“If you want me dead so badly, Savage Prince, then maybe you should just kill me.”
Her voice is too melodic. The way that it wraps around me and embraces me so wholly is like a dark seduction, a siren’s call. It’s different from the voice that haunted my mind for centuries, the one I still long for. She’s not just more mature—the hesitance is now gone, the way that she once responded with wonder to my every encouragement. Long ago, through the connection of our shared fate, I could feel her drawing closer to me just as I reached for her, but there’s no sign of her fighting the pull of the Fates as I’m forced to do. She radiates calm as I struggle to hold myself in check.
The leather of my gloves creak as my hands fist at my sides.
Her eyes finally open and focus on them, then shift up to my face. She’s expressionless, seeming unaffected by me even as she wrecks every last wall I’ve built around myself, ruining the façade of a composed and rational prince who deserves the throne.
When I look at her, I am the Savage Prince.
Roan tried to convince me to clean her up before I take her to face the entire Unseelie Court, but the thought of showing her any sort of kindness fills me with rage, even though it would serve my own purposes.
“Tonight, you will be presented to the Unseelie Court, and a decision will be made as to what we are going to do with you.”
She stares at me as though I haven't spoken. Her gaze is unwavering, those magnetic eyes taking in every inch of me and finding me wanting. There's nothing inherently disrespectful about her expression, nothing terrorizing or combative, and yet it feels like another war that I am losing, as though my throne is slipping from my fingers the longer that she stares.
“You’ll have to wear the gag again. It doesn't matter how much we teach the Unseelie Court about the dangers of witches, they only truly feel safe as long as you can't speak.”
One perfectly shaped eyebrow slowly rises, and finally some emotion creeps onto her face as a smirk slowly tugs at the corner of her mouth. “They think I need words to be able to cast against them? My, how far the mighty Unseelie high fae have fallen from the way of the world.”
My temper flares. I’ve had control of my anger and rage for centuries, and yet she has torn it down with nothing more than a few words spoken in her barbed-honey tone.
“You would do well not to speak like that, witch. It doesn’t help your case to stay alive.”
She shrugs at me, linking her fingers together as she clasps her hands in her lap. “I don't need a case to stay alive. I have the Fates on my side. If you want your kingdom to survive, you'll do as they ask.”
Dual footsteps thump on the staircase, and I don't need to turn my head to know who’s coming. Soft cursing confirms that Tauron has dragged his brother along to witness the spectacle of me facing down my Fates-cursed mate.
He studies me, and when he sees the scowl on my face, he says, “Are you getting any sense out of it, or just petulant looks?”
“She,” Tyton corrects his brother, “You can’t call her an ‘it’ in front of the Unseelie Court if we're going to convince them to let Soren marry her.”
Tauron comes to stand next to me and shakes his head at us both. “Do we want to convince them? What we should really be doing is convincing the Fates that this is a terrible fucking idea.”
If only that were an option.
Tyton glances between us and steps closer to the bars. “Tell us your name. We can't very well stick you in front of the regent and his vultures if we don't know your name.”
It didn’t even occur to me that she has a name.
“Rooke,” she says simply, and when none of us respond, that eyebrow of hers quirks right back up. “You're not going to ask me which coven I hail from?”
It doesn’t matter. The only witches we know are the raving masses of Kharl’s armies and the High Witch himself—any coven name she gives us would be as useless to me as the regent’s guards.
Tauron scoffs at her. “Like we give a good Fates-fuck about witch covens. In the end, once we have what we need from you, you'll be dead and it won't matter which cursed womb you crawled out of.” With that, he enters the cell and secures the chains around her wrists once more.
Tauron shows no hesitation as he drags her up the stairs behind us, but Tyton is acting strangely, glancing back at her every so often. Unease settles deeply into my bones but I push it out of my mind, just as I fight to push her out as well.
Now is not the time to question my cousin about it.
* * *
My uncle arrives as the sun goes down around us, darkness enveloping the castle windows as the halls begin to glow with the magic of the First Fae, the orbs of their making floating at the ceilings in a wondrous act of magic we no longer have access to. I hear the Unseelie Court flow into the Grand Hall, laughter sounding off the walls as though the harrying trip here through the fae door was an adventure rather than a risky endeavor. It galls me to know they use the waning magic so frivolously, so uncaring of the effects on our people once that magic finally disappears for good.
Yregar Castle may not be as big or as comfortable as the castle at Yris, but it’s home for me and mine. I’d never leave it if I had the choice. When I take the throne my household is expected to move to Yris and, though I’d never step foot in that castle again if I had the choice, I’m looking forward to taking it from my uncle.
The floor of my parents’ chambers were still wet when he moved into them, the maids barely finished scrubbing away the blood, and my gut clenches at the memory. I remember the feel of Firna’s hand wrapped tightly around my arm as she kept my balance for me, her other hand wiping my forehead as I vomited on one of the ancestral Celestial rugs, as old as the castle itself.
Yregar Castle is my home now.
