Cursing under his breath, Baylor shoves himself bodily between us. “She’s baiting you, Greer, and you’re being stupid enough to let her. We’ve endured this castle full of high-fae cunts for too long to slip now. Think of the forest, of our blood returning home triumphant at last.”
Even his deep growl can’t hide the longing in his words, and a chuckle falls from my lips. “If you can't wear the colors of your coven, you certainly can't call the Blood Valley your home anymore either. Is that what the regent promised you? To get the Betrayer to wipe the last of your coven out and leave the forest for the pathetic dregs left over?”
Baylor stops so abruptly, I assume I’ve stoked his rage enough for the male to forget his plans as well, but then he turns to a door cut out of the marble to our left and raises a hand. A pulse of magic shoots through the silver keyhole. With a loud crunching noise, the lock unlatches and the door swings open before us, a warm flood of air seeping out of the room.
“I’ve never spilled the blood of my coven, and I never would. I've played this game for more centuries than you can imagine, and I’ve made choices you could never hope to understand. I won't falter now. I’ll have my forest back, even if I have to gut every worthless Favored Child to get it. I mean, I almost have, haven’t I? You’ll be dead by the end of this war, and I’ll have a full set under my belt and a new witch mark to declare your bloodline gone by my hand.”
Before I can respond, his magic shoves me into the room. The door snaps shut behind me, and the lock slides into place with a deafening thud that still can’t drown out the thunderous rush of blood in my ears. My churns violently, bile rushing up my throat as my knees give out and I collapse to the ground so hard my teeth rattle.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Soren
Head pounding and stomach churning, I wake with the same force with which my consciousness slammed back into my body back in the Brindlewyd Forest, and the gasp wrenched from my chest echoes as it blends into the frenetic pounding of my heartbeat. I blink to clear my head, only to find the muted white in my vision is stone hanging overhead. Not the same blinding white marble as the rest of the castle, the white hue flickers with orange from the lit torches, and it centers me.
Even as monstrously huge as Yris is, there are very few places in the castle lit by torches, and only one that could explain the draining weight of iron pressing down on me, the sensation less taxing now that my magic runs riot through my blood. With every breath, my head clears a little more until I can hear dozens—no,hundreds—of other heartbeats. They mix with sighs and groans of pain, the shifting of bodies forced together in close quarters, and the multitude of sounds such a large group makes even when no one dares to speak a word.
“I suppose we should be grateful we're not trapped underneath the castle in a dirt pit, as is the Celestial way.”
Turning my head, I find Prince Gage sitting in the cell next to mine, staring at the regent’s guards with the calm of an oncoming storm. While there are larger cells housing dozens of high fae wedged together, we’ve been interred in the singles, but it isn’t an act of deference. The guards have no idea of the protection my magic now offers me and that to be wedged in with other high fae cowering from the regent’s guards would be a far greater torture than the muted effects of the iron cage. With barely a hand-span of space around me, there isn’t enough room to stand and, instead, I choke down a groan as I pull myself up to sit with my back against the rough stone wall.
My body feels strange until I realize my weapons and cloak are missing. It's colder here than it was in the King’s Chambers but nothing to worry about until winter arrives, weeks from now, and I have no intention of being trapped down here for that long. The pressure in my head compounds as I look around the rest of the cells. My aunt, Tylla, sits huddled in the far corner looking haggard and thin with her arms wrapped around herself as she sleeps, and I pick out Airlie’s father, Rydern, easily enough but the longer I look, the more restless my limbs grow. It’s a bleak story painted, and not for the woeful state of the prisoners. While I count hundreds of high fae, there isn’t a single part blood or lower fae, just the Briarfrost prince alone, and only because he’s protected by his father's name… for now.
“The forest isn’t making any demands to keep us preoccupied. We might not fare so well.”
I speak carefully guarded words, but he understands me well enough, shrugging as his tail moves leisurely around as though patiently waiting to strike. “It's the principle of it. Aren’t you going to ask where she is?”
A chuckle works through the males standing guard over us, but I don’t hesitate to answer, every word from our lips a move in the game. “My uncle intends to use her as a bargaining chip. It’s obvious he's not going to lock her down here with us. She’ll be imprisoned in one of guest chambers to be sure he can stand before the Sol King and tell him that I alone mistreated the witch.”
Gage stares at me before nodding and staring back at the guards, who are listening to every word, before he speaks slowly in the goblin tongue. “Your uncle is stupid to think the Sol King would believe such lies.”
The Ancient’s unearthly gaze flashes in my mind, the careful way Rooke regarded him as she spoke to him, every word chosen with caution.
I’m forced to answer Gage in the Unseelie common tongue, but I want no secret made of my words. “I’m not sure I have such faith in the Seelie Court and where their allegiances will lie, but I trust my Fates-blessed mate’s word on the matter.”
Rooke has never acted recklessly, even when her actions at first appeared so. She stepped off the inner wall at Yregar because she knew that she alone could defend the castle from Kharl Balzog’s army, thanks to her magic and sword skills. She broke out of the dungeons to seek out Airlie and see Raidyn freed from the curse that clung to them both, and even when faced with the Goblin King’s suspicion, she spoke up to win him over, saving Yregar and all the fae folk within from starving to death over winter.
If she says the Sol King isn’t going to side with my uncle, then my focus remains on our endless obstacles elsewhere.
Gage meets my eye with a curt nod. His own wary view of the Ancient must align with mine. He speaks again, switching to the common tongue. “Are there more high-fae soldiers stationedin the other castles? We were taken through the barracks to get here.”
I shake my head. “All the armies of the Unseelie Court are here, except those loyal to me and strong enough to stand on their own—the battalion at Yregar, a small number at Yrell, and the Outland soldiers.”
He looks around at the other cells, bursting at the seams with cowering high fae, and then back to me. “There are more goblin soldiers than high fae.”
That gets the attention of the guards, a subtle shifting of their weight from foot-to-foot, but I speak as though I don’t see it. “The goblin numbers have recovered since the accords were signed, where the high fae haven’t.”
He nods, turning to face the iron bars encasing us both. “The witches’ curse over the land has never touched the Briarfrost lands, and not through lack of trying. Kharl Balzog might be strong, stealing magic from the covens, but he knows nothing of goblin magic… or high fae.”
I lift a brow at him. “Neither do I. No Unseelie high fae do either.”
The goblin prince grins back at me. “The Briarfrost all remember, and we remember why the rest of the high fae turned away from magic in the first place. The regent has come begging to my father hundreds of times for alliance and aid, twisting the truth until it bends for his purpose, but we see through him, as we always have. We know what happens to goblins in this city and the handful of bloodwitches he’s somehow acquired won’t be enough to change the course of this war, no matter the atrocities they’re capable of.”
Bloodwitches. I’ve never heard of the term before but it explains the color of their witch marks, and a nervous hush rolls through the dungeon at Gage’s words. Gulping, clearing throats, heartbeats thumping an unsteady beat. The guards continue toshift on their feet as Gage weaves a web of protection around us all, a masterful design that is perhaps the greatest warning of the power the goblins hold that I’ve witnessed so far. Centuries away from the Unseelie Court, and yet those of the Briarfrost bloodline haven’t lost their edge, sharpened to a fine point and ready to bleed out any who dare cross them.
Gage turns away from me, his gaze a vicious brand on the guards, even through the iron bars and, once he’s sure the possibilities of facing the goblin armies have sunk in, he strikes the final blow. “If anything happens to the Favored Child under the regent's care, the Briarfrost will have control of Yris before the winter solstice. Our loyalty has always been to the Fates, the kingdom, and the trees. We’ve spent centuries waiting to learn which Celestial prince was worthy of the throne, all while our armies grew in numbers and prepared to wage war. Prince Soren and the Ravenswyrd Mother are far from alone—the Fates have ensured that.”
One of the guards pushes away from the wall and stalks out of the dungeons as though being chased by a cluster of wraiths. None of the other males attempt to hide their reactions either, most watching Gage a little more closely now, though there are some who still sneer at him. Their trust in my uncle is impressive; if only such loyalty was shown to the true Celestial line and not the male who killed his own brother to steal his crown.
