by J. Kearston
He may finally be looking at her, but Cambria’s eyes still never deviate beyond the wall in front of her.
Lucien’s chair starts to scoot back, but Cambria snakes a hand out and wraps it around his wrist. There’s a tense beat of silence before he slides back to the table, openly glaring at her parents. All the while, Piper grins, like it’s her favorite sight to behold.
“No need to fret, my dear,” Elorie claims, tucking an errant blue lock behind her ear. “She cannot control her pets any better than her abilities. It’s far more satisfying to watch the things she’s sworn to protect be the things to destroy her. A betrayal for a betrayal. Fitting, don’t you agree?”
She takes another sip of her glass, holding it out as she waits for it to be refilled. Another sip, another moment of silence. She gently places her glass on the table as plates are cleared, waiting for the staff to depart once more before continuing.
“Besides,” she purrs, leaning forward to rest her chin on a hand. “Now she has something she cares for, don’t you Cambria? You see what the human realm has to offer; weakness. Three chinks in your already feeble armor that can be used to keep you in line better than anything we’ve ever attempted in the past.”
Why she tolerates this instead of sucking them all dry is beyond me. There’s no way she would mourn their losses, and the world would be better off without any of these assholes. Why can’t she see it?
Cambria bites her tongue and I brush my hand over her mark, but even that does little to ease the tension from the obvious threat. With a snap of Elorie’s fingers, three of the guards posted near the exits reappear directly behind Atlas, Lucien, and I, blades digging into our throats. I don’t struggle, knowing this is all a game for the Queen to get her sick thrills, but that doesn’t keep the promise of murder from my eyes as I shoot daggers at the three fae seated at the far end of the table.
“But I’m not unreasonable, Apollo dear. Let’s test my theory before making any hasty decisions, shall we?” Apollo doesn’t answer, making it clear he’s well accustomed to his mate pulling stunts like this regularly. “Cambria,” Elorie chirps, sounding excited. “How about a song, my little bird? If I enjoy it, the four of you may walk out of here and back to your quaint little shack. If I don’t, I’ll allow Piper to decide which of your pets she wants to play with. Doesn’t that sound like a fair compromise?”
Cambria’s voice is robotic, stiff; devoid of emotion and fight. “Of course, milady. Benevolent as always.”
She rises to her feet without sparing a glance our way and walks out of the room, leaving me confused as hell. A few moments later there’s a lurching feeling in my stomach threatening to make me throw up and I blink several times to take in my new surroundings.
We’re in a dimly lit room easily as big as the one we just left, though this one has tiled floors and cement columns lining a path. Each is wrapped in twining ivy and flowers like the exterior of the castle, reaching from floor to ceiling. They run the length of the room, leaving the center open, and have just enough space for guards to lean in the shadows against the walls.
At the far end of the room is a small stage, three steps above the ground. The wall behind it is solid glass, letting the setting sun shine directly in and cast the majority of the room in shadow.
The guard still holding a knife to my throat slams my back against the nearest pillar and the vines crawl down to wrap around my waist, wrists, and legs. Piper, Apollo, and Elorie sit in a row of elegant chairs in the center of the room, several of them empty.
Atlas and Lucien are in similar positions and looking like they are handling this far worse than I am. Atlas appears two seconds away from trying to chew his way out, and Lucien looks like one more incident will push him past the point of no return.
Even with the sun casting her as nothing more than a silhouette, I can tell it’s Cambria sitting at the white piano up there. Her dress and hair are the only splashes of color, and it’s hard to make them out in the lighting, but I’d recognize her no matter what glamour she used to obscure her features.
Those fuckers constructed this place just for this reason. Putting her up there like this, they can pretend it isn’t her. They don’t have to look at her, just hear the music. Why go through so much effort?
But then she starts to play.
From the first note as her fingers begin to dance across the keys, all other thoughts rattling around in my mind cease to matter. I’m caught in the moment, hardly able to breathe. With each swell of sound, she has me completely in her thrall. The emotions pouring into her song, they’re all I can feel, the only part of me existing in the moment an extension of herself.
It starts soft, sad and haunted. It’s like I’m seeing the world through her eyes and everything else ceases to exist beyond the next note, needing it as much as my next breath. As the song swells, gaining speed, my heart races, beating in time with the music. Slowly, her posture becomes less stiff and her fingers race faster. She starts to let go, forgetting she’s performing and losing herself to the sound.
The piece becomes increasingly more complicated, yet she never falters, never misses a single note. As her fingers dance across the keys, a shadowed silhouette against the sunset, she comes alive in a way I’ve yet to see until now.
The glaring white piano starts to fade, no longer reflecting the harsh sun. Color drains away, leaving it nothing more than a glass piece, translucent. It becomes as transparent as the soul she puts on display. The outline wavers with the illusion, the only way to see the shape. The light pours into the room, bringing with it the harsh gold, orange, and hint of purple of sunset. Her fingers fly, making it appear as if she were coaxing the colors into creation.
Faster and faster, the sound echoing around the room as my heart races to keep up, to not get left behind. My nerve endings prickle, skin feeling too tight as my palms start sweating. She pushes the song to new heights before it slows, transforming back into the haunting piece she began. Yet now, it seems even more desolate than before, more tragic. As if she wove a story with the notes, only to find our hero fought as hard as he could, yet it wasn’t enough.
I’m not sure how long passes between when she finishes playing and I’m able to wake up from the trance she put me in. I bring my hand up to my cheek only for it to come away wet, but I don’t feel like I’ve been crying. There’s a disconnect in my brain that I’m struggling against, my reality spun that I’m trying to make sense of.
Belatedly, it occurs to me that at some point the other fae in the room must have fallen under the same spell, the hold the guards had over us weakening. The vines are slack, pooled at my feet. For who knows how long I could have run or fought if I so chose, and I wasn’t even aware.
Could have stabbed her parents in their backs and no one would have been able to stop me.
There’s a brief moment where it’s clear the others are still under the spell that I’m emerging from, one where I see the look on the faces of the royals. For just that brief moment, Piper doesn’t appear like a smug bitch, an extra glow to her serene skin. Apollo is in a similar state as I was, a single tear snaking down his otherwise stoic face to splatter on his lap. And Elorie, with her eyes closed, still breathing in the after effects, forgetting for a brief moment that she despises her daughter.
And then the moment shatters.
Cambria stays seated at the piano, white once again, all of the magic she poured into the world fading away more with every passing second. “Was it enough?” she asks on a whisper, yet the sound echoes around the room like a gunshot.
Elorie’s eyes fly open and she schools her features, while Piper’s lips flatten into a tight line, leaving me unable to get a read on them or anticipate what’s to come. Apollo rises to his feet and stalks out of the room without a word, the door closing behind him like the final nail pounding into a coffin. Hers, if he had any say in the matter.
“It will suffice. Take your pets and return to the hole you crawled out of, but know this
, Cambria.” Elorie is up and moving towards the door, tossing a look over her shoulder. “You may not live here anymore, but that doesn’t equate to free reign. You were thrown from these halls because my mates couldn’t stand to look at you anymore, but you still exist on my mercy and mine alone. Try my patience, and I will find great pleasure in disemboweling your humans while you watch. Then we will see how long it takes you to fade away without them by your side. You condemned yourself to a slow death with this tethering. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
She blinks out of existence, there one moment and gone the next. Hers must have been the power teleporting people and the number of ways she could use that gift to ensure she holds her position are too numerous and horrifying to dwell on.
Piper rises to her feet, her personal guard falling into step behind her. “You forget what happens to baby birds, little cousin,” she taunts, never once looking at Cambria as she walks out of the room. “Their own parents shove them from the tree, knowing full well the fall might kill them, yet doing it anyway. Yours just so happened to clip your wings first to hope it would.”
Four guards stay in the room with us, but they stay posted against the walls. Lucien was closest to Cambria, now climbing the steps and offering her a hand silently. She takes it with a soft ‘thanks’ and rises from the bench following him down the stairs and out of the glaring backdrop.
“Cambria,” I start slowly as she comes into view, but she shakes her head.
“Just...don’t. It’s a long walk, we better get started.” She’s still holding Luce’s hand and her steps are slow.
Now that I can get a good look at her again, she looks just as terrible as she did our third day human side when she was so exhausted she could barely stay upright. Yet her steps never falter as we’re led out to the gates, though I attribute that to Lucien’s firm hold.
Either she decided that her mother already thinks of us as her weaknesses so there’s no point denying open affection anymore, or more likely, she really needs a hand to support her so that she doesn’t fall apart. We step outside the gates and follow the path for a bit before her steps start to slow.
“Here,” Atlas offers, crouching down slightly in front of her. “Hop on.”
She doesn’t object or fight this time, despite the fact there are other fae milling about as we’ve gotten closer to town. She hops onto his back, locking her legs around his waist and arms around his neck. She just stares off unseeingly, lost in her own world.
Now that we have to pass through the center of town, there’s no point even attempting to get her to talk. Despite the late hour, there are still plenty of fae milling about, the streets lit with glowing lamps in various colors. Our house is on the far outskirts on the opposite side of the city, as far away from the castle as physically possible while still living in the town.
“The little Lark got her wings clipped, how cute,” someone snipes on their way into a building.
“Didn’t expect her to come back this time. Why the Queen allows her to live is beyond me,” another man scoffs.
Cambria just closes her eyes as Atlas carries her home. Nearly an hour later we finally get there and Atlas looks ready to explode and rehash the shit we just went through, but Lucien puts a hand on his shoulder while helping Cambria to her feet.
“Don’t. Not right now, Atlas,” Lucien states, mirroring Cambria’s sentiments.
She just looks too raw to handle any more. She already lived it once, she shouldn’t have to do it again. The way they spoke to her, treated her. I just want to kill them myself so that she doesn’t have to.
“I’m gonna’ call it a night, I’m pretty tired,” she announces while taking off her dress and walking towards her room. “Thanks for coming with me, guys.”
“Night, Cambria.”
She pauses before turning to look over her shoulder, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I know we didn’t get a chance to buy any more beds, so you guys are welcome to squish in with me if you’re sick of the floor. If you want, I mean.”
“Honestly, after that whole thing I’m a little freaked out. I’d rather not sleep alone, if you’re offering,” I toss out there for her benefit.
She nods once sharply, extending a hand behind her towards me. “Don’t worry, my young ward. I’ll take care of you,” she soothes with false confidence.
I feel the faintest smile ghost across my lips. “I know you will, because you’re a badass delight.” I cross the distance, undoing the buttons at my wrists before taking her hand.
She sniffs, leaving her dress in the hallway and clad only in a pair of panties, topless and not caring in the slightest. “I am, aren’t I?” she asks, sounding a little bit stronger.
“Sure are, beautiful,” Atlas replies, following behind us.
The three of us climb into bed, Cambria sandwiched between us as we try to fit on the small mattress. How Lucien is going to squeeze in is beyond me, but you snooze you lose. She rests her head on Atlas’ chest and I trail a hand up and down her spine, until she eventually falls asleep.
“That was messed up,” Atlas hisses on a whisper.
I sigh. “To say the least. With what her mother can do, it’s no wonder she’s scared to attempt anything. If she tried to retaliate, she’d have a small window to act. And if the three of us are there, it just makes it seem more impossible.”
Atlas grinds his teeth. “We can’t just keep going on like this for the rest of our lives; I’m not going to be able to stand it. To just sit there and say nothing while they treated her like that? Fuckin’ torture! Something needs to change.”
“Completely agree. Even the ear plugs she gave me didn’t shield me from her abilities this time, so it’s not like we can just pop them in and go in guns blazing while she distracts them.”
I sigh. “Change isn’t easy or happens overnight, and nine times out of ten, it takes a sacrifice to accomplish. We just need to get her on board. They’ve fucked with her head her entire life, and the three of us have barely seen anything of this world yet. We shouldn’t rush in halfcocked and make things worse for her. We need to plan.”
Chapter 16
Atlas
Cambria starts to shift on top of me, groaning as she begins waking up. To make us all fit, I ended up pulling her to lie on top of me in the middle to make room for Lucien to squish into the bed last night. She didn’t even stir when we were rearranging, she was so knocked out.
“Five more minutes,” she mumbles into my chest, burying her face in the crook of my neck.
“No one is making you get up,” I groggily point out, chuckling. “Go back to sleep.”
I gently rub my hand over her bare back until she starts to doze again, slipping into a state of semi-sleep for another hour before finally getting out of bed for the day. She rolls off of me right onto Lucien who wakes with a grunt before she gets to her feet.
“We need a bigger bed,” he points out on a rumble, groggy from sleep.
Cambria stretches her arms over her head and it’s a view I’ll never stop appreciating. She moves to her basket of laundry to get dressed as the three of us follow suit.
“Too much family bonding?” she teases lightly, but she still seems tired and subdued. Her skin is pale and the light that’s usually in her silver eyes is dull as well as the rest of her coloring, leaving her a muted version of herself.
Lucien puts his hands on each side of her face, kissing her reverently. “Never.”
She smiles softly at him as we head to the kitchen to get something to eat, the silence stretching to the point I can’t stand it anymore. “Refusing to talk about it isn’t doing anyone any good,” I point out.
Cambria exhales harshly, putting her fork down and scrubbing her hand over her face. “What’s there to talk about? My mother may have multiple mates, but she forces my birth father to attend every single thing involving me to torture him just as much. After all, it can’t possibly be her fault she gave birth to a monster.”
Doria
n tries to interrupt, but she’s on a roll and building up steam. As much as it pains me to see her upset, it’s lighting a fire in her, one that I’m glad to see. It means despite everything her family has done to her, she still has some fight left. She’ll need that part of her to grow to new heights if she ever wants a chance at being free.
“Piper, my bitch of a cousin, is going to replace me as my mother’s successor. The Queen just gets her sick thrills from toying with me to make me suffer as punishment for what happened to my brother. She couldn’t just kill me and be done with it like everyone wanted. No, she had to make sure I suffered as much as she did when she lost her son.” She fights back a strangled sob. “Like I didn’t lose my brother and have hated myself every day since.
“She plays her twisted games, turning everyone against me until the only place I could possibly have a chance at living a relatively normal life is with the humans she despises. But even that isn’t a refuge, because I can’t stay there more than a couple of days. I’m a scourge of death forced to rely on a world that hates me to stay alive and it’s bullshit!” she exclaims, slamming a hand on the table and losing her fight of holding back her tears.
Dorian is glaring at me while Lucien is sitting there calmly, giving her a chance to vent and mulling something over in his head. I recognize that look and it gives me a small bit of hope for this shitty situation.
“How often does she force you to play in that hall?” he finally asks, tapping a finger on his cheek and resting his chin on his fist.
Cambria takes a minute to rein her emotions back in, waiting until she’s breathing steadier to answer. “Every few months.”
Lucien nods. “She’s siphoning power from you. For what, I’m not sure, but you pointed out maintaining the glamour takes a lot of energy, so maybe it’s something as simple as that. I doubt it, with as conniving as Elorie is though.”
Cambria blanches, but nods. “I know, but there isn’t much I can do about it. If I refuse, she’s just going to kill you guys and force me to anyway.”