by Ella Fields
A door opened, dirt falling from the ceiling as it creaked into the wall behind it. “I thought I heard some vermin.” The voice was female. Both silken and rough.
A heated retort sat on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it, but I couldn’t pretend to sleep. I listened to the footsteps crunch over the ground, each step slow and calculated, and I waited for them to come into view.
A series of lanterns came alive. Suddenly, the walls and roof were not black anymore, but every color imaginable. I flinched away from the rainbows dancing and bobbing through the small enclosure I was in and tried to slow my breathing.
“Powerful, isn’t it?” she said, wonder raising her voice. “We call them Vadella.”
She knew I was awake then. She was probably looking straight at me. I didn’t know about the latter being that I couldn’t see, and her voice sounded as if she were underwater the more she talked.
“So powerful, they’re capable of sucking you dry all on their own, but with a little light?” She laughed. “Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, they’re paralyzing.”
I coughed. “How are you standing then?” So much for strength in silence.
“She speaks.” She forced a gasp. “I’m not a precious pureblood like yourself, and therefore, years of being around them in small doses doesn’t affect me like it does you.”
The vanisher had to be a royal, so it was safe to assume that she was not one.
All but one lantern extinguished, the relief instant, though pain still lanced through my skull. I wiped what felt like fresh and dried blood from beneath my nostrils. “Might I ask where you found such a thing?”
“You just did,” she said, her tone cold as her snakeskin boots crossed the dirt, moving out of view. “But you won’t get an answer.”
“Pity,” I said. I drew in a few slow breaths, gritting my teeth as I forced myself to sit. I moved to the bars, preferring the cool metal over the glittering black stone that made up the rear of my cage. A cage that rose no higher than a few inches above my head.
“Is she ready?” another voice called.
The female, whose gray eyes were slanted and her hair every shade of brown, smiled crookedly. “She’s ready.”
I didn’t dare ask what for and stopped myself from looking over at Berron, who was still feigning sleep.
A male, tall and slim, entered the small rock-filled crypt and Ridlow was with him.
His eye was swollen and his lip cut, hands bound behind his back. Other than that, he seemed to be faring okay. “M-my quee—”
The male with eyes as dark as the walls around us slugged him in the gut. “Quiet.”
My tongue grew thick. I held Ridlow’s gaze while they removed his chest plate, cut off his tunic, and chained his hands to a hook in the ceiling before our cages.
“Now,” the male said, grabbing a knife from his boot. “Let us start with why we’re here.” He paused, turning to the female. “Corra, has she not asked why she’s here?”
Corra shook her head. “No. She was more curious about the stone.”
The male’s thin lips moved into his cheek as he set his bottomless eyes upon me. “But of course. Priorities, right? Power, or lack thereof, comes first.”
My lip curled. He chuckled, stepping closer to the bars and crouching down. “My, you are a sight, young queen.” His eyes raked over me, his tongue snaking out to wet his lips. The hilt of the blade rolled in his palms between his knees. “I should like to have my cock inside your mouth before we are through here.”
I snapped my teeth at him. “I urge you to try.”
His expression blanked, and then he forced a smile. “In your ass it is.”
I growled, which only served in earning me another irritating chuckle.
“Enough.” Corra snatched his knife and dug it straight into Ridlow’s stomach.
He howled, face crumpling as his feet struggled to find purchase.
“You’re supposed to ask a question before you start maiming,” I said, trying to sound as bored as possible. “But whatever, carry on.” It was one of my earliest tasks as I bloomed into maturity and my training became more intense.
My father had said if I were to train, I’d do it properly. He would make me watch as he tortured random people, and even went as far as killing some, for moments just like this.
I wasn’t grateful to him for much of anything, but I did have him to thank for my hardened heart.
The female glared at me while the male only grinned.
I flicked my fingers. “I have a horrible fucking headache because of you assholes, so please, hurry this along so we can get to the point of negotiation and release.”
Their cackles raised the hair on my nape.
“And what makes you think you’ll be leaving?” the male asked over Ridlow’s groans and whimpers as Corra plucked the knife from his stomach and set it behind her next to a large metal trunk. From inside it, she then selected an angry looking dagger, its blade rusted. Her finger danced across the serrated edge.
“Why? Because I have something you want, of course.” I pushed tendrils of hair back from my face, doing my best to ignore the wet tangles. “You have no way of retrieving it if I’m dead.”
“You should be dead,” Corra growled. “You’re a monster, a blight on this land, just like your father grew to be.” She spat inside my cage, and though I heard it land on the dirt near my knee, I didn’t remove my eyes from hers.
“So kill me.” I spread my hands. “But if you do, expect wrath like you’ve never seen before, as well as a dead king.”
I’d left documents with Mintale and Truin weeks ago, stating what was to become of the king should something happen to me. Zadicus would rule, and Raiden would be executed within seconds of the news of my death, his head to be displayed on the tallest turret of the castle. All the better for the kingdom to watch the crows pick at his flesh and eyes.
And then Zad was to take back control of the Sun Kingdom by any means necessary.
A task I should’ve seen to over a year ago instead of wallowing in a multitude of festering anguish and rage.
“King Raiden,” the male finally said, pacing with his hands behind his back across the tiny expanse of dirt in front of me and Berron. “Where is he?”
I picked at the dirt imbedded beneath my nails. “He was exiled.”
Ridlow screamed as the dagger entered the knife wound, the female twisting her hand.
I waited for his screams and sobs to die down, and for my clenching muscles to relax. “You’ve heard differently, I take it.” I’d known they had. It was only a matter of time. Though I’d be sure to make an example of whoever had spread the news.
I tilted my head, giving our captors a more thorough inspection. “Who were you to him, anyway? Henchmen? Harem members? Staff?”
“Soldiers,” Corra said, indignant. “In his royal army.”
I raised my hands. “So what have you heard?”
Ridlow bellowed a slew of curses as Corra twisted the dagger out of his flesh. Blood raced from the gaping wound, running down his armored leg to pool in a puddle on the floor and over the toe of his boot.
“One of your guards sold you out for a mere five hundred coin, telling tales of a king with no memory locked in the bowels of your nightmare-infested castle.”
I contained a snort. “Okay.” I nodded, fixing my eyes on my hands as I thought about who that could be. “You knew he’d have no memory of his time as a prince.” I lifted my head. “So why is that even important?”
“Because,” the male said with a smile. “He also informed us that you were trying to make him remember.”
“Only to kill him,” Corra cut in, her eyes dancing with hatred.
“He was about to vow himself to some human woman,” I explained matter-of-factly. “What is one supposed to do?” I looked at Corra for some sisterly understanding. “He broke my black heart.”
Her brows furrowed, and she looked at her comrade.
“Regar
dless,” the male said. “We’ll be needing our king back now that his memories are restored.”
I laughed, tugging at my frayed skirts. “You see, that’s the problem with this game of gossip via opportunist messenger. Things are not always true or explained correctly.”
The male turned for the trunk and reached inside to grab a mace.
I groaned. “Darkness’ sake. Did you think he would just take a tonic and suddenly remember everything?” I tutted. “He’s still alive for a reason, and that’s due to him not remembering yet.”
The male paused. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then why am I here?” Magic be damned, I wanted nothing more than to beat them senseless with my bare hands. I sighed. “Look, how about this… When I am done with him, I’ll send his body back to your kingdom as a gift of good faith.”
Corra guffawed. “How easily you separate us still. Sending your lackey to try to rule over people who would rather see you perish.”
“And you would have accepted me? A young queen in mourning who could hardly tell friend from foe?”
The male squinted at me, long pale fingers rubbing at his goatee. “We accept nobody but our blood. Here’s your first warning. Follow our demands or else.”
They unhooked Ridlow, and he fell to the ground with a yelp.
My eyes watched as my mind drifted.
The mace came down upon his head over and over until brain matter and blood coated the male’s face, my skirts, Berron, and half of the tiny wormhole in the ground.
I woke up screaming.
Unbearable heat lanced through my jaw, sticking to my skin.
“Let’s see how much they adore you, how much they’ll refuse to take our threats seriously, when you bear our scars for all to see on your once beautiful face.”
I shoved the poker away, but it tore my flesh with it.
The rainbows were back, arching across the room, and then I passed out.
I came to again when Berron shouted my name in warning, and the poker was shoved at my cheek. It slid to my mouth, where it burned with a ferocity that rivaled the worst pain I’d ever felt. I smacked it away. The male laughed, continuing to jab it at my face.
He waited there for what felt like lifetimes, but was likely hours, just begging me to pass out so he could reach me in places he thought would most affect me.
Finally, when his name was called from the cracked open door, he tossed the poker beside the small fire he’d lit and stalked away.
I added his name to memory. I’d chant it in my mind as I watched his flesh peel back from his bones.
Cid.
It felt like razor blades had been taken to the left side of my mouth every time I drew and exhaled breath. My flesh bubbled and oozed as I laid upon the dirt ground and clung to Berron’s hand through the bars.
All the while Ridlow’s body decayed, the ground trying to swallow it within its warm embrace with each passing hour.
“Forever, Audra. You will forever be the most beautiful creature this land has ever seen, scars or not.”
For it would scar, and I was vain enough to let the horror swallow me in the knowledge’s ugly embrace. They wouldn’t heal so long as we were trapped beneath this stone, surrounded by it, and access to the land and the magic tied to it couldn’t be sought.
It was a dry, dizzying, barren landscape. Akin to that of the desert plains of the Sun Kingdom, where walking for days would leave your mouth foaming, head pounding, and your body weakening.
“Hey, look at me.” Berron squeezed my hand, his eyes urging me to stay with him and not to burrow inside my dour thoughts. “Do you think some of the guards survived?”
I blinked, my eyelids roughened with exhaustion and dirt and unshed tears. “I don’t know.”
I didn’t know how long I’d even been here. Time was best judged by Ridlow’s decaying body, and the slush they called gruel that was delivered to us once a day.
We were given little water, which I appreciated, having relieved myself only twice as close to the edge of my cell as I could. If I had to guess, I’d have said no more than three days had passed, possibly only two.
I squeezed Berron’s hand back, not wanting to wonder how long they’d kept him here for, but unable to stop myself from asking. “How long have you been here?”
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “Weeks, maybe.”
The stench rolling off him could attest to that. “Since our botched attempt at finding out what happened to you in the Sun Kingdom?”
A small smile rode his lips. “Yes, I’d say since then.”
I pinched my lips together, then moaned as more skin came away, my eyes stinging.
“Look at me,” Berron said. “Give me those endless blue eyes.”
I did. “What happened in the Sun Kingdom?”
His breath left him, harsh and defeated. As I listened to him rehash how hostile it was when they’d arrived, how it was hard to even sleep without fear of someone coming to slit his throat, guilt gnawed deep.
I’d been so enmeshed in my own self-loathing and hatred for those who’d betrayed me, I hadn’t stopped to think clearly. Not once.
Not until it was too late.
“When did they decide to overthrow you?”
Berron swallowed, and it sounded as though it hurt. “A few months ago. The whispers turned into riots, and the riots into sieges on the palace. Most of our soldiers died, and I told the others to flee right before I was taken to their dungeon.”
“They didn’t return,” I said, feeling those words like another burn to the face.
Berron blew out a breath, his hand growing clammy in mine. “I thought perhaps that was the case.”
He told me how they kept him there for weeks, scarcely feeding him, forever threatening him as they waited for me to clue in to the fact he was no longer in charge.
The question had been itching at my mind since I’d seen him on that battlefield, a spear entering his side. They must have healed him to keep him from dying beneath these stones, being that he was capable of moving around his small enclosure with relative ease.
“Who is governing them now?”
Berron’s head shook. “I can’t be sure. At first, I thought it was a female. One of Raiden’s favored lovers.” I felt my brows lower at that. “Then a male would assert his dominance. I have no idea. Maybe more than one royal.”
The door groaned open, and our hands broke apart as Cid stomped over the dirt and opened Berron’s cage. Berron didn’t try to fight, too weak from malnourishment and the draining effect of the stones he’d spent weeks lying beneath.
Cid chained him to the ceiling as terror drilled holes inside my chest.
Corra entered. “Time is running out, my queen.” She chose the jagged dagger from the trunk and sliced open Berron’s arm from shoulder to elbow.
He didn’t even have the energy to scream, a silent, gasping sound leaving him, the image etching upon my heart. “You can stop.” I rolled and pushed my hands under me, my head spinning as I sat upright. “Let us talk.”
The dagger dropped to the dirt, and Corra stalked over. “You do not even know what our demands are.”
“You want your king.” I raised a brow. “I’m assuming you’ll only release us if I have him brought to you.”
Cid crouched down, his hands wrapping around the rust-flecked bars of my cage. “The winter queen has a soft spot after all.”
“Many,” I purred.
His eyes flared, and Corra smacked him in the back of the head. “Get up, you animal.”
He growled but did as she said.
I met Berron’s eyes and nodded. It couldn’t end any other way anyway. He’d been through enough. So many of us had been through enough.
“Here’s what will happen,” Corra said. “We will take you close enough to the city to avoid detection, and then we will wait.” Corra looked at Berron. “With your friend here, as well as a considerable amount of Vadella should you think you can try to outsmart
us.”
Cid dragged a finger down the bars, his tongue skirting his mouth. “Then, you will sign a royal decree, stating that due to his exile, you are no longer tied by vows made before such horrors eventuated.” He let that sink in.
If your spouse was exiled, you had the choice to remain vowed and go with them or break the vow and move on. Raiden and I had not yet broken our vow. Other than rare exceptions, like being exiled, both parties had to be in agreeance to terminate the sacred union. He was no longer in exile, but I was certain getting him to comply wouldn’t be an issue.
“Do we have a deal?”
“You want him a free male?”
“Of course.” Corra kicked a glob of blood off her boot. It hit the bars with a splat, spraying my arm. “He needs to remarry. Not only to have a more deserving female to lead beside him, but to keep the Evington bloodline pure. He cannot do that while he’s tied to you.”
I looked at Berron again, but his gaze was on the ground. Crimson covered his arm, snaking around his elbow and bicep, staining his torso.
I could give up my king. It would mean breaking some archaic laws and risking my own title, but I could do so. And if I were finally being honest with myself, perhaps I needed to. Perhaps this was always supposed to end this way.
He back in his court, and me on my own.
Thunderous groans and snapping sounded, dirt and rocks raining over us.
I scrambled back against the wall as another boom came from above. The entire ceiling, rocks and all, was being ripped from the ground. I flinched as that black rock cracked and collapsed into pieces, and tree roots slithered and snapped.
Four males jumped down, swords out and swinging through the air. “No,” I screamed. “Don’t kill them.” Crawling out from my cracked cage, I got to my feet. The sight of Zad was enough to find the strength I didn’t have.
The dark-haired male standing closest to Zad looked at me, then back at him.
The other two bound the female’s hands behind her back and stuffed a clump of dirt inside her mouth. She spat, but it wouldn’t budge.
Zad nodded to the male. “He comes too.”