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“You’re Kiryan, aren’t you?” he croaked.
Emelie—or Kiryan, rather, nodded. “I took over Emelie’s body and channeled my magic into her so I could shore up the tunnel and get you all back to safety,” he said in Emelie's voice, an unearthly undercurrent in each word. Leap wondered if anyone else noticed when Kiryan possessed a body, or if it was his acute sensitivity to sound and air currents that allowed him to pick up on the nuance. “Roylan carried you back while I made sure the tunnel held long enough for us to return to the cellar.”
Leap rubbed the tender spot on his head. “Was anyone else hurt?” he asked, looking around.
“I tweaked my ankle on the way back up,” Rina admitted. She leaned against her brother, who had his arm around her, and Leap noted the way she favored her left leg. “But everyone else is fine.”
“I still can’t believe we’re in the presence of an actual Radiant,” Lyra said, staring at Kiryan in awe. “Is Emelie aware of what’s going on right now?”
Kiryan shook his head. “The last thing she will remember is the tunnel collapsing. This entire incident will be a blank space in her memory, and she will be disoriented once I vacate her body, which I need to do very shortly.” He glanced toward the cellar doors above them. “Nox will have sensed my magic, and she will be looking for me. I cannot allow her to catch me.”
“What even happened back there?” Nora asked. “What was that magical pulse that caused the cave in?”
“Witchling wards,” Kiryan said darkly. “House Ithir must have paid for them to be set into the walls and foundations to repel invasions. You triggered them when you tried to use your stone magic on the wall.”
Leap pushed himself to his feet, anger growing within him. “You were able to use your magic to save us. Why not do the same for Mavlyn?”
“I cannot use my magic within the castle walls,” Kiryan said sharply. “Not while the Mother of Shadows is in residence, with her claws sunk into so many of the servants and soldiers. I already risked too much as it is to save your group—and if you don’t want my sacrifice to be in vain, you should leave this place tonight.”
“And abandon Mavlyn?” Leap demanded. “I can’t do that.”
“I will find a way to help Mavlyn,” Kiryan said. “But there is nothing more you can do here, and your talents are better put to use in the Gaoth Aire. Nox is preparing to make her move against the air fae to draw them into the conflict—you must be there to counteract her influence and save your people.”
“I don’t—” Leap started, but Emelie’s eyes went blank, then returned to their normal honey-brown color. Lyra and Nora rushed to catch her as she collapsed to the ground, and Leap held in a sigh.
He knew the Radiant was right, and that there was nothing more he could do for Mavlyn without risking himself. But was there truly anything he could do in the Gaoth Aire, when his own people viewed him as nothing more than a wanted criminal?
30
Mavlyn
The next few days passed in relative silence, broken only by the occasional mutterings of the other prisoners. Mavlyn wondered if they were truly criminals, or if any of them were like her—rebels or protestors who’d been jailed for the crime of speaking out against authority. She wished she could ask, but whenever she tried to speak to the other prisoners, the guard on duty barked at her to shut up. With no one to talk to, or even so much as a book to read, she felt like she was slowly losing her sense of reality.
The only blessing she had was that the guards had seen fit to replace her moldy straw bed with a cot. It wasn’t the most comfortable of beds, but at least she didn’t have to worry about rats skittering over her while she tried to sleep, or that she would catch some kind of disease. They’d started feeding her as well, a watery gruel that barely qualified as food, but kept the worst of her hunger at bay.
How on earth had Adara fasted for ten days? Mavlyn shook her head at the very idea of going without food for that long. She wondered if the dragons would make her undergo another fast, and how she was faring. She’d caught glimpses of Quye in her dreams—nothing as concrete as the dream visit she’d experienced when Mavlyn and Leap had been searching for her, but enough to know the two were safe and well. The time for her to return was drawing close… but with every day that passed in this prison cell, with no word from Leap or even Kiryan, Mavlyn grew uncertain as to whether she would survive long enough to see her best friend ever again.
Stop thinking like that,she scolded herself.Stay positive.Maybe Leap would rescue her at her trial. It was supposed to be held during the city’s monthly public tribunal, which anyone in Talamh could attend. She wondered if her new friends would show up, and if so, whether they would try to help her. Then she felt guilty for even expecting them to, when they’d already risked so much as it was.
The door at the end of the hall swung open with a bang, and Mavlyn sat up on her cot as two guards approached her cell. Her skin prickled at the sight of tiny black veins around their blank eyes, and her palms began to sweat as they opened the door and entered the cell.
“S-stay away from me,” she said, backing away. These soldiers were clearly under Nox’s control, capable of anything. Had she sent them in here to assassinate her before she could speak at the trial? Her spine hit the cold, stone wall, and she whipped her head around, searching for a weapon. But the only thing available was the chamber pot, and she was too far to reach it.
The guards yanked Mavlyn from the wall, then fastened manacles around her wrists and marched her out of the room. Her heart beat a rapid staccato in her chest as they led her out of the prison, and she struggled ineffectually against their grips.
“Help me,” she pleaded to the guard on duty as they marched past, but the fae didn’t look up from the book he was reading, not even when the guard on her left cuffed her on the ear.
“Shut up,” he growled. “No one is coming to help you, so stop your whining unless you want me to gag you.”
“Maybe she’s into that,” the other guard suggested. His grip on her bicep loosened as he began to rub his thumb in slow circles across her skin. “Just let us know if you are, sweetheart. We’d be happy to oblige.
Mavlyn pressed her lips together, and the guards snickered. She kept her mouth shut as they led her up a set of stairs and through a winding maze of hallways. It was the middle of the night, so they passed no one save for the guards on patrol, who merely nodded. Mavlyn cursed the manacles on her wrist as they passed various items that could be used as weapons—a heavy vase, a fireplace poker, a pair of fencing swords mounted on a wall. But even if she could grab them, the guards would knock her out before she could take a swing.
She wished she had Adara’s physical prowess. Her friend was strong and fast enough to easily throw these two across the room, manacles or no. But Mavlyn hadn’t been born with the strength and speed of a Greater Fae. Her forte was in plant magic, and with the anti-magic manacles on her wrists, she had no way of accessing her powers.
When the guards finally led her into a salon, Mavlyn wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Nox sitting on a sofa, waiting for her. She’d chosen to leave the wall sconces and candelabras in the room unlit, using only the flickering light of the fire to see by. A shiver that was part fear, part revulsion raced down Mavlyn’s spine as the guards brought her to stand before Nox, forcing her to bear the full weight of the Shadow’s gaze. Steeling her spine, Mavlyn stared into the depths of Nox’s gaze. It was like looking into a bottomless pit, or the yawning maw of some primordial creature about to devour her, and she tore her gaze away, sensing that if she stared too long, she might fall into that abyss and never return.
“Well, well.” Nox clucked her tongue, leaning back against the sofa and recrossing her legs. She wore a black dress with off-the-shoulder sleeves and a long slit in the thigh, revealing far more skin than was appropriate for a lady of Gelsyne’s station. “I had no idea the rebel running around my city and spreading such nasty rumors was such a skinny young thing. I suppose heroes come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they?”
