by R. K. Ryals
One look, and Reenah screamed.
Gabriella’s head rose, her insane gaze finding ours.
“Finally!” she breathed, a smile curling her lips. The mercenaries flanking her pulled their weapons, their laughter chasing their stumbling figures. They’d had too much ale.
“What are you doing, Gabriella?” I asked, my voice cold.
Anger crossed her features. “You will address me as Your Majesty, you poor idiotic fool!” She gestured at me, a blood-tinged knife gripped in her hand, her knuckles white around the handle. “Did Cadeyrn truly believe he could come here, so close to my country, and not expect retaliation?” She shook her head. “Diplomats talk! Spies!” she cried, her madness gripping her. “There are spies everywhere!” She waved the knife. “There are so many of us!”
My gaze fell to the Henderonian princess. Catriona’s mouth was open, her gaze glassy. She wasn’t dead, but she was in shock, her blood-soaked fingers covering her stomach.
I glanced at Gabriella. “What do you want? Who sent you?”
Maniacal laughter followed, her face full of vengeful glee. “So many lies! There are so many of us! Did you know that?” she whisper-yelled, as if she were imparting some great secret to us. “Do you even know how deep this goes, infidel?” She clapped her hands despite the knife. Blood welled up along her palms. “Of course, you don’t!” She laughed harder. “We’ve been tracking you, you know. We’ve hired killers at every port. You can’t hide from us. You can’t hide because we are everywhere.”
My mind raced. Gabriella was on the Isle of Marr, her hatred stark and unforgiveable. Someone told her where we were. Someone made sure she’d be the one to meet us, her madness making her easy to manipulate. She’d been on the verge of insanity in Sadeemia, but now her mind was gone. This was an ambush, and we didn’t even know by whom.
“Are you working for New Hope?” I asked.
She giggled. “How utterly silly of you to think you have this figured out! How completely and utterly silly!”
My gaze fell once more to Catriona. “Let me help her,” I begged.
Gabriella’s brows rose, her gaze following mine to the woman on the ground. “Oh, her!” She giggled. “It’s such a sweet, beautiful thing, revenge. To think I never even cared about this miserable twit.” She waved her knife at Catriona. “I didn’t come for her, but it was just so tempting! If I couldn’t have him, if I couldn’t bear his child, then why should she?”
A cold chill crept down my spine.
“Who did you come for, Gabriella?” I asked.
She smiled, the gesture too wide. “You. The person I work for wants you.”
Lochlen roared and Oran snarled. Smoke curled toward the trees.
Gabriella’s face hardened. “Do you think you intimidate me? Do you think I’m a fool?” She glanced at the ground near Gryphon. “I had two herrnos killed! They are the most highly trained warriors in the Nine Kingdoms, and they’re dead. Dead! Do you think I came alone? There are mages in this wood.” She glanced at the trees.
I frowned.
Gabriella noted my expression, and she pouted. “Oh, did you really believe you couldn’t be foiled? You may be the only mage who can hear sticks and leaves, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be manipulated.” Her gaze encompassed all of us. “A mage can control nature without being able to speak to it.”
She was right, of course. Mages had the power to draw on the elements; on the earth, fire, water, and air. Even if those elements didn’t speak to them, their power spoke to the elements. The plant life on Marr hadn’t seemed right because I’d never been speaking to the trees. A mage had silenced the forest. I’d been speaking to a mage.
“Damned humans,” Oran snarled.
“And you dragon,” Gabriella continued, “I’ll see you dead if you even attempt to transform.”
A heavy weight settled over my shoulders, a deep awareness I couldn’t ignore. We could fight, and with Lochlen we had a decent chance of winning even if we were heavily outnumbered. Or we could find out, once and for all, who was behind this.
“If I go with you willingly, will you release them?” I asked, gesturing at my friends.
Gabriella grinned. “Of course. Who else would get to share this beautiful news with Cadeyrn?”
My gaze narrowed, my eyes falling to Catriona. “Let me help her,” I prompted. “Let me help her, and I’ll go.”
Gabriella scowled. “Which is it, you fool? Your friends or the princess?”
“Both,” I answered, my gaze unwavering. “I won’t mess with the baby,” I promised. “Just let me help Catriona. Your country already has a very shaky alliance with Henderonia. Look at what you’ve done. Just by hurting the baby, you’ve declared war. Kill their princess, and you’ll be crushed by all of the Nine Kingdoms.”
“Fine!” Gabriella waved at me, a flash of sanity in her eyes. “But hurry!”
Reenah protested, but Lochlen shushed her. We knew what a royal, a princess with power and money, was capable of. A mad ruler, we’d learned from experience, was even worse. A mad ruler had nothing to lose. Right now, she had the upper hand. Our only chance of getting out of this alive depended on me leaving with her. I wasn’t just protecting myself anymore. There was the possibility I was protecting my future.
Making my way cautiously across the clearing, I fell to my knees next to the Hederonian princess, the blood on the ground seeping into my breeches.
“Catriona,” I whispered.
Her glassy gaze flickered, her eyes swinging to my face. Recognition flared, and she reached for me, her blood-covered hands holding my wrists in a vice-like grip. She’d been secured to the ground by her feet, her hands loose. By the rope burns I saw on her arms, her hands had once been tied as well. Which meant Gabriella had gotten some kind of sick satisfaction out of watching Catriona try to save her baby.
“Do something!” she begged, her eyes full of devastation. “I wanted freedom, but not this. I didn’t want this.” She sobbed. “My baby!” I touched her, channeling the calm I knew the forest could offer her. Her body shook. “My baby!”
Tears flooded my eyes, my burning palms pressing against her belly, my healing powers aching to break free. Below my fingers, I felt movement.
I froze, my gaze flicking to Gabriella. She stared into the trees.
Leaning into Catriona, I whispered furiously, “Cat, you’re going to need to be brave for me, okay?” She nodded, and I leaned closer, my voice lowering. “I feel the baby.”
She started.
“Keep crying,” I demanded. “Don’t let her know anything has changed. I’m going to do what I can to help you, and then I’m going to leave. If I can help it, you won’t lose this child. Cadeyrn won’t lose another son.”
Catriona gripped me. “Please,” she begged.
I clutched her stomach, my palms on fire. Catriona screamed, tears sliding down her cheeks, her body shaking uncontrollably. My touch wasn’t painful. She was listening to me, playing a part to protect her unborn baby.
Beneath my hands, her wounds healed, her gashes sealing shut. Somehow, whoever had stabbed the princess—and I suspected this may be Gabriella—had managed to barely miss the baby and the uterus. Cadeyrn and Catriona may not share a great love, but I wasn’t going to let them lose this child. It meant too much to both of their countries, and to them.
The baby kicked.
I paused, pulling Catriona’s hands up over her stomach so that they hid the movement, my gaze flicking once more to Gabriella. She was staring hard at the trees, her frantic gaze roaming from one spot to another. The knife in her hand shook.
“Don’t let go,” I ordered. Catriona nodded.
Standing, I threw my weapon to the ground and faced Gabriella. “I’m yours.”
The Greemallian princess laughed. “No,” she threw me a deranged look, “but I’ll make sure you get to the person you do belong to.”
Chapter 20
Over and over, I kept telling myself I’d d
one the right thing.
With a sweep of her hands, Gabriella released Lochlen, Oran, and Reenah, They rushed to Catriona and Gryphon, releasing them before the dragon hauled both of them over his shoulders. As they backed into the trees, Lochlen threw me a look, his eyes full of fierce promises. I held those promises close to my heart.
My world went black, my eyes covered by a dark, stinking cloth. Despite her madness, the princess was not stupid. She knew about my powers and knew what I was capable of. By using a mage to silence the forest and blindfolding me, she was limiting what I or Lochlen could do. It was impossible for her to get far, for her to hide for long with a dragon and a battle hard Cadeyrn on her trail, but I didn’t think she needed long.
I was going to die.
Hands lifted me, my body weightless as the laughing, drunken men from before gripped my body, carrying me through the humid forest. There was no way for me to know how much time passed.
The air changed, growing saltier. My back hit wood, and I gasped at the brutal contact.
“Row, you idiots!” Gabriella commanded.
Water sloshed against the side of a boat, the sound of oars cutting through the waves loud to my blind-sensitive ears.
“Come on!” Gabriella roared. “Faster!”
Shouts rose up into the air, and I knew by the calls that they came from a ship, the commands those used at sea.
More time passed. Water sloshed.
“Haul her up!” a man yelled.
Hands gripped me, heaving me forcefully over a bony back. My body slackened as we moved upward, my stomach dropping.
“Put her in the hold and set sail! Let’s be gone before the dragon finds us!” Gabriella called.
“He won’t burn us knowing the girl’s aboard,” a man replied. “I’m more worried about the prince. I’ve heard tell he’s a fierce sight when angry.”
His words were met with a slap. “Don’t ever speak unless you’re told to do so, do you understand? Tell the Captain to hurry!”
A musty odor invaded my nostrils as I was carried away from the deck.
In the end, they left me alone in a stinking cell in the ship’s hold, my hands lashed together, the coarse rope digging into my wrists. They didn’t remove the blindfold.
The small cage holding me smelled of blood, urine, and fear. I soon discovered why. Other than a tepid, hard to ingest meal that was brought to me twice a day, I went mostly hungry. I also had no way of relieving myself in a dignified way.
That first night, they removed my blindfold and untied my hands when they brought me my meal and they didn’t replace them. I was in a square cell, just large enough to hold one person. A hole was cut into the floor in the corner, and I was forced to stand over it to defecate.
Days passed in this fashion, most of my time spent curled up against the side of the cell avoiding the corner with the hole. The only things that broke up the passing of time were miniscule meals and an hour every morning when I was blindfolded and tied up so that someone could be brought into the hold to observe me.
I knew it was an hour because the third time my visitor came, I counted the seconds he sat there, his breathing loud beyond the bars. Who watched me was beyond me. I only knew it wasn’t Gabriella. Had it been her, she would have been unable to remain silent so long. Her madness would have driven her into multiple conversations.
On the fifth visit, I managed to ask, “Who are you?”
The ever-present inhale and exhale were my only reply. The breathing drove me mad. In my hour long world of darkness, I kept envisioning terrible things; monsters and insane men.
Time passed. I counted the number of days by the strange morning visits. We were nine days in when the visitor quit coming.
We were ten days in when the ship I was on docked.
We were eleven days in when the true horror began.
Chapter 21
Another blindfold, lashed hands, and another row boat soon found me in a second cell. This one was larger than my last, the floor damp, and I knew once they uncovered my eyes that I was in a palace dungeon. Groans echoed down the corridor beyond the bars of my cell, and guards yelled ribald comments that made references to their king.
“So you’ll be at the feast tonight?” one guard hollered.
“Aye. Hopkins has shift, and a good thing too because I plan to fondle a lady’s tits tonight.”
The first man guffawed. “All these palace wenches got right nice places to fondle.”
More laughter, the sound echoing down the row of cells. Worse yet, these weren’t normal cells. I was in a torture chamber.
The first thing I did when they left me was crawl to the bars, my gaze searching the torch-lit darkness, my horror-stricken eyes noting the shackles, the lit braziers, pokers, ceiling hooks, spiked racks, raised cages, boiling pots, and malevolent-looking weapons that lined the walls.
My hands flew to my mouth, my palms holding back the need to scream.
“It ain’t pretty is it?” a wry voice asked.
Startled, my gaze flew to the corridor beyond my cell to find me face-to-face with a haggard-looking woman with long, stringy hair and only a few teeth left in her mouth. She grinned, and I recoiled.
A bucket of water dangled in her hands, and she threw it at me, leaving me sputtering and wet inside the chilly cubicle.
“You’ll see plenty o’ me,” she promised. “I’m sent to keep the prisoners from smellin’ too putrid, and to mop up the blood.”
My stomach churned, the damp chill cutting into me. “Where am I?” I asked.
The woman cackled. “Don’t see why it matters if you know or not.” She gestured at the walls. “Welcome to New Hope.”
Turning away from me, she trudged to a trough full of water, refilled her bucket, and threw it into the cell next to mine. Whoever resided there never even sputtered.
New Hope? Was I prisoner of King Brahn or Blayne Dragern now?
My fingers wrapped around the cell bars, my head falling against the iron. The cold bit into my forehead.
King or prince, it didn’t matter. I was a prisoner of at least one man I knew was guilty of treason along with a woman madness had made an ally.
I slid to the floor. How had this gone so wrong? How had a simple rebellion against a mad king who’d robbed his people of knowledge and magic turned into this mess? So much senseless death. So much pain.
Boots sounded on stone, hinges creaked, and a begging young man was dragged to the chamber just in front of my cell. It was then that I discovered why I’d been locked up in this particular cubicle.
The first prisoner put to death in front of me was boiled alive.
Chapter 22
As with the ship’s hold before, I found ways to track my time in prison, my mind full of horrible images and terrible screams. I remained at the back of my cell, only coming forward when a plate was shoved under the bars. They fed us twice a day, and the woman—who’d told me she was called Mags—came once every other day to throw water into the cells. I was never warm.
By counting the food trays and the strange baths, I’d determined that I’d been locked away in New Hope for five days—five days full of tortured hollers, blood, and death—when the guards came for me.
Like the men I’d seen dragged down the corridors, I was yanked from my cell, the guard’s hand wrapped painfully around the strands of my tangled hair, and thrown onto the floor of the torture chamber. Two men stood over me, but it was the sound of boots thundering down the corridor that sent fingers of dread curling around my heart. There’d never been a third presence in the tortures I’d witnessed.
“Stand clear!” a man hollered.
My eyes widened, hatred filling my veins. “Blayne Dragern,” I spat.
He looked no different than the last time I’d seen him, his clean shaven face all clean angles with high cheekbones and slanted eyes, his black hair cropped short.
He smiled. “The girl, the boy, the dragon rider, the savior … is there a title yo
u haven’t had?”
“Queen,” a shrill voice answered.
Blayne’s smile grew, his arm reaching into the darkness, his fingers closing around a dainty glove-covered hand. Princess Gabriella stepped from the shadows, her dark hair a mass of curls around her face, her body covered in clinging black silk, a golden serpent coiled just under her breasts. The New Hope crest.
“I do apologize,” Blayne said, his head bowing. “Have you met my wife?”
My chin rose, my teeth clenching together, shock radiating through my system. There was no doubt now that New Hope and Greemallia were allies.
Gabriella sneered.
Blayne’s hand rose, signaling to the guards, and I was jerked backwards. My back crashed against the chamber wall, my breath knocked from my lungs. From the ceiling, two chains were drawn down, open shackles dangling from the end.
“Tell me,” Blayne asked, “how many gods do you have?”
My stomach curdled, my gaze dropping to the floor. So, this is what my life had become? From prophesied phoenix to a Medeisian martyr for the gods. Blayne didn’t need a reason to torture me. I’d already given him reason enough, but I knew by his question what he was looking to do, and I recoiled.
My chin rose. “I am the daughter of many gods,” I said firmly.
“Blasphemy!” Gabriella cried, her mouth open in horror, her hand clutching her chest.
Again, Blayne signaled the guards.
My hands were shoved into the dangling shackles, the metal closing around my wrists. A lever was pulled, and I was heaved upward, my toes the only thing left sweeping the floor.
“How many gods do you have?” Blayne repeated.
New Hope was a monotheistic country known for its sadistic methods of controlling the way their people worshipped.