I’ve never told anyone the names we gave each other when I first heard her voice in my mind. I've never breathed a word about her to anyone for two hundred years, no details that could have been found out by the witches themselves, not from my lips.
That single name, and the insistent tug of the Fates in my chest, says it all to me.
My own voice comes out as a snarl, a deranged and dark thing. “What exactly do you think you're going to get out of me? What do you think you're going to achieve with this travesty?”
She stares at me, her eyes penetrating. She doesn't like what she sees, it’s written clearly on her face, but as the worst of my fears is realized, even with the sickening drop of my stomach, I'm relieved. I relish her hatred, a mirror of my loathing for her.
The only fear I have left is that we’ll be tied together with such spite.
“I want nothing from you. I’m merely doing as the Fates command me. If not for them, I’d be in the Northern Lands with my family. I didn’t want to return. If I hadanyother option, I wouldn’t be sitting before you right now.”
The sizzle of her skin burning crackles between us, but she doesn't seem bothered by it at all as her eyes stay fixed on mine, cold and blank. There’s no fear in her gaze, no panic or pain as the iron burns her, nothing. The more ice she feeds me, the hotter the rage inside me burns, until there’s nothing but a renewed bloodlust for the witches left.
Tauron comes to stand by us, his gaze tracing over her before it flicks back to me. “Are we killing her or are we leaving? If we're walking again, we can't afford to lose much more light, Soren.”
His voice is hard, but I can hear the mocking tone to it, the way that he’s poking at me and inviting me into an argument. We’ve grown up together, trained together, gone to war together. If there’s anyone who can tell just how close to the edge of madness I am, it’s him.
He’s willing to bear the brunt of my wrath to spare the others, but I’m beyond that.
I let my lips pull into a cruel smirk before I finally gesture for him to refasten the gag. “We're not walking the rest of the way. Let's see if she can survive the fae door.”
* * *
Even with the ground dry and lifeless beneath us, we easily follow the signs of Roan's journey to the fae door. It's the quickest way to Yregar Castle from here, though it means we have to pass closer to the forest of madness than usual.
When Tauron casts me a brooding look, I shrug, not engaging in an argument with him no matter how much he’s itching for it.
Riding past the forest like this, it’ll be a matter of hours that Tyton will have to endure the call of the trees. We could have been past it much sooner, but thanks to the slow pace we make with our prisoner, he’s forced to stay close for three times as long.
Tauron bears the brunt of his discomfort, watching everything around us carefully while also murmuring quietly to his brother. His words are a steady stream of reassurance, a salve over Tyton’s quickly devolving mind, but I’m not sure how much of it soaks in.
We will be on our way soon.
We're not ignoring the trees.
We’re doing everything we can to return life and magic to the Southern Lands.
It feels like a lie.
Even yesterday morning I would’ve said we were working toward it and nothing was off limits. Now, one glance over my shoulder at the witch proves that's no longer the truth. I'm not going to honor that female the moment we get home. I'm not going to send word to my uncle, proudly decreeing that my marriage is on the horizon, my coronation only a matter of weeks away.
There'll be nothing joyful about our return to Yregar Castle.
The farther we travel in silence, the more of her I observe without laying eyes on her abominable form for longer than a moment. I’ve had many long years practice watching my enemies, inside the Unseelie Court and on the battlefield, and reading people is a keenly honed skill for me, one that has saved my life many times.
The witch is watching Tyton.
She was careful not to look at him as he gave her water from his spare flask but now her gaze never strays too far from his vicinity, and the icy depths of her eyes are so sharp, I’m surprised he doesn’t bleed out in front of us all. She's good at hiding her interest and expressions, but even with the gag obscuring her face, I can tell. She looks anywhere but at his face, feigning ignorance to the madness that’s claiming him. But his words about the forest have caught her interest, and if we had more time, I’d stop to question her about it.
I’d torture it out of her, if I had to.
But there’s every chance we’ll run into more of the regent’s guards out here. Word will have traveled back to my uncle's ear, the next pawn in our never-ending game of chess moving in his favor.
We can’t possibly have a king on the throne whose mate and queen is a witch.
When we finally make it to the fae door, the group is eerily quiet, as though we’re holding our breath and waiting for an imminent attack. Even the witch is careful as she looks around the mountain, her eyes far too knowing as she takes in the barren wasteland the kingdom has become.
The door itself stands on the side of the mountain like a bad omen, everything around it dead and signs of an old battle nearby. One of my legs still aches from injuries I sustained here, thanks to our lack of available medical treatment.
