by River Starr
“Come.”
The voice echoed in my mind heavy and deep. My body shook with the force of the word.
Someone clamped a hand down on my shoulder and I startled, turning toward them with my fist raised. Frost caught my punch and looked at me like I was being a scaredy cat. But she hadn’t seen what I’d seen, nor heard what I had just heard.
Frost made a sound that I could barely hear and held up a five-by-five-inch piece of stone. As soon as it was obvious I’d looked at it, Frost let it go and the piece began sinking down into the ocean.
I sent her a curious look.
Frost lifted her hands and showed me the burns. Iron.
Well, shit. That was one good reason why the sea court didn’t want to go looking for these pieces themselves. Was it possible the stone itself was iron ore, or simply some sort of iron-infused magic-made stone? They could have just as easily used a net or something to grab the pieces from the ocean. Besides, not all the prisoners in at this institute were fae and thus susceptible to iron—even the pure stuff like this.
Once the fragment had sank too far, Frost swam down and kicked it up, pushing it with her feet and elbows toward the exit. I wasn’t sure, though, if she passed through the wall if she’d be allowed to come back and help the rest of us. Frost must not have been sure, either, because she stayed out here, bouncing the piece around her body to keep it moving rather than hold it.
I didn’t blame her. Iron, even the stuff infused with magic like the handcuffs they’d brought us into the prison with, burned and bothered me. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like as a full-blooded fae.
I turned and searched for Dax in the surrounding ocean. He swam along without a water-breathing rune, searching through kelp and coral and schools of fish. He’d be fine, even with the iron. So I focused my attention on searching. I had to find two pieces, not just one, in order to help Titus survive this trial. I wasn’t sure why he’d never learned how to swim, but maybe just the act of being submerged in water like this hurt him the way iron hurt fae. I made a mental note to ask him if an appropriate time arose.
Swimming deeper, I kept my eyes open for any signs of pieces of this artifact. Minutes ticked by as treasure eluded me. I swam and searched, ever aware of eyes on me. Not from the inky darkness below, but from the platform at the top of the prison. Even from this distance, I could feel Zavian looking at me. Judging me. Honestly, the feeling was probably aided by the water and the magic we shared as sea fae.
I’d gotten the impression earlier that he’d only wanted this prison posting because of me. I wondered how stupid he thought all this was. He couldn’t be happy about letting prisoners out of the prison to swim, even if common sense would keep us from trying to escape. I wondered, though, if at full power I’d be able to make it to the surface from here before being crushed or running out of air.
I paused my search long enough to glance up in the direction of the surface. It seemed so far away. Far enough that not much, if any, sunlight trickled down. Then I looked to Zavian. His narrowed eyes were on me, watching me calculate the risks of escape.
I grinned sarcastically, hoping he could see it. He could hate me all he wanted. Fate had thrown us together in more than one way regardless.
A sparkle caught my eye against the undersea mountain. I swam closer and inspected the area. The fragment was small, maybe an inch in diameter, and hidden amongst various bits of coral and broken ceramic from the civilization that used to exist. Long before the mortals had shunned the old fae gods and forgotten them, save to build a prison upon their old city and pretend they revered it.
I scooped up the small fragment, forgetting almost immediately that these were made from iron—until it burned my hand. I started to hiss in pain, but water filled my nose and I remembered where I was. Juggling the artifact fragment, I searched for the rest of my unit. Dax had a fragment of his own clasped between his two hands, and Frost had now handed off her piece to Titus.
Perfect. We just needed one more.
Another sparkle lit my peripheral vision. I swam toward it, continuing to juggle the fragment between my hands with the aid of a little water magic. Unlike the other piece, this fragment glowed in the darkness.
My brow furrowed. I approached slowly, reaching out with cautious fingers as my free hand grasped tightly around the fragment I’d already found even as it began to sear my skin. Before my fingers got too close, a darkened figure moved behind the light and leaped toward me, its long, bio-luminescent teeth snapping at me.
I opened my mouth to scream, but only a low sound came out as I backpedaled. The sea creature charged me, its humongous jaw followed by a long body that resembled an eel. Only this was no eel I had ever seen in books or otherwise. I kicked, scrambling to get away from this thing, but my muted magic wasn’t cooperating. I wasn’t moving quick enough. Worse still, I was almost losing my grip on both fragments I had in my possession.
The creature lunged one more time, its jaw gaping wide. I tried to corkscrew away but wasn’t quick enough. A dozen long, sharp teeth pierced skin and muscle along my right calf. A burning, white-hot sensation coursed up my leg to my spine and sprouted around the rest of my body. It felt like every single inch of me was on fire, made worse by the way this thing’s venom constricted, as though it were pulling all the blood in my veins straight out of the wound within seconds. My body seized and I curled into a ball there in the ocean, stuck in place while this thing tore away at my leg.
Out of nowhere, a tiny, thin icicle slid though the creature’s skull. Frost appeared beside it, reaching out for me. Dax was with her and wrapped his arms around my middle. Together, they swam me toward the hole in the magical wall.
I tested my hands, able to curl my fingers around the fragments of the ancient fae artifact, and wondered how the hell I’d managed to keep a grip on them. Maybe as my body convulsed, my fingers had closed tighter around the fragments.
In either case, I couldn’t now move. The most I could do was will the water around them to aid their movement rather than hinder.
As we swam closer, Titus ventured forward through the ocean to take the fragments from me with a worried look on his face. He shot wordless questions at both Frost and Dax. Frost let go of me with one hand and mimed a monster mouth with her fingers before clamping on to Titus’s shoulder. As if that could accurately describe the creature I’d encountered and the way I was burning alive from the inside out.
Titus left the water first and dumped the fragments on the sea stone before him. Only once Titus was safe inside the air bubble surrounding the top floor of the prison did Frost and Dax hoist me over the side.
I rolled, groaning as air entered my lungs, and curled back up into a ball. Frost’s cold fingers pressed against my bleeding leg. A chorus of footfalls sounded as the prison guards ran over to us.
“What happened?” Zavian asked, his eyes wide with surprise and worry.
Dax shot him a ruthless glare. “Your stupid fucking game, that’s what!”
The prison guard who’d given me the water-breathing rune stepped forward. “It’s the Night Eel. They’re native around these parts, but prisoners rarely run into them. She has only minutes to live unless we—”
Zavian turned so fiercely on his fellow guard that the other man stepped back. When he spoke, Zavian’s response was only just barely contained from being a yell. “Then get her the damn antidote. She can’t die.”
The prison guard tilted his head, a question in his eyes. “Sir?”
Surely most inmates died eventually. I really doubted many became reformed and were allowed to roam around the sea court as soldiers and courtesans.
“Yet,” Zavian clarified in a jumbled tone as he lifted me from the ground and held me in his arms. I rested my head against his warm chest and sighed happily. “This woman has hardly paid for her crimes against the nobles of the sea court. Get her the antidote immediately.” He growled at the guard for emphasis, and it sent the guard running.
; “She’s going to need a healer as well as an antidote, hotshot,” Frost snapped.
Dax nodded. “She’s lost too much blood.” He would know. He drained a solid portion of it earlier. Enough that now, the world began to spin and my eyes rolled back into my head.
All I heard before blackness took me was Zavian cursing beneath his breath before he took off running.
Maybe my fated mate did care about me after all.
In the darkness of unconsciousness as much as in the prison, I’d never know for sure.
15
Eos
Pain became the new reality. I surfaced in and out of my own prison every time Nyx fell unconscious and I woke only to find wretched sea fae doing the bare minimum to save our lives. When I’d mustered enough strength to do so, I grabbed their wrists and demanded better attention, a better cure. It was what this Atlantean heir deserved, after all, and these petulant fools had no right to deny me it.
But then I remembered: The sea court I’d once lived in, the one I’d been meant to rule, had been destroyed and sunk beneath the waves thanks to hubris and a deal gone wrong. Our queen at the time, my mother, had made a grave miscalculation regarding allies and a powerful magical weapon. In return, our enemies tore our city apart—and then tore my soul from me, the sole heir of Atlantis.
The same sort of deal had seen my soul bound to Nyx’s.
It wasn’t the ideal outcome. I’d have much rather been bound to a sea fae who actually lived in the new court at Alexandria. At least we’d ended up close to the new city. Which was good because that creature’s venom had put Nyx and me into a state in which I was able to finally remember some of what had happened while I hadn’t been present. Probably only because of the twilight state it had put both Nyx and me in.
These sea fae fools were trying to recreate a magical artifact—a weapon—that had seen the first court’s destruction, and they either didn’t know, or didn’t care.
Idiots. All the more reason to play along and get out of here, then gain power in the sea court by manipulating the stoic but needy male nobles there. An easy game; we just had to earn the right to play it.
Darkness swam around me constantly as Nyx drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I was allowed to surface for long bouts, and at others she shoved me back down into the mental prison I’d inhabited for a year now.
On one particularly long bout of clear control, Dax and his other inmates had crowded around me and tried to ease the pain the best they could with their minimal magic abilities. Only Dax knew the truth, evident by the careful way he avoided my eyes while I was conscious.
That bastard. Coward. Shunning me because of the body I’d been forced to inhabit. It had hardly been my choice.
I loved him all the same. This too would pass, and then we’d be together again. Loving freely and passionately.
But the pain from the creature’s venom was too great, keeping me from voicing everything I wanted to say to Dax. To these other inmates. To the disrespectful sea fae prison guards.
I often viewed Nyx as weak. Her attachment to her sister had left her open to so many attacks and failures, not least of which was my soul being bound to hers.
But now, unable to speak or stay conscious or even move, I realized we were both weak. And we’d be trapped here forever because of it.
I was going to have to get a lot more creative—and direct—in order to get out of here. To exact my revenge. To take over Nyx and rule the old city once more as my birthright intended.
16
Nyx
Several days had passed since our second trial. One which we had successfully completed despite the incident with that eel-like creature that’d nearly stolen my life.
What had happened next was mostly a blur. I remembered my team hauling me onto the docking platform of the prison and Zavian scooping me up into his arms while barking orders to the other guards. I also remembered medical staff administering an antidote.
How much of that was my memory and what was Eos’s is still confusing. Because sometimes those memories were from the wrong point of view, almost like I was looking at them from outside my body. And between the pain and passing out so many times, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eos had surfaced.
Still, here she and I were, imprisoned with my inmate unit. And I couldn’t even ask if Frost had met Eos without inviting in a conversation about the truth of my imprisonment that I simply didn’t have the energy for.
Now, I limped through the food line in the mess hall with Titus and Frost in front of me and Dax behind me. Over the last few days that I’d spent back in the cell block rather than the infirmary, other prisoners had noticed my limp. As badass as my apparent reputation for killing sea fae nobles was, it was a weakness I couldn’t hide or stop from destroying that reputation.
A few male werewolf shifters had gotten the shitty idea to corner me on my way out of the showers. Luckily, Frost had been there and froze them to the sea stone floor while Dax had disposed of them in a shattering mess. Had it not been in self-defense, I was sure we’d all be in solitary right now. Although I was pretty sure Zavian had had something to do with helping us avoid real punishment as well. He’d stepped in when the prison guards were going to let me die of the eel venom after all. I shouldn’t be surprised he’d decided to intervene again on my behalf.
I grabbed my tray filled with some sort of meat mush, smashed vegetables, and a glass of water, and followed the others to the table we’d begun claiming as our own since our first day. With a wince, I pulled my legs under the table and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Does it still hurt that bad?” Frost asked, eying me warily.
I nodded. “Some. It’s getting better, though.”
“Those idiots should have healed you more.” Titus slid his fork into the mountain of meat mush on his tray and scowled. “It’s the least they can do for you if they intend to put you through more shit for their entertainment.”
I shrugged and played with my fork. “I have no doubt there will be more trials. I’ll rest up as much as possible until then. But the truth is they will never care enough to heal any of us fully.”
“Clearly,” Dax said as he pointed to the still-fading black eye he’d given Titus days ago. Dax’s bruises and wounds had healed thanks to his vampiric regeneration abilities. Titus, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky.
In fact, the rest of us all still wore the bruises and wounds from that first trial. My leg had started healing enough not to sting in the salt water during the second trial. But pain still remained. The same went for Dax’s bite mark on my neck.
If the prison’s medical staff had noticed Dax’s bite imprint, they hadn’t brought attention to it. I was grateful for that. I wonder if Zavian had seen when we kissed… My hair had covered it, long as it was.
Frost pushed her tray to the center of the table as a disgusted look twisted her brow. “This is disgusting. Also, if the trials are one deadly game after the next, then is there any point in hoping to be reformed and our sentences reduced?”
“No,” Dax said curtly. “Especially since I won’t give up my empire.”
I leaned in. “You do realize that your empire has been without you for over a week now, and that if you die down here, it’ll continue to be.”
“Yes.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Not to mention that even if you do prove you’re reformed, you’ll end up in the sea court forever.”
“Yes.”
“Dax, you’re never going back to your empire,” I said. “Please see logic here.”
“There is none,” Titus said. “That’s the point.”
Dax crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his voice so that only we and maybe the other vampires in the room could hear thanks to their supernatural hearing. “Once I’m out of this prison, I’ll be able to send word and be rescued by my seconds-in-command.”
“Rescued from the sea court,” Frost said dryly. “Good luck with that. I’m still tryi
ng to figure out how this one”—she thumbed over at me—“got into the sea court unnoticed, and she can breathe underwater.”
“I don’t breathe,” Dax said, as if it should have been obvious.
“You’re still insane to think you’ll simply walk out of the sea court,” I said, knowing all the stories I’d been told by my mother. “Even if you do, they’ll hunt you and every last vampire in your empire down. The sea fae are cruel and evil and sadistic.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying you’re the same?”
Frost smiled knowingly.
My mouth dropped open. “I’m half-fae.”
“So only half as cruel,” Titus pointed out.
“You did pin fae to the wall with iron,” Frost said.
I swallowed hard and crossed my arms. “That… is an entirely different situation.” And Dax knew it. His statement had been a low blow. “When I work, I don’t normally kill.”
“None of this discussion helps us,” Titus said.
Frost attempted a bite of the meat mush and frowned. “Then for the love of all the gods, please say something that will because I’m tired of being here.”
I leveled her with a look. “You had to know it would most likely be a one-way ride.”
Frost dropped her fork to her tray. “Yes, but I never intended to be caught in the first place. I’m good at spying.”
“Apparently not all the time,” Dax said.
“Then how do we get out of here?” Titus asked.
“Death or reform,” I answered.
Dax finally relaxed and placed his hands back on the table. When he spoke, his voice was barely louder than a whisper. “There has to be some way to escape. The transports, for one. Or your magic, Nyx, for another.”