I want nothing more than to pluck her eyes out, stop the way she takes in everything like a sponge soaking up every detail around her. I warned Tauron and Tyton to be careful what was said around her, and I remind myself of the same thing. Every piece of information fed to this creature could be our undoing, and keeping myself away from that silver gaze could very well be the trial that the Fates require me to complete. I spread butter over a slice of the fresh sourdough, baked in the kitchen early this morning just for my table, and eat it in front of her without a thought.
I study her just as keenly as she studies me.
She's been here for weeks, trapped underground without sunlight or fresh air, and yet there is no change in her demeanor or physical appearance other than the layer of filth that now covers her. She's barely eaten, subsisted on a few scraps here and there, yet there is no thinning to her body. Her hair, so dark and unruly, hangs over her face and I find myself grateful to have it obscuring those silver eyes from my own assessment of her. The poor state of her clothing helps to keep my own reactions to the insistent tug of the Fates to myself but still frustration simmers within me at the anomaly of her sound mind and state despite her imprisonment. She's been searched a dozen times and has nothing but the clothes on her back, no clues about who she is or where she’s been except the small pouch of Seelie gold that the mercenaries took from her. Trapped under the earth and surrounded by iron and stone, she has not wavered.
If anything, she looks better than when we first found her.
It's not just suspicious, it's frustrating. Everything about her is—the calm demeanor, and the way she looks down on us all as though she’s superior to the high fae. The barbs she’s thrown out, always in retaliation, are indignant at the state of the kingdom and the actions of the high fae whom she’s deemed a factor in it. The worst of it is, I can’t deny what she’s saying, and my anger at her intensifies until I’m blinded by my need to prove her wrong.
To ruin her as she’s ruining me.
Her expression doesn’t change as she watches me eat. There’s no hunger in her eyes, or anger that I haven’t offered her anything after dragging her out of the cells before dawn. The shackles on her wrists have no slack in them so that she’s forced to stand rigidly in the corner as I settle into the plush cushions of the chair and eat my fill.
I dismiss her, determined to ignore her presence and the pull I feel toward her so that I can focus wholly on the letters in front of me. As I work through them, my temper pulls tighter and tighter until I’m an arrow on the string of a bow, nocked and ready to kill someone.
The Goblin King has declined my request to negotiate, claiming to be busy with his own acts of war against the witches and protecting his territories.
It's a lie, bold faced and presumptuous, but without evidence to refute it I can’t force him to see me. The Dragon Lands want our gold, but King Hex’s letter fills me with unease, his words far too eager all of a sudden. For the king of the Dragonriders to suddenly accept my request for trade is suspicious and, even as desperate as we are, I’ll push forward with the Western Fyres negotiations instead for now.
The Northern Lands won’t speak to me until I ascend to my throne.
I drop the parchment from the Sol King on top of the pile and sigh, rubbing a hand over my face as I consider how in the Fates-good fuck I’m going to get the Goblin King to reconsider. I send Darick, another of my messengers, back to the Goblin Lands with my hopes to meet with the king in person.
A part-blood of high fae and elven descent, Darick grew up in an elven traveling group. With his mother, he traveled in the wagons throughout the lands, selling their wares to survive. She was particularly good at brewing elixirs, and many villages looked forward to purchasing them from her when they traveled through.
Darick came into my service years ago, after the traveling band was attacked by the witches. His mother was killed, and his grandfather, too old to take care of him properly, brought him to Yregar and left him at the orphanage.
Within a year he’d aged out and started on as a stable hand at the castle, where he’d worked harder than all the others combined. When he overheard my soldiers discussing a war strategy in an area he knew well, he sought me out himself. He was so thin and haggard looking, his entire body shaking as he addressed me, terrified of the rumors but still brave enough to speak up.
He knew exactly where the witches would lie in wait.
A keen mind, he recalled every route his people had traveled and knew the spots that were most vulnerable to an ambush. It saved the lives of hundreds of my soldiers, Tyton included. From that moment on, Darick was one of my messengers, with a horse of his own and the freedom to roam with the protection of my shield pinned to his coat.
He’ll get closer to the Goblin King than any other messenger can, even Fyr, simply by knowing a different path to take, and as every avenue slowly closes before me, it's clear I’ll have to give the Goblin King whatever the hell he wants to get a trading route through his land. Until our own land is fruitful again, I have no choice.
No choice but my fate and the little witch in the corner who watches everything with her knowing silence, like one of my uncle’s guards lying in the dark with a sharp blade.
* * *
As the hours creep on without news from Tauron, I begin to find the witch’s silence and the frenetic hum in my blood at her presence maddening. She stands with perfect posture, head up and shoulders back, her feet planted squarely on the rug as though this is nothing to her. Whatever training the Sol King puts his soldiers through, it’s gotten her in better condition than even my best males.
It makes me rash.
Without looking up from the letters in front of me, I say, “What's to stop you from murdering us all? The iron cuffs don't seem to be doing much to you.”
She stays silent, and when I glance up to make sure she’s not ignoring me, I find her staring back at me with that unwavering gaze of hers, the cold steel of her eyes slicing me to the bone. I’m tempted to hand her a sword to see just how much she learned in the Sol Army, to put all of those promises of death in her eyes to the test.
She shrugs, her posture still frustratingly sharp. “What's to stopyoufrom murdering everyone? It's a stupid question to ask, one of my morality, and though you’ve treated me like a criminal, I have no real reason to wish you dead. Other than avoiding our entwined fates, and I have no intention of ever facing a Ureen again.”
I lean back in my chair and look her over once more.
She's nothing like the witches I've met before, and not just because her face is free of any markings. There's no fanatical ideation spewing from her lips, no manic look to her eyes as she stares at me. She's far too calm, given the circumstances and her treatment here. I would wager that she’s in the upper level of the witch rankings, perhaps even directly under Kharl himself.
I’ve never come face-to-face with the leader of the witches, the male who weaponized his entire race under the guise of freedom. His name has been on the lips of hundreds of witches I’ve fought and killed, screamed out and exalted as though he’s a higher power than the Fates themselves. I once laughed at them, ridiculing their delusions, but I don’t find humor in it anymore. Kharl Balzog has crippled our kingdom with the madness he’s fed his armies.
My tone is icier than her eyes. “Witches have no morality.”
A single eyebrow rises, and one corner of her lips curls slightly upwards, as though I'm amusing her. A ripple of frustration works its way down my limbs at the sight.
