Roseus smirked. “Oh, that much is obvious.”
I glared at him. “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m not taking you anywhere.” He took another bite. “No, little human, this was not my decision to make. As I said, these sorts of decisions are left to my higher ups.”
If what he had been saying earlier was true, then he was already pretty highly ranked within the court. There couldn’t be all that many people above him.
Did that mean … the queen had made some sort of decision?
“Where’s Lockwood?” I asked, taking a step toward him.
Two of the guards immediately stepped between us, blocking my path to him.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Roseus said, wagging a finger like a metronome. “I’m not at liberty to tell you.”
I grimaced. Is that all that these faeries were going to say to me?
Roseus’s smirk widened. “You aren’t going to ask me about your little Unseelie friend? What a pity. I’m sure she will be delighted to know that you have already forgotten about her …”
I balled my hands into fists. I’d have given almost anything to have my dad’s cast iron skillet with me right now. I could clock him upside the head and … what happened to fae when they were exposed to iron? Did they puddle into slag like a vampire? Because I was getting used to dealing with that by now.
But I didn’t have any iron. I released the tension in my fists and smoothly stepped back into my circle of guards. “You just wait …” I murmured. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Roseus laughed. “Oh, yes. I’m positively quaking.”
And with that, he walked off toward the front of the procession.
A clank of manacles surprised me, and I looked down to see one of my guards locking a pair of the icy-looking bonds to my wrist. The other end was already latched to the guard, a tall fellow with red hair and wings.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“Since you can’t fly …” the red guard said, “we will have to suspend you between us.”
“Excuse much?” My stomach lurched. “Like, you’re gonna dangle me over open air … ?”
The guards didn’t even look at me. They just concentrated on attaching their manacles to my wrists and ankles.
“Whoa, whoa!” I said. “What about giving me another pegasus to ride on? Why not one of those?” I pointed to the two standing near the doors with the carriage. “Or how about Orion? He knows me; I rode on him when we were coming to the court.”
They said nothing. My throat grew tight as my guards spread out, circling me, the chains strung evenly between them. “Uh, guys—I think I’ve seen this before in medieval history books. It’s called drawing and quartering. You guys are gonna get spooked, and I’m going to end up in pieces—”
A trumpet blew, and before I even had a chance to prepare myself, I was yanked into the air, feet-first, the ground below me slipping away as if it were being sucked down a drain. Everything I thought I loved about flying from before was gone in an instant, ripped away like the ground.
I was being pulled by my legs, the double attachment of manacles to each ankle providing the primary force dragging me forward. One of the guards had wrapped a chain around my waist like a belt, and was holding me aloft while the others pulled. The wrist manacles were being held by two guards who brought up the rear. They flew almost directly behind me, keeping close but not too close.
Any second, I could drop to the still receding earth below—and splat. That would be the gruesome end of Cassie Howell. My inner ear was having fits, and I kept looking around, writhing as best I could, trying to get a view of what was happening. Other than flying. Flying was definitely happening, and it was nowhere near as fun and calming as my flight with Orion.
This flight was disorienting and panic-inducing, being dragged by the legs through the air while someone held me up just enough to keep me from feeling like I was falling. That vertigo sensation was ever present, wind whipping past my face. I tasted bile in the back of my throat as my stomach did its own flight, on a very different vector than the one I was on. I swallowed, barely keeping it down.
What was better? Getting eaten by vampires, or dying from falling from a great height in Faerie?
I couldn’t take it anymore.
My stomach lost its battle with the vertigo, and everything I’d eaten for the last day or twelve went flying. The two faeries bound to my wrists executed a stunning dodge, barely avoiding my gastrointestinal explosion with sneers of disgust, raising their altitude to avoid the mess that fell back down toward the city of Starvale below. I felt sincerely bad for whatever tradesperson might be standing outside below, about to get a random shower of unspeakable bile, but … well, they’d probably just have it glamoured away or something.
Me, though, I was left feeling wretched. I couldn’t even wipe my mouth off.
I lifted my head weakly, wondering when my spine was going to pop from the chain wrapped around my waist, and I realized that Orianna was suspended between two guards not that far ahead of me.
I meant to call out to her, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I snapped it shut. Would she get in trouble if I tried to talk to her? Would I?
Also … the nausea had not passed, even if every single thing I’d eaten for the last week had.
Besides, Orianna was hanging between her captors even more limply than I was. Her wings didn’t so much as twitch, and she swung slightly between the two chains as I watched.
What had they done to her? They hadn’t exactly been kind when they yanked her out of her cell.
From where I was dangling, I couldn’t see any marks on her, no silvery faerie blood. Did tyls have silver blood? Or was it gold, like the rest of her? If it was, then it could have been all over her, or her dress, or in her hair, and I’d never see it.
Why did I have to be so completely helpless?
Having to stay in a world where I was completely at a disadvantage certainly didn’t help. I had none of the charms nor the sword that Lockwood had, nor a single drop of magical blood in my body.
Yet … the guards all were frightened of me. Iron Bearer, they called me, even though I literally had nothing with me or on me that was made of iron. Still, they treated me like I was a bomb about to go off.
How could I use that to my advantage? Was there any way that I could somehow use my human-ness to win this?
Because right now, from where I was hanging, it looked like I was losing. Big time.
By the time we started to descend, my arms had gone completely numb from guards’ post-vomit position shift. As soon as the blood started pumping back through them, they were going to hurt. “Are we here?” I asked.
“No, we’re stopping for a rest,” the red-winged guard said without looking at me. Hey, finally a response.
They gently lowered me to the ground, my legs collapsing from underneath me as soon as I put any weight on them. I fell to my knees, and if I had hoped that they would let me off my leash for a few minutes, I was sorely mistaken.
They had lowered Orianna, unconscious, to the ground, too, manacles clanking. Her head lolled against her chest.
We had landed in a clearing, an eerie green haze blurring the trees that surrounded us. A small stone cabin surrounded by empty fire pits and large logs split into benches sat in the circle of grassy space separating us from the forest.
As the blood ran back down into my arms and fingers, my nerves prickled and stung as if I was being stuck with long, thin needles. I shook my arms out, willing them to wake up.
“Would you care for some water?” one of the guards asked, gesturing toward me with a leather water skin.
“Yes, please!” I wasn’t too proud to beg. Between the lava dungeon and throwing up, I was now desperately dehydrated.
He had to pour it into my mouth, my hands being bound and all. The first attempt ended with water sloshed all down my front, and me breathing in more than I actually drank. I sputtered and coughed, spitting water onto the grass
y ground.
“Apologies,” the faerie said nervously.
I looked up at him, cold water droplets clinging to my chin. “Just … don’t pour it as quickly.” He took it a little slower, and soon I was gulping it hungrily.
I guess it isn’t until you haven’t had water for a long time that you really, truly appreciate it. I kept drinking until I drained the whole water skin.
The faerie looked and frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any more.”
I shook my head, already feeling better. “That’s fine. Thank you for that. I really needed it.” Then I realized that I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t need them to think that I was dependent on them for anything.
The guards pulled food from their packs, starfruit, some meats I didn’t recognize, and purple bread. They gradually started to move toward one another, beginning a friendly banter not unlike long-suffering co-workers griping about their shared experience.
“How much longer is it from here?” one asked.
“I don’t know,” another, a guy with green wings and yellow hair said. “We just follow, you know.” That prompted a round of laughter that I didn’t quite understand, at least not totally, though it did remind of that old joke about how if you weren’t the lead dog in a sled team, the scenery never changed.
I wondered how long we were going to linger here, but I knew this might be the best, and last, chance for me to figure out what the heck was actually happening here. Or where we were going.
“Take this,” said a different guard, one with green hair and wings. He thrust a small bowl into my hands and I barely had time to clench them before he walked off to join the circle of guards that were chatting and eating. A couple of them kept a wary eye on me, but they must have thought I couldn’t get up to much with two bindings each per leg and one on each arm. At least the guys who’d manacled themselves to my arms weren’t pulling them tight. Right now, anyway.
“Thanks,” I said, and I looked through the bowl. It was fruit that looked reasonably all right. Not as impressive as the stuff at the ball, but not bad. Or at least glamoured to not look bad.
I shuffled over to one of the benches and sat down, almost at the limit of my chains. The guards watched, but nobody yanked me back, and there I started to pick through my food, trying a little. It tasted fine.
The pegasus horses landed nearby, the carriage between them laden with poles and multicolored fabric. Some faeries peered over the side, moving the poles around, as if checking to ensure that whatever was beneath them was still there.
I popped a starfruit in my mouth, bowl resting in my lap, my legs crossed. The juice burst on my tongue, sweet and succulent. My mouth watered as I chewed and I listened to the chatter around me. Some of the guards were discussing the trip, flapping their wings slowly like a human stretching their legs after driving for a long time. Others were talking about their personal lives.
Another group of guards, who were standing off to the side somewhere behind me, caught my attention when they said the words “front lines.” I turned my head slowly to look at them and saw only a half-circle of guards standing around, not looking my way at all.
“… I thought he was trying to be clever, act like he’s more important than he is,” said one of the guards, his voice deep and rumbling. “But when they summoned us to the garrison, well … I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
“I know,” said the other, with a raspier sort of voice. “I didn’t understand, either. Apparently, something happened at that ball last night?”
“You didn’t hear?” the first asked. “The court was infiltrated.”
“What, by these two?” the other guard asked, tossing a look over his shoulder at me, then Orianna. I turned away before he saw me looking. “I wondered what they did that we had to haul them along with us … So an Unseelie and …” He dropped his voice. “That’s really a human?”
The other must have nodded, because I didn’t hear anything.
“I’ve never seen one before,” the raspier voice said. “Weird looking, aren’t they?”
What. An. Ass.
“I also heard Paladin Lockwood was the one who brought them to the court. You know. The exile.”
“What? No …”
“Indeed. General Roseus brought him in and turned him in at the ball, in front of everyone. The queen was quite pleased, apparently. It gave her a chance to provide a satisfying show for the whole court.”
“Pleased? I heard she was furious because he was traveling with a human and an Unseelie spy.” The speaker said both of those things with contempt, but if possible he seemed slightly more repulsed by Orianna.
“So this is why we’re going to the front lines,” the scratchy voice said. “It’s about time, though. I’ve been waiting to slay some Unseelie tricksters.”
“I can’t believe that the queen has allowed negotiations to go on this long. We all knew that war was inevitable. We should strike now, pummel them, while Spring is ascendant.”
“It’s all for appearances,” the other guard said. “Mark my words, all this skirmishing will end and we’ll start the war in earnest tonight, despite whatever else happens today.”
“Woods! Raven!”
One of the other guards was calling to the ones talking, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as they wandered toward the other side of the camp.
The starfruit tasted like ash in my mouth all of the sudden, as the realization of what was going on settled in around me. My chest burned with anxiety, my heart fluttering nervously.
The whole time I had been in Faerie, the word war had been thrown around, but it was always discussing the chance, the possibility. The tensions had obviously been high on both sides, but the way the soldiers were talking, it was as if something had changed last night.
Something had changed: we’d been discovered.
How could Lockwood’s return to Faerie tip the scales toward war? Did they really think that Orianna was a spy?
Better question: was Orianna a spy?
She may have been annoying, and a trickster, but hearing her story about the Queen of Winter, and about her upbringing, the village she watched getting slaughtered …
No. Orianna wasn’t a spy. She couldn’t be.
Regardless of what I thought, or how I felt, the Summer Court had apparently decided to go to war. And if my visions showed the truth of what had happened so far, a real war was bound to be horrific.
Was that where we were going?
If we were going to the front lines, then it meant we were likely going back toward neutral territory, back toward Stormbreak.
It was torture, being completely helpless. Like being Byron’s victim again, pushed around, useless in the face of his overpowering strength. Here, it was magic and an army of fae that overwhelmed me, but the feeling …
The feeling was the same. Helplessness.
Orianna was unconscious.
Lockwood was nowhere to be seen—if he was even still alive.
This war between the Unseelie and Seelie was coming—tonight, by the sounds of it—and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Chapter 30
We didn’t stay in the clearing for much longer. I didn’t argue when the guard with the red wings returned, taking the bowl and checking my manacles. The other guards packed up their things and were ready to leave within minutes. The efficiency of the military, I guessed.
My arms were still not fully recovered, so I gritted my teeth as we prepared to launch up into the air.
My mind buzzed as if thousands of tiny flies were zooming around inside. I couldn’t process any of it. How could all of this have gone so wrong? This was supposed to be a simple trip with Lockwood. Go to a magical land, do my lying best to make them think he hadn’t done … whatever he’d done, and boom, back home to safety and goodness and Xandra and Mill and—
Yeah, okay. I always knew my lying luck would run out eventually but why here, in Faerie? Why now, w
hen we were right underneath the nose of the king and queen, who had a serious grudge against my traveling companion? Of all the times for things to go sideways …
The faerie guards took off and I was launched into the air again, yanked up by my feet and waist, my arms above my head, ears knocking against my inner arm when they pulled me to the left or to the right.
Faerie had been such a wonderful place to see. It was more beautiful than I could have imagined. The forests were lush and filled with mysteries, ones that I would have loved to explore. There were castles, and healing waters, and foods unlike anything I had ever tasted, making everything I had on Earth seem mundane in comparison. The things that Lockwood had told me when we first arrived had seemed so impossible, and yet, the longer I was here, the less and less I was surprised by it all.
Magic was the answer to every question here—and it also was the root of every question I had.
What had Lockwood done that had made him need to leave? Why did the queen and Roseus hate him as much as they did? What did Master Calvor and his son have to do with it? How had the court figured out who and what Orianna and I were?
Why was I being punished, when I knew almost nothing?
What I couldn’t understand was why such a large group of soldiers was needed to escort Orianna and me, helpless as we were. If they were needed at the front lines, why were they not there already? Why did we have to travel with them?
And why was Lockwood not here with me to help me figure this all out?
I breathed in heavily through my nose, trying to get oxygen to my brain, forcing myself to remain calm. I could not afford to lose my head when I was heading into a situation that I knew nothing about.
I couldn’t think about Lockwood. I couldn’t think about Orianna. I couldn’t think about Mill. My mind fixated on the mystery before me. How did all this fit together? I needed to figure it out if I were to have any hope of coming out of it alive.
I scanned the horizon, attempting to locate some sort of landmark that could give me a clue where we were. A small voice in the back of my head mocked me, telling me that if Lockwood could get lost so easily when we were wandering through Faerie, then I had absolutely no hope of finding my way. I shoved the voice aside, and looked anyway.
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