by Karen Lynch
“Nothing. I think the bag is a great idea.”
“We should head down now,” Bayard said. “We need to get out of here before Bauchan comes for her.”
I held up my shackled hands. “Would it be possible to remove these?” I would have done it myself, but there hadn’t been a thing in the tower I could use to pick the lock.
Bayard frowned. “Only Bauchan has the keys to his shackles. We will have to wait until we get away to free you from them.”
We left the room with Bayard in the lead and Rhys taking up the rear. There was a sense of urgency in our steps as we descended the stairs, and I sent up a silent prayer that we got out of here before Bauchan came for me.
The door at the base of the tower opened as we reached the bottom, and I fell backward into Rhys when Bauchan appeared in the doorway. Queen Anwyn’s head of security looked more furious than surprised to see us.
“This explains why the guards I stationed here are nowhere to be seen,” he snarled at Bayard. “Where do you think you are going with our prisoner?”
Rhys moved around me. “That tower room is not fit to house an animal, and there are plenty of warmer rooms in this wing where she can be kept. I’m taking her to one of those.”
“I will save you the trouble. I am here to bring the prisoner to the queen,” Bayard said, entering the tower. Aibel came behind him along with Conard. The tower suddenly seemed very small and cramped.
Bayard tensed, but there was no room in here to fight, even if he hadn’t been outnumbered three to one.
“Then I will accompany you to see my mother,” Rhys said imperiously.
“As you wish.” Bauchan reached around him and grabbed my arm in his steely grip. “But we will escort the prisoner.”
I looked desperately at Rhys before I was led from the tower. He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze and followed us. As we walked down the hallway, Kaelen and another of Rhys’s guards approached from the other direction. We’d been so close. If Bauchan had come a few minutes later, we might have made it out.
Kaelen and the other guard were expressionless as they fell into step with Rhys and Bayard behind me. My stomach was a solid lump of dread over what I was walking toward, but the presence of Rhys and his men told me I wasn’t alone anymore.
We stopped outside the queen’s quarters, and Bauchan exchanged a look with Aibel before he opened the door to push me inside. Rhys entered behind us, but to my relief, the rest of the queen’s guards stayed outside.
Bauchan put me in the same chair I’d sat on last time and took up his position behind me. Rhys stood rigidly beside my chair, the image of a protective brother, and it made the ice in my chest thaw a little.
Queen Anwyn swept into the room, and her graceful steps slowed when she saw Rhys. I couldn’t see his face, but whatever she saw in his expression caused her smile to falter.
“Rhys, why are you here? You know I don’t want you involved in this.” She spoke to him like he was a bothersome child as she walked to her chaise.
“I caught the prince taking the prisoner from the tower, Your Majesty,” Bauchan informed her. “He said he was taking her to another room, but I believe his real intent was to help her escape. Bayard was with him.”
The queen’s head jerked back. “Rhys, tell me this is not true.”
“It is,” he answered evenly.
Her shock morphed into a mask of anger. “You were going to free my prisoner? She tried to steal the ke’tain, and only the goddess knows what she planned to do with it. You would release her so she could attempt it again? She is a traitor to Faerie and Seelie. Why would you betray me for her?”
“What brother would do less for his sister?” Rhys asked in a biting tone that sounded like it came from someone else.
Queen Anwyn’s open mouth was the only change in her expression. “Sister?” She turned her glittering eyes on me. “What disgusting lies have you contaminated my son’s mind with?”
I sat up straighter, bolstered by his presence. “He’s not your son.”
Bauchan grabbed my hair and yanked my head back so fast I saw stars. “Hold your tongue, or I will rip it out of you.”
“Let her go,” Rhys demanded, but Bauchan only tightened his hold. Pain lanced through my skull, and I feared he was going to rip my scalp from my head.
Rhys spun to face the queen. “I know what you did, Mother. Silencing Jesse will not change that.”
“What do you think you know?” Her voice held a note of amusement as if she was humoring a teen that was acting out.
“I know you stole a baby from Patrick and Caroline James twenty years ago, and then you tried to have them killed when they discovered I was their missing son.”
Queen Anwyn scoffed. “Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds? I gave birth to you, Rhys. The whole court was witness to my pregnancy. How can you believe this half-breed traitor over me? She is lying to get you to help her escape.”
“I am not that gullible,” he retorted. “I could not believe it at first, but the more I heard, the more I knew it was true. Bayard believes it, too, and he trusts no one outside his friends.”
“If I did this horrible crime, where is the evidence of it?” she asked in feigned indignation.
Bauchan released me, and tears sprung to my eyes when I raised my head. I resisted the urge to rub my injured scalp as I met the smug challenge in her eyes.
“There is no evidence. Your guards took care of that. Just like they tried to get rid of my parents,” I said with all the loathing I’d kept bottled up inside me for months.
“How convenient that you have nothing to prove this outrageous claim.” She looked at Rhys. “You believe the word of someone you hardly know over your own mother?”
I shook my head. “I do have something to prove it.”
Her gaze snapped back to me. “And what is that?”
“Rhys. You changed his hair and his DNA, but you couldn’t erase who he is. He looks so much like a younger version of our father they could be twins.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “A physical resemblance? If that is all you have, you have nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, then why are you suddenly so desperate to seal the barrier?” I asked, satisfied when I saw that my change in direction had taken her off guard. “Rhys’s face is everywhere in my world. You know someone is eventually going to see the resemblance between Patrick James and the Seelie prince. People will talk, and the media will pick it up because they love a juicy story about a royal. The only way to stop the story from reaching Faerie is to make sure no one can travel between the worlds.”
The room was quiet for a moment, and then she chuckled. “That is quite the imagination you have. I see how you were able to convince my son to believe your story.”
“It is not a story,” Rhys said tightly.
She sighed heavily. “This is one of the reasons I did not want you to go to that world. You are innocent, and I worried an unscrupulous human would take advantage of you. I allowed you to go, and this is the result.” She pointed at me. “If I had known she would try to poison you against me, I never would have brought her into the palace. The only thing I can do now is prevent her from doing more damage.”
She exchanged a quick look with Bauchan, and he stepped out from behind me. He went to the door and opened it to admit Aibel, Conard, and three other males. It was her entire personal guard, and their arrival did not bode well for me.
I shot out of my chair, and Rhys moved to stand in front of me. “I am not going to let you hurt her.”
“You are still too young to understand the things we must do for the good of Seelie,” Queen Anwyn said with an indulgent smile. “Time will change that, but for now, I am afraid I will have to confine you to your quarters.”
Rhys stared at her dumbfounded. “You are going to lock me up?”
Her smile never faltered as she walked over to him. “It is for your own good. And you can hardly compare your quarters to a cell.”
“Bayard and the rest of your guard have been detained until they can prove themselves loyal to the crown,” Bauchan said with a vicious gleam in his eyes that chilled me.
Rhys took a step toward Bauchan. “If you have hurt them –”
The queen cut him off. “Do not worry about your friends, Rhys. You will see them as soon as all of this is over.” She waved at her guards. “Escort my son to his quarters, and see that he does not leave them.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Aibel said. He inclined his head, and two of the guards came to stand on either side of Rhys.
Rhys looked at me with devastated eyes. “I will find a way to help you. Do not lose hope.” He held his hand out to me, and I clasped it in mine for a second before he was led away.
Queen Anwyn rounded on me the second the door clicked behind them. Her slap was so hard my cheek went numb and my ears rang. “I should have had you disposed of the moment I heard of my son’s interest in you. You have caused me nothing but aggravation.”
I straightened and gave her a look of such hatred she took a step back. Bauchan and Aibel were immediately on either side of her. How brave would she be one-on-one without her guards to protect her?
“He’s not your son,” I said through gritted teeth. “You can drop the act. Everyone in this room knows what you did.”
She sneered at me. “He is my son. I gave him my blood. I gave him immortality and a life few could ever dream of. What could your human mother have given him that I did not?”
“A real mother’s love.”
“That is another human flaw I despise. You are so sentimental.” She turned her back on me and crossed the room to her chaise.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, desperately needing to know why my family had suffered so much. “Why did you take my brother?”
Queen Anwyn sat and took time to arrange her skirt before she answered me. She spoke as casually as someone talking about what they had for breakfast. “I needed a strong infant boy, and Aibel found one for me.”
Her apathy nearly left me speechless. “And the dead baby he left in the crib? Did he kill someone else’s child to help cover up your crime?”
An emotion crossed her face, but it was gone before I could figure out what it was. “No. That baby was already dead.”
I had the answer to Bayard’s why. There was only one reason Queen Anwyn could have for stealing a human baby and passing him off as her own after she had given birth to a son. The real Prince Rhys had died, and she’d switched him with another baby so no one would know.
Snatches of my conversation with King Oseron came back to me. He’d told me Onagh and Asherah couldn’t provide a strong heir, and they knew someone would challenge Onagh for the throne. So, he’d abdicated to Oseron.
That was it. Queen Anwyn had feared a challenge if people found out her son had died. She had covered it up to keep her throne. She’d taken my brother Caleb and put her dead son in his place. It would have been easy enough for her to glamour a dead Fae baby to look like Caleb. That was why they’d destroyed his grave and the body in it. If my parents ever claimed the prince was their son, an exhumation would prove the child they’d buried was a Fae changeling.
“I should allow Bauchan to carve some parts off you for causing me this strife with Rhys,” she said. “But I have other plans for you that require your body to be intact.”
A shudder went through me, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.
She paused, savoring whatever she was about to tell me. “I no longer need to know your secret of how to pass through the temple wards. In two days, I will have the ke’tain, and you will have outlived your usefulness to me.” She tapped her chin with a finger. “I think I will have Aibel go to your world tomorrow and pay one last visit to the James family. Should I send them your love?”
Blood roared in my ears. I didn’t make it two steps in her direction before Bauchan caught me. He spun me around, and there was no time to prepare before his fist plowed into my stomach. I doubled over, gasping for air and heaving at the same time. A punch to my side sent me to my hands and knees where I threw up every bit of the meat pastry Bayard had given me.
A boot struck my shoulder, and I curled up in a ball with my hands over my head. The last thing I heard before the final blow came was Queen Anwyn’s bored voice.
“Try not to kill her, Bauchan. I have one more use for her.”
Chapter 22
“Get up.”
I jolted awake to a sharp pain in my lower back. Suppressing a moan, I rolled onto my back and pushed down the blanket I was burrowed under. Above me stood Bauchan looking ready to kick me again if I didn’t move fast enough. He liked to kick people when they were down, something I’d learned well during the last two days.
I staggered to my feet, letting the blanket fall to the pallet. Bauchan had visited me once each day in the two days since he’d beaten me unconscious in front of the queen. On his first visit, he’d demanded to know where my parents were after Aibel reported they were nowhere to be found. Laughing at him probably hadn’t been my best move. He’d bashed my head against the door a few times until I nearly blacked out. When I collapsed to the floor, he’d kicked me twice for good measure.
On his second visit, he came in while I was asleep. Sharp pain in my side had awakened me, and I thought someone had stabbed me until the boot struck me again. He didn’t speak as he kicked me over and over, and I was too weak to do anything but lie there and take it.
I tensed my body for the first blow and faced him. If he expected me to cower, he was in for disappointment. I was past fearing him, and the way his jaw hardened told me he knew it.
He held up a pair of leg shackles. “Your presence has been requested.”
I stood still while he locked the shackles around my ankles. It was the first time they’d bound my feet, and it filled me with dread. It was also the first time I’d seen him wear a sword since they’d brought me here.
This was it. Whatever Queen Anwyn had planned for me, it was happening now. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but I was going to face it with my head high. Before I died, I wanted her to know that all her attempts to break me had failed.
We left the tower room, and Bauchan held my elbow in his hard grip as we descended the stairs. It wouldn’t do for me to trip over the leg shackles and break my neck before the queen got what she wanted from me.
At the bottom, two of her other guards waited to accompany us. We took a different route through the palace and stopped outside a set of tall wide doors with two guards posted outside. The guards each grasped a handle and pulled the heavy doors open.
The room was as big as a church with a high glass roof and a row of windows along the upper half of two sides. The floor was polished white stone, but the walls and ceiling were covered in intricate murals depicting the lives of past Seelie monarchs. Along two sides of the room were chairs, half of which were occupied by the queen’s advisors and other people I didn’t recognize.
At the far end of the room was a dais on which sat a magnificent throne made of eyranth with a back that was at least ten feet tall. On the throne sat the Seelie queen in a royal blue dress and a glittering crown that looked too heavy for her slender neck to support.
On either side of the throne were two smaller ones. The throne on her right where her consort should sit was empty. On her left sat Rhys watching me with an expression of helpless anger as I was led into the room.
The room fell silent except for the clink of my leg shackle chain against the floor. Bauchan took his time escorting me toward the throne, no doubt to build the suspense and excitement of those in attendance. It worked. All eyes were riveted on me as we approached the dais.
We stopped fifteen feet from the throne, close enough for me to see the gleam of anticipation in Queen Anwyn’s eyes that belied her serious, regal expression. The knot in my stomach grew, but I kept my face
impassive. I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing my fear.
“Kneel before the queen,” Bauchan barked. He pushed me down hard, and pain shot through my knees when they hit the floor.
Rhys shifted in his chair like he was struggling to move. It was then that I noticed his arms were bound to the sides of his throne. He was as much a prisoner here as I was. A quick sweep of the room’s occupants revealed that none of his personal guards were here.
Queen Anwyn stood and addressed the room. “I have summoned you all here because today, a heinous crime was committed against Faerie.”
Murmurs spread through the room. A few people leaned forward to get a better look at me. I could imagine what a spectacle I was in my dirty, stained clothes and shackles. The people at the Unseelie court had gotten used to my red hair, but it was a strange oddity here, making me look even more like an outsider.
“Five days ago, the prisoner, Jesse James, was apprehended at the goddess’s temple trying to steal the ke’tain.” The queen paused dramatically as murmurs turned to loud gasps. “She was brought to Unseelie and detained, but she escaped from their custody and was believed to have fled to the human world. In truth, she was still in Faerie, hiding until she could make another attempt to steal the ke’tain. Today, she was successful.”
Shouts went up from her audience as outrage spread through the room. People stood, making angry gestures as the noise level rose to a loud buzz. Queen Anwyn gave them a minute to get worked up before she raised her hands and called for order.
“It was by the grace of the goddess that Conard and Gans chose that time to visit the temple. They found all four temple guards slaughtered and the ke’tain gone.” The queen put a hand to her chest as if imagining it was too much for her. “They ran outside and caught Jesse James trying to escape. If they had not gone there at that exact time, she would have gotten away.”
My stomach roiled in horror, and the room erupted again. Her men had murdered four innocent guards, two of them her own people.
It wasn’t as easy for her to calm the room this time, and she had to shout to be heard. Her cheeks grew flushed with the effort, and annoyance flashed in her eyes. She wasn’t used to people not jumping to attention when she spoke.