by Gwynn White
Axel could never have believed Thorn’s offer possible, any more than it would have crossed his mind to seek it. But he couldn’t deny the throb of heat in his chest as he imagined Lynx’s approval when she learned Axel had been accepted as one of her own.
He shifted feet, both to buy time before he answered and to find a more comfortable position for his aching back.
Was it only a few weeks ago that he was so desperate to go to Treven to secure the ice crystal mines for his father that he was willing to risk Lynx’s life?
And now?
Could he call himself a Chenayan warlord and possible crown prince after he’d blared his family’s most guarded secrets to declared enemies? Now his potential allies?
How far would he still go to protect Lynx?
Far enough to see Lukan destroyed. His throbbing quarrel wound honed his thoughts. Far enough to create a new order in Chenaya. One that stops murderous cowards like Lukan and my father from ever gaining power again. And if that means raising an army powerful enough to destroy every ice crystal tracker in the empire, then that is what I will do.
The strategist in him recognized that his sweeping thoughts needed to be broken down into smaller goals to reach the overall objective. This meeting wasn’t the time or place to do that. That didn’t stop the jumble of ideas that assailed him.
Who would replace Lukan? Him? He had no desire to rule an empire. And anyway, according to Dmitri, the person for that task was Lynx’s son. Was she pregnant with Lukan’s baby? Was that the real reason she had vanished?
It could be.
He grimaced, a combination of anger and sorrow. Then frustration bit. Lynx’s son was the one foretold to destroy Lukan, even though Axel longed to slit the bastard’s throat. Axel didn’t think he had the patience to wait for Lynx’s boy to make Lukan pay.
Thorn cleared his throat expectantly, reminding Axel that he was awaiting for a reply.
Knowing his legs weren’t going to hold him up much longer, Axel said, “I have some ideas to share—as long as you’re offering a cushion.”
“I make no apologies for my lack of hospitality. It was a small price for you to pay for the suffering you’ve caused my people.” Thorn’s tone didn’t match the sharpness of his words. “But if you can destroy the ice crystals, then perhaps you can save more Norin lives than you’ve taken.” King Thorn stood, arm extended to Axel. “You and the colonel will join me in my tent.”
Chapter 18
Lynx woke up in pitch darkness to the clank of chains. The air smelled moldy. Familiar. She was back in the hated cellar. Her backside and legs were icy from sitting too long on a cold, damp floor, although something warm pressed against her back.
Hunger and thirst gnawed at her. How much time had passed since her last proper meal in the palace? Pain lanced her shoulders as her arms wrenched behind her. She reached out with her fingers, feeling someone else’s hands rubbing hers. “Tao?”
“They’ve chained us together,” Tao gritted out, still tugging. “No chance of ever escaping again. But at least we’re still together. That’s a good thing.”
“Maybe not!” Lynx said crossly. “Unless you have a file to saw through the links, keep still because you’re tearing my arms from their sockets.” She tried to move her legs, but they were also tethered together.
“Sorry.” Another tug, gentler this time. “Seems like we’re back in the cellar.”
“I know.” Panic bit at her, and she tried to laugh it away with a joke. “My claustrophobia is getting old fast.”
“You’re claustrophobic?” Tao sounded surprised.
“It almost kills me every time the lights go out.” She hesitated, then confided, “I always slept with a lamp lit in my tent. Heron . . . he . . . he’s my friend. He used to say that I’d burn to death in my sleep one night.” She laughed, a hollow sound, as hysteria mounted in her chest. “I can’t do this, Tao. Not again.” Tugging hard, she wrenched at their chains. “I knew it was a setup. Felt it in every bone. But I was so desperate, I chose to be a fool.”
“Don’t blame yourself. This is all me. I did this to us.” Tao sounded mournful. “I—I thought like a prince, not like a person.”
Lynx frowned, trying to fathom what he meant.
“My father was a sadistic bastard, but I always got what I wanted when I wanted it. I just assumed that escaping would be like that, too.” Steel entered Tao’s voice. “But it won’t happen again. I make you an oath that I will do better from now on. No more rash plans. We talk things through. Decide together. I—I’ll defend you with everything I’ve got.” His voice dropped. “Your son, too.”
Lynx believed him. But now she saw no reason not to discuss her son openly. What else could Lukan do to her that was worse than imprisonment in this hole? “His name’s Nicholas the Light-Bearer, apparently. Although I would prefer a Norin name.”
“Ideas?”
Lynx sighed. As much as she wanted to avoid her and Tao’s reality, it had to be faced. “He’s not even the size of a chickpea.” She clasped Tao’s fingers in hers, holding them tight. “You know your brother. What do you think Lukan plans for us? And why are we still together? It makes no sense.” Another sigh. “Again.”
When Lynx wondered if Tao would ever reply, he finally murmured, “I can’t begin to imagine. Never in my wildest dreams did I see Lukan doing this to me. We weren’t close. Not like me and Axel. Still, we shared a brotherhood of mutual misery. I would have thought that counted for something and that he would let me go. I would never have come back to threaten him, so why this?”
The chains clanged as he moved his hands in emphasis.
Lynx was considering a suitable reply when boots crunched on the stairs.
Both she and Tao stiffened.
The door swung open, spilling brilliant white light into the room. Lynx closed her eyes against the blinding glare. It had to be one of the flashlights Axel had shown her, only on a massive scale. Ears straining, she listened to the shuffle of feet.
She couldn’t stand not seeing, so she opened her eyes, wincing against the stabbing pain.
Felix, holding a small but powerful lamp, stood before her. A woman, veiled in white from head to toe and wearing a priestess moonstone next to her eye, cowered in his shadow. She clutched a portmanteau.
Behind them, Morass dragged in something making a whimpering sound. A stab of shocked betrayal almost gutted Lynx, and she only had eyes for the priestess.
“Mother Saskia! You’re here. With them. Part of this.” Lynx clinked her chains.
Mother Saskia shuffled deeper into Felix’s shadow, the shame in her averted eyes a far cry from the woman who had sheltered Lynx after the assassination.
Then Lynx understood; Felix had spared Saskia’s life, and the priestess was beholden to him. A surge of anger tore through her that Saskia hadn’t the strength to stand up to him, but she quelled it. After her own stupid escape attempt, she of all people knew what lengths desperation could drive one to. Shamed, Lynx waited for Felix to speak.
The Lord of the Household was in no hurry to oblige.
He placed his lamp on the chair instead of the rickety table. Lynx wondered at that.
Then, Felix folded his arms across his chest and watched Morass. The guardsman yanked a dark-haired woman about Lynx’s age before her and Tao. Her torn silk gown bulged with an obvious pregnancy.
Felix reached out and shoved her shoulder, sending her tumbling to her knees. “Bow in the presence of your empress and crown prince.”
The woman looked up in astonishment at Lynx. Shock followed mutual recognition.
It was Katcha, whom Lynx had met at her first hunt. Katcha had commented on how much she’d liked Lynx’s clothes. With all the petticoats and ruffles Katcha had sported that day, Lynx hadn’t realized she was pregnant.
Katcha looked from Lynx’s disheveled hair, down her torn clothes, to her dirty feet, and a tremor forming in the woman’s fingers radiated up her arms. Her terrified eyes da
rted over to Tao. After taking in his bloodied, bruised, soiled state, they widened into two full moons.
The haunting in her eyes spread a ghostly shroud of pallor over her face. The floor beneath her darkened as fear trickled down her legs and pooled. Tearing in breath after breath, Katcha leaped to her feet and lunged for the door.
Morass grunted. “Uh-uh. Not so fast. We’ve not finished with you. In fact, you might say we haven’t even started.” He grabbed her, pushed her down onto the floor, and planted his boot on her round stomach. “Wait until you are called.”
“Leave her alone!” Lynx shouted at the same moment Tao yelled, “Get your boot off her!”
Lynx rattled her chains, but it was pointless. Morass’s foot remained firmly in place.
A throat click was Felix’s only reaction. Bleeding disapproval, he stared at Lynx’s torn corset. Morass’s breath hitched. Lust fired in his eyes, and his thick tongue flicked across fleshy lips.
Lynx longed to bring her knees up to her chest, but they were chained to the floor. Felix’s bony hands reached for the dragon clasp holding his olive-green cloak. He unclipped it and swung the garment around Lynx’s shoulders, fastidiously closing the cape over her chest. Then his hand lashed out, striking Morass across the face.
The guardsman fell back but didn’t murmur a complaint.
Lynx’s skin crawled as the smell of the wintergreen Felix used for his blocked sinuses wafted out of the velvet and curled around her. She longed to shrug the cloak off, but the idea of flashing her breasts for Morass’s lascivious eyes was even worse than Felix’s reek. It was a sorry day when those were her only two choices.
She spared a glance at Katcha, who still trembled beneath Morass’s boot. There had to be a way to stop Morass, to stop Felix, to get out of here. There had to be.
“Your Majesty and Your Highness,” Felix said with formality befitting the great hall. “At the request of our emperor, Mother Saskia is here to perform three small procedures—”
“You mean the emperor we don’t support,” Tao snapped. He glanced at Katcha with unmistakable concern.
Tao’s determination to contain his impetuousness hadn’t lasted long. He was almost as bad as she was. Whatever Felix had in store for them, Lynx hoped it included keeping them together. Their mutual disdain for Lukan would maintain their fighting spirit.
Morass’s face loomed menacingly close to Tao. “You won’t be so cocky when you see what this does to prisoners like you.” He shot a leer at Katcha lying paralyzed with fear on the floor.
“Enough!” Felix grabbed Morass’s arm. “Low-born, you forget to whom you speak!” He turned back to Lynx and Tao and gave a half bow. “I have no doubt you will be delighted to learn that the emperor has given me instructions to relocate you both to your new home.”
“You mean this dragon’s armpit isn’t our final destination?” Lynx gave a mock laugh, filled with bravado, trying not to betray her grim evaluation of their fate. “Or do you now plan to move us down to the ass end?”
A glare from Felix. “In light of yesterday’s little escape attempt, the emperor has to ensure that, for your own safety, you remain where he has chosen to allow you to reside. I think the easiest way to explain how he intends to achieve this is via a demonstration.”
He stepped aside, casting Mother Saskia into the full glare of the light. “Our Great High Priestess will insert an ice crystal into this obliging young lady.” Felix poked at Katcha with a gnarled finger as she wriggled under Morass’s boot once more. “Then I will show you how it works.”
Lynx strained against Tao as they both fought their chains, but they were powerless to help Katcha.
“Is this necessary?” Tao demanded. “Lynx and I understand plain language, and Lady Katcha looks anything but keen.”
“The gravity of your situation and your personal safety demands it, Your—”
“Don’t lay your guilty conscience at our door, Felix,” Tao yelled. “You are going to harm this woman because you choose to, not because Lynx or I need or desire it. It’s on your head.”
Felix’s mouth twitched, and Lynx wondered if he had a retort at the ready. Instead, he turned to the priestess. “Proceed.”
Still avoiding eye contact with Lynx, Mother Saskia glided across the room to the wooden table. She unclipped the portmanteau and pulled out a light that she mounted on one side of the table. Another scratch in the bag, and she took out a brown glass bottle and a scrubbing brush. She turned to Felix. “If you please, my lord, unchain the empress.”
Lynx perked up, wondering what opportunity Saskia offered her.
Owl-like, Felix’s head darted around to Saskia. “Is that wise, given her propensity for violence?”
Saskia straightened her already perfect veil. “It is tradition for the priestess to command the mother to scrub the table on which her baby will lie while we insert the ice crystal. Mothers are keenly aware of germs. They ensure the surface is clean before we cut.”
“What?” Lynx gasped. “Someone will die before you insert ice crystal into me.”
Tao swore, a long, colorful collection of words that, had the situation been different, would have amused Lynx. Not now, not today. Amongst them, she heard a dozen different curses leveled at his brother.
Felix gave Saskia a flat stare. “Clean the table yourself.”
Muttering under her breath, Saskia slopped the harsh-smelling chemical on the table and scrubbed hard. It didn’t seem to make much difference to the patina of filth engrained into the wood. Face contorted with displeasure, she tossed the scrubbing brush aside and picked a syringe and a small glass bottle with a cork stopper out of her bag.
Lynx watched with morbid fascination as the priestess filled the syringe with the clear substance it contained.
“Something to deaden the pain.” Saskia sailed over to Katcha, lying on the floor.
The young woman sobbed with her face buried in her hands. Without warning, the priestess stabbed the needle into the Katcha’s neck.
Katcha gasped.
“The table,” Mother Saskia commanded with a harshness that surprised Lynx.
Katcha remained motionless. Morass stooped to pick her up, but she scrambled away and fell across Tao’s chained feet.
“Please, Your Highness,” she pleaded. “Make them stop. Command them, my lord, I beg you.”
“Felix, Saskia, have you no conscience?” Fury rang in Tao’s voice as he fought their chains.
“We merely do as we are commanded.” No emotion colored Felix’s voice. “Which is, perhaps, what you should have done, Prince Tao, and then you would not find yourself in this predicament.”
“Never! There are some commands one never obeys, no matter the cost. Felix, you and Saskia have sunk as low as humans can go before reverting to beasts. Forget that! No animal would do what you plan to do here.”
“Morass is here, too,” Saskia muttered sullenly.
Lynx’s voice spiked. “He’s a guardsman with a jasper in his face. He is programmed to obey. You are not.”
Morass’s head jerked up, and his dark eyes fixed first on Lynx, then on Felix. Lynx would have loved to know what the man thought of that tidbit, but his face remained expressionless.
“Enough of this!” Felix said sharply. “Prince Tao, you and Lynx can blame yourselves for the plight of this young woman.”
Lynx spun to look at Felix.
“If you had both done your duty,” Felix said, “then she would not have been arrested, and her husband would not now be searching the halls for her. This is all your fault.”
“You bastard,” Katcha screeched, punching at Tao’s boots. She lashed out at Lynx, too, scratching Lynx’s eye with a jeweled finger. “You’re just like the rest of them.”
Morass threw a silencing gag across Katcha’s mouth and dragged her to Saskia.
Eyes smarting, Lynx looked down at the floor. Had she been responsible? Was this poor woman going to suffer because of her?
No! Lukan an
d Felix chose this. Just like they chose to kill Mott and shoot Axel. But the thought did nothing to relieve the horror unfolding before her.
“Strap her to the table,” the priestess instructed Morass.
Morass lashed ropes across Katcha’s body, but she scrambled away before he could tie them down. Every cell in Lynx’s body screamed at her to help, but what could she do, chained to the floor?
Katcha was about to tumble off the table when Morass’s fist swooped down, catching her on the jaw. Her head snapped back, and she collapsed long enough for him to weave the rope around her and the table legs.
Determined not to turn away, Lynx watched as Mother Saskia cut an inch long incision deep into Katcha’s neck. With a cloth in one hand to stem the blood, she picked up a small glass tube with the other. A pale-blue ice crystal, no bigger than a grain of rice, except with sharp barbs, floated in a clear solution. The priestess looked up at Felix.
“I would usually have an assistant to help with an insertion, but . . .” Saskia cleared her throat. “Perhaps you will hold the cloth for me while I get the crystal ready.”
Felix brushed her request aside with a disdainful sweep of his hand.
Saskia clicked her tongue and nudged Morass on the arm. “Hold the cloth to stop the blood,” she snapped at him. “Use your other hand to keep the wound open until I tell you otherwise.”
Morass’s cold, dark eyes settled briefly on Felix, reminding Lynx of a snake prior to striking. She pulled up straight, anticipating action, but Morass looked away and took the cloth.
The priestess prized the ice crystal out of the tube with a pair of tweezers. She looked up at Lynx. “The barbs will bite as soon as it is in place. Any attempt to dislodge them, and the ice crystal will fire a lethal shock.”
Her eyes seemed to implore Lynx to believe her.
Lynx taunted Saskia with her most defiant expression.
The priestess sighed and then adjusted the lamp. Bending down, she carefully maneuvered the crystal between the parted flesh in Katcha’s neck. Once pleased with the position, she dropped the crystal. Whether it was the presence of blood, or the heat from Katcha’s body, Lynx didn’t know, but the minute the ice crystal landed on raw flesh, it bored into the muscle like a living thing. A manmade parasite, Lynx thought with rising horror. She gripped Tao’s hands for reassurance, and he clasped hers back.