Page 36 of Heart of Night
“Perhaps they should have.” Every word hurts.
“They gave you an extra dose of the drug.” I try to make out Royad’s form in the darkness, but my eyes won’t work the same way. They are weak the same way the rest of my body is. All I pick up is the glint of steel bars in the summer of starlight falling in through a tiny window far up in the wall. In fact, the window is the only reason I know it’s an actual wall. “They drugged Silas and Astorian again, too. They will curse the day they were born soon enough when they wake.”
“Why does it sound like you mean if they wake?” My voice scrapes through my throat like I’ve swallowed gravel.
Royad shifts, the leathers scraping over the stone floor as he comes closer. At least, my ears still work well enough to distinguish directions and haven’t given up on me the way my eyes have.
“Because who knows with the Fire Fairies and Ephegos.” The movement stops, and I know he must have reached the bars separating our cells or he’d already be at my side, helping me up. “They forced the drug down your throat in your sleep without regard for whether you kept breathing or not.” The panic in his tone tells me he hasn’t quite gotten over the memory, no matter that I’m awake and breathing now.
“Are you all right?” It’s more important than worrying whether Ephegos would have let me die that easily—again.
A long silence lingers in the stinking air of the dungeon—because that’s obviously what this is—before he speaks again. “As all right as anyone could be under these circumstances.”
A breath of relief leaves my lungs. “And what are the circumstances?” I remember the Fire Fairies capturing us with some substance they sprayed on us to annihilate our magic. The conversation with the female… And eventually?—
“Where are we?”
“Tavras.”
“Where in Tavras? Are we still at the Flame estate?” I wouldn’t put it past the Fire Fairies to have dungeons like these ready beneath their residence, just in case.
“Meer. We’re at the royal palace in Meer. In the dungeons of the royal palace in Meer, to be specific.” I almost laugh at the irony in his tone. “It’s where they brought Ayna.”
Everything stills inside me, and my hand finds my shoulder on instinct at the mention of her name. Ayna is here.
The breath stuck in my throat doesn’t move until Royad continues. “Apparently, that was Ephegos’s plan all along, seeing her to the King of Tavras. You know, with her history of looting the Tavrasian royal fleet, King Erina has an interest in getting his hands on her to exact justice.”
“For treason,” I repeat so pain doesn’t wipe my ability to think rationally. It’s one of the things I’ve perfected over centuries of living as a cursed king with one bride after the other dying under my fingers like withering flowers. Her becoming my bride was supposed to be her punishment even when it might have saved her.
The panic is insistent as it eats away at my forced calm.
But I died, and she was taken away from me. Now she’s in the enemy’s hands and?—
I pause. “How do you know all of this?”
“The guards checking in every other hour to make sure we’re still in our cells. Humans become surprisingly reckless around fairies when they believe we are powerless.”
“Which we are.” I flex my fingers, trying to summon my magic. Even a fraction of what I used to be capable of would be enough to blast a hole in the wall and set us free.
Nothing happens. Not even the slightest tingle. My powers are under lock and key behind the effects of the drug.
This time, Royad continues without my prompt. “What they want with us specifically, I can’t tell you. Can’t be anything good though if they need to drug us and throw us in the dungeons.”
I nod my agreement, wondering if he can see in the dark. “How long have we been here?” Gathering facts. That’s what I need to do until the rest of my body answers to me again. Gods, I feel like someone cut off a limb where my magic used to rush like an untamable beast.
“They put us in here a few hours ago. I don’t know how long the carriage ride was, but it must have been a few days. I only woke once, and they knocked me out with a fist to the face rather than the drugged water the way they did with you.” A familiar sense of anger rises in my chest, giving me more strength than my body can handle, and I stumble back to my knees as I attempt to rise to make my way to the bars to check if he’s all right. No matter if he’s told me that he is, I need to assure myself that there aren’t any other injuries he hasn’t told me about. He’s my only family, blood. If I can’t keep him safe, how can I rule a kingdom?—
A kingdom that no longer exists. What few Crows we left behind in the Seeing Forest are less than a usual court, and the Crow traitors who joined Ephegos I no longer consider part of my people.
“Can’t you two shut your mouths for a moment?” Astorian groans from a few feet away. “I have a massive headache.”
“As long as it’s only your head,” Silas retorts from somewhere behind Royad, and my cousin whirls around, judging by the suddenty of it, and rushes toward Silas’s voice. “My entire body feels like I’ve been dragged through the rubble of the Crow Palace.”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Astorian comments as he scrambles closer until he appears near the shimmer of bars on my other side. Apparently, my eyes have adjusted enough to make out the outline of the fairy general. “Someone took away our powers.”
“Fuck.” Silas again. This time, it’s in clear agreement with Astorian’s assessment.
“That, and I’m going to tear someone limb from limb for letting me sleep in my own piss,” Astorian says as he holds onto the steel bars, eyes glinting with fury that makes them shimmer auburn in the near darkness even when the rest of the space is tinted in grayscale. It’s an eerie sight, and had I not been convinced Astorian is one of the strongest fairies in existence, I’d be now without a doubt.