tried to breathe through the physical reaction, hearing the raspy gasps echoing louder than they should in the enclosed space. Fuck, I was trapped in here with no doors or windows… fuck fuck fuck…
The attack continued for long minutes, measured by the tripping beats of my heart. When it finally subsided, I was trembling, soaked with clammy sweat that beaded chilly and unpleasant on my skin in the cool air of the tree-cell. I covered my face with my hands and shook.
Eventually, I recovered enough to try and think rationally again. The area around me was growing darker and more shadowed as the sun crept across the afternoon sky. I should do a detailed examination of the walls while I could still see my surroundings. Rising on rubbery legs, I placed a hand on the wood next to me and started to feel around, gaining little more than a collection of splinters for my troubles.
Despite the hollowed-out center, the massive tree wasn’t rotten. The wood was hard and dense. I picked at a rough area with my thumbnail, and was only able to peel away a tiny sliver before the nail tore. I yelped and sucked on it until the sting subsided.
With the right tools, I could have chipped away at the wall, I was sure… though of course there was no way of knowing whether two inches or two feet of wood lay between me and freedom. And there was also the small matter of my captors not having conveniently left me a hammer and chisel to use—much less a pickaxe.
You should already own these tools, Zorah.
The memory of my father’s voice brought an ugly noise to my throat that might have been a bitter laugh, along with a telltale burn at the back of my eyes.
Yeah, thanks Dad. Big help there.
Did I have anything useful with me? Nothing in the pile of supplies was hard or sharp enough to help me with the task. I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. My belt had a metal buckle on it, but I couldn’t think of any way it would be useful.
I caught my breath, my hand flying to my pocket.
I still had my little cell phone. Obviously, relying on cellular service in Dhuinne was a non-starter, but I could at least keep track of the time and have some light once the sun slipped too low in the sky to illuminate my surroundings. I pulled it out and flipped the cover up, powering it on.
Maybe I should have sprung for smartphones when I bought the two burners back in St. Louis, but money had been a real concern at the time. Still, a proper flashlight app would have come in really handy in my current position.
The flip-phone seemed to take longer than it should have to power up. Rather than the usual service provider logo and tinny musical flourish, the screen flickered erratically. Random numbers flashed for a bare instant before the LCD display darkened into blue-black swirls, like someone dropping ink into a glass of water. The screen’s illumination flared a final couple of times and died, after which no amount of shaking it or mashing the power button made any difference.
My heart sank, the phone slipping from my numb fingers to drop onto the dirt at my feet. Fae magic is hard on tech, Rans had said. Once again, I was reminded of the dashboard clock in Albigard’s car, flashing in random, nonsensical segments. It made sense, I supposed—you couldn’t get much more exposure to Fae magic than actually being in Dhuinne.
I shivered again, partly because the cool air against my sweaty skin was making me cold, and partly because I would now be stuck in the pitch black if they left me here overnight. The dead phone, my clothing, and the pile of Fae stuff I couldn’t use without risking more Bad Things happening constituted the sum total of what I had access to in this place.
I was hungry, thirsty, cold, and I’d barely slept last night. It seemed pretty clear t
hat the most productive thing I could do right now was to try to get some rest in preparation for whatever was going to happen next. I returned to my spot next to the wall, my foot knocking against the abandoned phone in the deepening gloom.
Letting my head tip back, I gazed up at the sky far above me with unfocused eyes. Outside, it was still daylight, though very little of that light now reached the depths of the hollow tree where I was huddled. Even with my arms wrapped around my knees, I was still badly chilled. The woolen blanket tormented me with its presence mere feet away.
How could the Fae possibly know if I was folded up over here, or wrapped around you? it whispered in its stupid imaginary blanket-voice. Why be cold and miserable if you don’t have to be?
I closed my eyes, cutting off my view of the distant light above. After a few minutes, I scuffled around, pulling my arms inside the armholes of the thin cotton shirt and wrapping them around my middle. It didn’t help much.
Rest, I reminded myself. Try to get some sleep. Maybe something will happen in the morning.
I kept my eyes stubbornly closed, but rather than shut down, my brain decided that this would be a fantastic time for a rousing game of that old classic, second-guess every decision you’ve ever made in your entire life.
So I did that for a while.
Then I played what will Rans do when he wakes up to find you gone, which was no better. Since the two obvious answers were ‘shrug and go on like nothing happened,’ or ‘antagonize every Fae on Earth until he gets himself killed,’ it was hard to feel all that great about either possibility.
I’d never been all that good at keeping myself entertained in the absence of any outside help like books, television, or a working phone, so I was definitely struggling under my current circumstances. Chronic anxiety issues tended to do that for you, even when you weren’t trapped in a living tree-cell with no light and the prospect of execution hanging over your head.
Ha. ‘Hanging over your head.’ Decapitation. Sometimes I really slayed myself.
‘Slayed.’ Right. Double ha.
When I finally gave up and opened my eyes what felt like years later, the sky was dark above me. I quickly closed them again, not liking the fact that I could tell no difference in my surroundings whether my eyelids were open or shut.
It was night. Definitely time to sleep now. Are you listening, brain?
More time passed, and I was finally starting to drift when something skittered across the tops of my shoes. I shrieked and scrambled upright in the pitch blackness, leaning a shoulder against the wall to combat my disorientation as I dragged my arms back through my sleeves. Over the sound of my startled breathing, I thought I could hear tiny things rustling in the darkness around me.
But I wasn’t going to panic, just because there were mice or… or bugs or something in here with me. I wasn’t.
Albigard would have mentioned if the Fae executed people by decapitation or death by hundreds of fucking poisonous nocturnal spiders. Right? There was food in here with me. Whatever the tiny things were, they probably just wanted the bread.
Something else ran over the toe of my sneaker and I kicked out, unable to stop myself. The unseen activity continued until I was tired of standing, but no way was I going to sit down again while they were in here. I tried to distract myself by figuring out how the things could have gotten in. All I could come up with was the theory that there were tiny tunnels leading from the bottom of the shit-pit, weaving through the tree’s roots and leading to the outside world.
That theory made me even less thrilled about the idea of the creepy things touching me than I had been before, which was saying something. The hours crept by, and with unexpected suddenness, the small noises lessened before disappearing completely. When they didn’t return after a couple of minutes, I relaxed, and eventually sank back down to sit curled on the floor.
It occurred to me to wonder what had made them decide to leave all at once like that. I had just come to the conclusion that I didn’t really care about their motivation as long as they were gone, when the first raindrops splattered down from the opening at the top of the tree.
Oh. Brilliant.
The rain was chilly, and it continued to drip down inside the cell until it had grown into a steady shower. I made my way around the edges of the space—carefully avoiding the shit pit—in hopes of finding a drier area. There was no drier area, however. Rain was falling straight down the hollow trunk and no place was protected. In minutes, I was wet all the way through.
Huddling on the increasingly muddy floor, I shivered my way through the night until the shower eventually stopped. Sometime before morning, exhaustion overcame discomfort and I slid into a sort of fugue state—not quite dozing, but not really awake either.
That lasted until a portal opened without warning in the center of the cell and a glowing ball of light came through it, blinding me. The ball floated up to hover several feet above my head, throwing the damp cell into harsh relief.
When I blinked my eyes back into working order, Caspian was standing over me—staring down at my huddled form with an ugly sneer on his handsome face.
TWELVE
JUST AS ALBIGARD’S features had done upon our arrival in Dhuinne, Caspian’s features had reverted to their natural elfin appearance. His dark blond brows drew together as he scowled down at me from his towering advantage of height. Their shape might have been different than in his human guise, but the disdain they conveyed was unmistakable.
I scrambled to my feet, my cold, stiff muscles nearly sending me right back to the ground as they cramped. A grimace of pain pulled at my lips as I limped backward, putting as much space as possible between us. It wasn’t much.
This is it, I thought as a second Fae stepped out of the portal and closed it behind him. My worst nightmare had come to fruition. I was trapped with my nemesis, completely under his control.
The second Fae looked me over coldly. “It is rather a pitiful creature, is it not?” he asked casually. “I’d honestly expected something a little more impressive.”
“Bind it,” Caspian ordered, with a dismissive wave in my direction.
“She,” I hissed. “Not ‘it.’ I’m a person, just like the two of you.” I let some of my disgust at their nearness creep into my words. “Well… maybe not just like you.”
The second Fae raised a hand, and an invisible force flung me backward. I hit the damp wood of the wall, my body spread-eagled and the breath knocked out of me.
And I stuck there.
I was pinned to the tree as though someone had coated it with superglue, wheezing as I tried to get my lungs to work. Panic rose, overcoming my bravado in the space of an instant. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t seem to get a full breath, and I couldn’t get away from them.
“We will start with a physical examination,” Caspian said in a conversational tone, and my mind fled as it had done once before in Albigard’s basement.
“Stay away from me,” I grated roughly, as power exploded from my center, blasting outward in an invisible wave.
Caspian stumbled back a step, a violent mix of lust and rage sliding across his expression. The wave slid around the second Fae without touching him, though he murmured a startled, “What in Mab’s name?”
I couldn’t pay attention, though—I was instantly locked in a battle of powers with Caspian, who stepped forward like he intended to tear me apart to get at the juicy bits inside. I could feel my succubus nature trying to get its claws into his animus, even though some distant, human part of me was screaming that no, no—I didn’t want that foul and slimy filth inside me.
Before the outcome of the battle could fall in either direction, the other Fae muttered something low and fast, and the same burst of agony I’d felt when Albigard broke my connection with him sliced through me. My muscles jerked against the invisible bonds holding me in place, even as Caspian staggered and caught himself with a hand against the wall next to my head.
He pulled away quickly, a
s though he’d been burned, and retreated a step. His green eyes flared with outrage. “Ward the creature!” he snarled, turning on his companion. “Why did you not do so immediately?”
“M-my apologies, General,” the other Fae stammered. “It appeared harmless—”
My heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour, adrenaline coursing through my system as I struggled fruitlessly against the force holding me to the wall.
“Let me down from here and I’ll show you harmless!” I yelled, hating the ugly, hysterical note in my voice.
The second Fae had gone a bit pale, but he murmured again, a glow forming around his right hand. He flicked his fingers at me, the light snaking out and settling around my body in glowing coils before sinking through clothing and skin. My stomach turned over. It felt as though something inside my soul had been cut off… quarantined from the rest of me.
I jerked harder, sore muscles protesting the abuse. “What did you do?”
Caspian’s hand shot out, backhanding me across the jaw as he’d done in the parking lot in St. Louis. The sudden pain shocked me into silence. My vision wavered as ringing filled my ears.
“Examine it now,” Caspian ordered, his voice coming to me distantly through the haze.
I was only vaguely aware of the other Fae approaching… of his glowing hands splayed as he ran them up and down the length of my body. Not touching, just hovering an inch away. I would’ve tried to fight against it anyway as the creepy crawly sensation of Fae magic brushed over my skin, but the connection between my mind and body had been temporarily stunned by Caspian’s vicious blow. I could taste blood on my tongue.
“Well?” Caspian asked impatiently, after his companion had run his hands over every part of me.
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