Page 40 of Heart of Night
After everything I’ve learned about him, I no longer know if I even want him to consider giving up his life to save me. Myron did that.
Yet, he’s alive somehow. I haven’t laid eyes on him. Haven’t gotten the confirmation I’ve begged of everyone who’d listen for seven days in a row, to no avail, that he’s truly alive. That he is here in this palace. They have been drugging me at every chance, making certain my magic remains dormant and me compliant through weakness.
I can’t remember how many full meals I’ve eaten—and how many I’ve vomited into the porcelain toilet in the adjacent bathing chamber. Clio says that if I eject one more meal, I might no longer be much of a bride to marry.
Her good humor is the only thing I’m looking forward to when I wake in the same pompous prison as every morning for the past week. And Herinor… He spends his days outside my door as a backup for the human guards who failed to contain me the first two times.
It’s the eighth day when I finally wake without the usual headache and nausea. A tingle in my shoulder reminds me of the tattoo, and I roll out of bed, bracing my hand on the edge of the table as I stand in front of the mirror in the corner. The fact that my head is a little clearer today is enough to make me question everything Erina said. Myron can’t be alive. I watched him die. I fucking cried onto his still chest. His heart wasn’t beating.
The flicker of hope having come to life inside of me won’t go away. And hope is worse than fear or hatred or even anger. Once it takes root, it can destroy the strongest armor established around a shattered heart. It creeps between the pieces like poison, tugging and pulling on them so when the final blow hits to destroy, whatever protection kept it safe will no longer stop anything from eviscerating.
I can’t allow for that to happen.
Yet, my heart is lighter than it has been in weeks. It doesn’t matter what Erina wants from me as long as Myron is alive—as long as the guilt of being responsible for another loved one’s death is lifted from my shoulders and I can breathe again.
“Good morning.” Clio enters on silent fairy feet, startling me as I take a step toward the mirror. Naturally, she is there before I can fall to my knees, my balance still disturbed from the drug.
“Why do you look like a goddess even after being drugged every day?” I ask her with the same disgruntled tone I have ready for Erina should he ever show his face again. “And why haven’t you bolted from this place? You’re apparently still fast enough to outrun any human.”
Clio heaves me onto the sepia sofa, sitting next to me as she places my hands in my lap and brushes back my hair like a mother does with a child.
“The drug affects fairies differently. We recover faster from the side effects. But trust me, I’ve hurled up my guts more than once since I was brought here.” Her sympathetic expression is more than disconcerting. It’s nothing like the fierce warrior princess I remember. What has this place done to her?
“Does your magic return faster, too?” Again with that hope. The drug is doing its best to destroy me before Erina can deliver the final blow.
She bobs her head, copper braid sliding over her shoulder and covering the wooden button of her apron. “They have resorted to injecting me with the drug.” A grimace distorts her beautiful features as she pulls up her sleeve to expose the cluster of red dots in the crook of her elbow. “Apparently, King Erina is all for innovation and progress. He has a group of people working on new drugs to use in war. I overheard the guards when they brought me in for my daily dosage.”
“Why haven’t you tried to run?” By the way her shoulders cave, I know I shouldn’t have asked. “I’m sorry…”
“No… It’s all right.” Straightening her spine, she sits back a few inches, facing me fully. “I was half dead when they brought me in. I can’t even remember what happened and how I got here. It was Ephegos who told me about the explosion and that I got caught in the rubble of the destroyed palace and a rain of magic.”
Half dead. I hate the way I want to thank Ephegos for saving her even when he made her a prisoner—a slave.
“Then he locked me in a cell to test variations of the drug on me until he was sure it had the right effect to take out the strongest fairies at mere skin contact.”
I hate where this is going. “They used you…”
“To create a weapon. Something that will take out fairies the way a punch to the nose can take out humans.” Fear crosses her features, but she masks it with the face of the sassy female I met back at Myron’s palace. “A weapon against Askarea.”
“Guardians—” If this is really what Erina is doing… “He wants to attack the fairylands.”
“He’s far from finding a solution. Producing the drug takes too long to create large amounts. But eventually, yes. I believe he wants to attack Askarea.”
And with a weapon like that, the fairies would lose their advantage. How I can feel sympathetic toward a people I feared mere months ago, I don’t even want to understand. Myron, Royad, and Clio made a difference in the way I view the fairylands. They might be dangerous and powerful and cruel if need be, but they are also my friends. My family.
“Is Erina telling the truth? Is Myron alive?”
Clio shakes her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t been in the dungeons since those initial days. I tried to escape too many times for them to let me go anywhere on my own. The only reason they allow me into this room without supervision is because Herinor is standing guard outside, and his fairy ears pick up every word we’re speaking.” Her hand finds mine in a comforting squeeze. “I can’t fathom even trying to run again now that you’re here. I won’t leave you behind. If we escape, it will need to be together. And I know you’re listening, Herinor,” she adds a little louder. “If you say one word to Ephegos, Erina, or anyone, I will cut your tongue out, magic or no.”
I believe every word she says, and oddly enough, for once, my rage isn’t on my behalf but on that of the female who has suffered because she stepped in to help in the Seeing Forest. She suffered because of me. It’s my responsibility to get her out of here.
We talk more as she helps me dress for the day—not that I can’t do it on my own, but there is comfort in the silent companionship of this task. My thoughts circle around the extent of cruelty both Ephegos and Erina are capable of and around the probability of Myron being held in those same dungeons.
If he’s alive, truly alive?—
Erina could have simply let me believe it so he has leverage over me. It could be all there is to it, I try to smother the flame of hope growing inside my chest with each passing day.
If I could talk to Herinor in quiet, perhaps he could give me the answers I seek, but he only ever escorts me places, and the night I tried to escape, he only shook his head in denial of my request. I’m not getting anything from him because Ephegos doesn’t allow it. Herinor’s life depends on his silence the same as it did with the drug.