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“It was my faul-” I began, but Preston shot me a fierce look.
“No human lies,” he bit out.
“Very well,” Nerissa said, waving her arm. “Get it over with. A dog must be trained. I can’t have an unpredictable hunter. Garrick, hold still. You won’t move again until I command you.”
Nodding at his sister, Preston snapped his fingers. “Isolde.”
Isolde stepped forward, placing her hands on either side of Garrick’s head.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, trying to press forward, only to be held in place by Preston’s painful, unrelenting grasp on my arm. “Stop!”
My shouts turned to screaming as I thrashed against Preston.
“We are teaching our dog to obey,” Preston explained. “And since it’s clear you care for one another, we are, by extension, teaching you to as well. You may have proven you bear royalblood, but you are still a frail mortal. You will learn to defer to us in all things, as our healer, Isolde, does. Just as she can speed a body’s natural healing process with her magic, she can also cause the body great pain by attacking itself.”
I cried out in fury, in horror, as Garrick’s chiseled expression melted into agony. Blood trickled from his nose, but he was locked in place, compelled to hold still as Isolde did something that clearly wasn’t healing to him.
Tears burned my eyes. The raging storm inside reached a crescendo, its roar seeming to come alive through my own screams. My skin went cold, then hot, and something snapped within.
Black ice crackled along the floor, distracting Isolde enough that she loosened her grip and Garrick’s eyes flashed open, still glassy from pain.
“Stop,” Preston snapped, his fingernails digging into my skin, but there was a tremulous hint to his tone. He was afraid.
And I couldn’t stop. “Let. Him. Go!” I cried. “You’ll kill him!”
Isolde met my eyes, her own wide with fear and defiance. “I obey my fae king and queen.” She clapped her hands on Garrick again, and the hunter groaned, trembling from the pain she was inflicting. Though I knew the siblings wouldn’t want Garrick to die, Isolde’s eyes darkened with reckless malice, and I remembered their heated conversation over my unhealed ribs.
She was going to kill him.
And I wasn’t going to let that happen.
An unnatural calm settled over me as the strength of my magic returned to me fully. The connection was restored, and every one of my veins tingled with life and power. Quiet, kind Florentia was gone. I couldn’t abide this cruelty, this evil, one second more. She wouldn’t torment Garrick ever again.
I’d killed before with my magic to save Garrick. And now that I could feel its cold consuming me, its power surging through my body, I knew I wouldn’t hold back now.
“Then you’ve chosen the wrong sovereign,” I said.
Preston clutched my arm so I couldn’t pull free of him, but that wouldn’t stop my magic. Calling to the world around me, to the winter air and every ounce of liquid, to the land itself and my connection to it, I crafted icicles. They formed like tiny needles above each of my fingers, their tips sharp and gleaming in the torchlight. With a single gesture, I sent them hurling toward Isolde, piercing her face, throat, and chest.
They went straight through her, and she collapsed in a growing pool of blood.
My ears rang. The storm inside was assuaged, but only a little. I was still surrounded by monsters, and neither Garrick nor I were free. Not yet.
“Guards!” Nerissa screamed, a vein popping in her forehead as she glared at me. “How dare you touch an immortal fae.” She stomped toward me, slapping me across the cheek.
I laughed in her face, the sound coming out shrill. She thoughtslapping mewould be enough to stop me?
But when I blinked, my cheek stinging, something about her face seemed all wrong. Her cheeks were hollow, her red eyes full of a dark threat. My stomach clenched in fear and revulsion.
Then the flickering torchlight changed, and I wondered if it had been a trick of the shadows, or fae glamour, even though their glamour wasn’t supposed to be able to work on me.
The distraction provided enough time for guards to clamor forward from the deeper parts of the dungeons. I slumped with weariness. For all my magical power, I was spent. Paralyzing the underworld creature and stopping Isolde had drained me. I couldn’t even pull free of Preston, let alone fend off half a dozen armed guards.
A pair of fae with gossamer wings, looking deceptively delicate and lovely, stomped over and clamped a set of forget-me-not shackles to my wrists. The pain and hollowness of losing my magic was instant, a fire tearing through me. I moaned and gritted my teeth to hold back the urge to scream.
“Just to be extra cautious...” Preston began behind me, and then something slammed into the back of my head and the world went dark.
Head pounding, I opened my eyes to find Preston leaning over me. My cheek smarted, and I scowled as my fuzzy thoughts gathered into one clear realization: he’d slapped me back to consciousness.
