I idly wonder how I'm going to explain this to my Fates-cursed mate.
Merrick leans down and fixes a hand around the top of my arm, then yanks me to my feet. His other hand comes up to press at the clasps of my dress. The design confuses him, the fastenings nothing like those on the lace and silks of high-fae dresses or any of the fashions I saw in the villages on the journey here.
It's a traditional dress of Unseelie witches, one I had specially made in the Seelie lands, and it’s held together with silver pins. I chose a sturdy fabric and a simple pin design, so it’s easy to get on and off, but to the high fae, who prefer their ribbons and buttons, I imagine it’s like a puzzle.
He grunts and fists the fabric at my chest as though he's going to rip it, and I decide to stop this before I lose the only outfit I have in my own style. There's a small flash of light as my dagger appears in my hand, and the surprised look on his face when he sees it is the same look he wears in death, my hand moving too fast for him to avoid. I slide the dagger into his gut as easy as butter, angling upwards and pushing my magic through the blade itself and into his body to magnify the damage. It’s easy magic, small and undetectable to the untrained observer but devastating to the body, no matter which race it’s used against.
Less powerful witches need their voices to cast spells, but as the Mother of the Ravenswyrd Coven and with the strength the earth has been cycling into me for weeks pouring into my magic reserves, it’s easier than breathing to protect myself.
He’s dead before I yank the dagger out of his gut, his blood splattering the ground and pouring onto the dirt like a sacrifice, the earth greedily drinking it in. Something wakes beneath us, something old and tired andangry, and it calls to me with a chant from the deepest recesses of the castle, the steady beat a mirror of the beat in my chest.
I press a hand against Merrick’s chest and shove his body away. It falls backwards and hits the ground with a cracking sound from his skull. Lysen, who had only a view of his friend’s back, yelps and startles toward the body. His instinct to help Merrick is instant, and he draws his sword as he moves, but realization of what’s actually happened takes a moment longer—long enough that he walks straight into the cell without regard for his own life.
When he spots the blood pouring from Merrick’s gut, he looks at me with a snarl and lifts his sword, and that’s enough intent for me. I move faster than he does, fast enough that he’s caught by surprise as I spin and slash my dagger across his throat with ease, a quick and practiced swipe. His sword swings downwards, narrowly missing me before it clatters to the ground, his hands clutching his throat but unable to stop the blood that pours through his fingers in an endless flow.
He falls onto his friend, more blood pooling around them both and seeping through the cracks of the stone into the earth. My eyes stay trained on him as he flails for a moment, choking and gasping, before I step past them both and pull the door of the cell shut. I reach through the bars and pull the key from the lock as well, then throw it across the room out of my reach so that it looks as though I had no choice but to stay in here.
I wait until my back is pressed against the stones once more before I pass a hand over my front and flick the blood onto the stones in sacrifice, my magic lifting all of the blood out of the fabric and my skin until there’s not a speck of it left on me. When the earth accepts it greedily, I make another nick in my wrist and let my blood add to the offering. Then I stash the dagger away and rub my free hand over the tiny mark on my inner elbow to ease the tingling where the blade disappeared from sight. The earth sighs beneath me, happy for the extra blood it's been given.
I don't feel an inch of guilt for killing either of them. Not the would-be rapist nor the friend too gutless to say no and mean it.
I feel nothing as I let my eyes slip shut and sleep take me over, the bodies that are readily cooling only steps away from me already forgotten.
It's not my first time sleeping next to the dead, and as I savor the thrum of the Fates dancing underneath the scars of my back and my belly in their joy at my actions, I'm sure it won’t be my last.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Soren
Tauron wakes me just before dawn, the moon hanging low in the sky and a soft breeze shifting the open curtains at my window. I spent the day before training in the yards until exhaustion took over, and so, thankfully, I’m not soaked in fairy wine, my mind sharp the moment my cousin knocks on my chamber door.
No good news arrives at such an hour.
He doesn't waste time on pleasantries, his tone flat but simmering with fury. “Two of our soldiers have been found dead in the witch’s cell.”
I’m out of bed and pulling on clothing before he utters another word. In less than two full breaths, I’m buckling my sword at my side and slinging on my cloak, the fur warm against the cold of the night. Tauron is fully dressed as well, the dark circles under his eyes the only sign of his own sleepless nights.
“Why were two soldiers down there in the first place?” I snap, and he grimaces, the fury from his tone bleeding over his features until he’s practically vibrating with rage.
“That was the first question I asked as well, and after some investigation, I have theories—none of them good. I’ll let you take a look in the cell before I say anything else.”
The castle is silent as we move through it, the lamps that light our way flickering against the frigid air of the early morning. Tyton meets us at the top of the staircase, the pinched look of his features the only sign of his anger, and when we reach the bottom, Roan is standing guard, arms crossed as he stares into the cell. He’s dressed and armed to the teeth as though he’s about to ride off to war, the large diamond on the hilt of his sword catching on the light from the torches as he dips his head respectfully at me. I ignore the tug I feel towards the witch, a far easier task than it usually is thanks to the scene before me.
There's blood everywhere.
It’s seeped through the iron bars, and the stones outside the cell are slick with it. One of the guards’ throats has been slit, his body draped over the other male, who wears casual attire. They've been left where they fell, sprawled out and not neatly stacked. The blood is undisturbed, no footprints or signs of a struggle, nothing but the single sword that lies still clutched in Lysen’s hand. There’s no blood on the blade, nothing to indicate he did anything more than draw it.
It's as if both of them stood there and allowed themselves to be killed.
There isn't a single mark on the witch, her eyes icy and cold as she stares back at us across the cell.
Unease pools in my gut, and my mouth tightens to mask it. She’s been sitting down here without a word of protest, no reactions to the squalor or the scraps she’s been fed, no requests to clean herself or even a chair to relieve the discomfort of the stone cell. She’s been a model prisoner, and now two males are dead at her feet, locked inside the cell with her. Whatever I was expecting her first move against us to be, it wasn’t this.
“Lysen was killed with a dagger. His sword couldn’t make that cut. Where’s the weapon,” I say, and Roan shakes his head at me.
“As far as we can see, the sword is the only blade in there. She must be hiding the dagger on her person somewhere, but the Fates only know where. We searched her before we put her in the cell.”
Roan and Tauron share a look before Tauron shakes his head. “She wasn’t given one. There aren't any missing from the stores. Everything is accounted for. She’s never been offered so much as a butter knife.”
