Magic.
I don't even have to say it before Tauron responds. “She's in a cell in the depths of a cavern, deep underground, surrounded by iron bars, and has been fed the bare minimum. There’s no way she could have used magic to kill them.”
I look at Tyton, and when I see the glazed sheen over his eyes, I still. He glances around, his gaze continuously flicking down to the deep ruby pools of blood as he steps closer to the iron bars. “There's no magic in the air, no remnants of power from casting. None that I can see or feel. There's magic in her, of course, but we already knew that.”
I step to his side and notice the witch staring at me, the icy depths of her silver eyes making my lip curl into a snarl. “How much magic? Can you tell me that?”
Tyton cocks head and purses his lips, but a confused look crosses his face before he looks at me a little nervously.
I give him a stern look back, flicking a hand in his direction dismissively. “Whatever it is, you can say it. There’s no one down here but us, and we don’t have the luxury of dancing around the truth right now.”
Us, the witch, and two dead bodies already cold on the stone.
The pallor of their skin tells me they bled out over the past few hours. I know them both by name. I know all my soldiers by name, but Merrick and a handful of others have been monitored in the past as possible spies for the regent. In years past, my soldiers were ruthlessly vetted, and any question of their loyalty would have resulted in their immediate exile from Yregar. But as the curse continues to stop the birth of a new generation of high fae and our population has shrunk, I've had to make some reluctant exceptions.
Tyton takes a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain, but my magic says ‘mother.’”
“Mother,” Tauron says with disgust in his tone, his eyes flicking back to me in a twin horror to the sickening feeling in my gut.
Roan shakes his head at us all as though we're ignorant. “It's a status within covens, you idiot. It means there are people out there who belong to her and follow her. It means she has power.”
I look at the witch, but she's no longer staring at me. Instead, she's fixed her attention on Tyton as though he’s some great puzzle she needs to figure out. I don't like it and, from the look on his face, Tauronloathesit.
Roan steps past us both and slides the key into the lock, fixing a stern look on the witch before he opens the door. Tauron steps behind him with one hand on the grip of his sword, protective and ready to swing at a moment's notice, but the witch doesn't move.
She shows no interest as they remove the bodies from the cell.
I watch her carefully, the grime of the cell helping to hide some of the infuriating allure the Fates have cursed me to feel towards her, and it's only once the cell door is shut once again and Roan curses softly under his breath that I tear my gaze away from her huddled and filthy form. “What have you found?”
“Well, I'm pretty sure I know why Merrick is dead, and I'd wager Lysen was dragged into his friend's stupidity.”
I look down and see the open button on Merrick’s trousers, a glaring declaration of intent. Rage numbs my senses for a moment, bile churning in my gut as I bite back a slew of curses at the son of pixie-whore stupid enough to think of touching her. The tug of the Fates in my chest only adds fuel to the burning turmoil within me, the soldier’s actions forcing me to face the reality of an Unseelie high-fae male’s reaction to someone daring to touch his mate.
The Fates might’ve made a serious misstep by commanding us to be together, but my body hasn’t fully accepted just how wrong this witch is for me.
“He died because he went in there hoping to fuck her? Fates above, there’s not enough fae elixir in the world for this,” Tauron snaps as he pats down the bodies once more, careful as he shifts them around. Though he comes up with the standard issue sword Merrick would have been wearing when he was killed, there's no dagger to be found.
He scowls at the witch, sizing her up. “Well, this answers nothing! Merrick died first, and she certainly didn't stab him with his own sword then buckle it back to his side. There's not a drop of blood on the blade where it’s sheathed, and the wound in his stomach is small. The angle of Lysen’s slit throat is all wrong as well—she would have had to be standing right in front of him to make it, but there isn’t a drop of blood on her.”
Another sign that something isn’t right.
Tyton walks around the dungeon slowly, eyes shut and one hand in front of him as he maneuvers by his senses alone.
Tauron growls at him, “We would know if someone else had come down here, Tyton.”
His brother shrugs, his eyes still pressed shut. “How else do you explain the disappearing dagger? She won't speak, she didn’t use magic, and yet there are two dead men.”
Roan finishes his search of the body and then kicks Merrick’s corpse. “He got what he deserves.”
I grimace at him, but he shrugs back. “Your orders were clear. No one unauthorized was to come down here, and under no circumstances was the cell door to be opened. I’m not saying I'm happy the witch killed them, but if Merrick came down of his own accord, then he’s a traitor. Any male willing to rape a captive andsupposedlydefenseless female isn't a male I want watching my back on a battlefield, no matter how strong his abilities as a soldier may be.”
He's not wrong about that.
There's a good chance this was not Merrick’s first time assaulting a female, and his death already means nothing to me. Now it seems like a good act of the Fates.
“From this moment on, until we find the dagger and any other traitors who might walk among us, no one watches her but us. Any soldiers who don't follow my orders are no better than the regent’s guards, and are better off dead.”
* * *
