I tense as keys rattle in the lock and the door squeals open. Everything sounds so fucking loud after the silence.
But then there are no further sounds, and I know that someone watches me, even if I can’t see them, and maybe that’s worse….
Heat flares, and I turn my eager face to it even as my abdomen tenses.
“You’re a mess,” Edain says coldly.
Not him. Anyone but him.
My heart’s in freefall, my throat closing over as if to contain a startled gasp. But I don’t dare let him see it.
I tilt my chin, trying to shift the blindfold, but all I catch a glimpse of is his boots. “My apologies, my lord.” My lips feel too dry, and they mangle the words, but I continue. “I seem to have misplaced the servants.”
My stepbrother stalks closer, and my cold skin yearns for the heat of his torch, even as I grind my teeth together.
“Surely you’re not here to bring my meal.” My stomach growls at the thought, shockingly loud. “Nor my bath.”
The clink of sound tells me he’s set the torch in the wall. “Your mother is still furious with you, so I would try not to be so witty when you’re brought before her.”
My heart skips a beat. “The Queen wants to see me?”
“Would I be down here for any other reason?”
And there it is.
I never quite know if he enjoys taunting me or if he’s merely stating a fact, but Edain being Edain, I’m fairly certain he’s mocking me.
I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she brought him into her court.
Though I can imagine.
I was young when my mother married his father, Reynar, and barely eighteen when Reynar died in a hunting accident. They say Reynar’s beauty stole my mother’s tongue the first time she laid eyes upon him, and she had to have him for herself, regardless of his wife or young family.
And Reynar, perhaps wise enough to see a path to power, tempted her and wooed her for years, before he finally succumbed to her bed.
Before the sun rose, my mother vowed to marry him, and jokes still linger about the size of the prince consort’s cock.
For years, Reynar was all she could see. He came from the Far Isles, and left a family behind to become her consort. I was ignored, as step-children often are—he had no use for me—but I do remember my mother constantly cajoling him to bring his son to court.
“We will show the Alliance that we are a family to be reckoned with,” she had said once, when I was allowed to brush her hair. “No more of these nasty rumors about your previous wife…. I will not suffer them to be heard.”
Reynar unleashed a dangerous smile upon her. “Let Letithia keep the boy. It’s safer for him to stay in Akiva. And I would not want to divert my attention from you. Not even for my dearest son. You are my sun. You are my heart. Let it not know another.”
Safer, always safer.
From the lies and vicious rumors that circulated about a handsome young fae male stolen from his faithful wife.
I remember the day it all changed.
There was a masked ball at court to celebrate my seventeenth birthday and a strange minstrel came calling, wearing nothing but black. He won the court with his voice, and my mother was delighted.
“Reveal yourself,” she cried, “for your beauty must echo the gloriousness of your voice and we must know it.”
I will never forget that moment—the horrible breathless feeling in my lungs as the stranger lifted his hands to slowly lower his mask. It felt like Fate trailed her frozen fingertips down my spine.
The stranger threw back his shining black hair, the mask in his hands, and every fae at court sucked in a single breath.
For the promise of his father was more than generously bestowed on the son.
“Father,” Edain said, a dangerously mocking smile on his face as he nodded to his adversary.
Reynar froze, a brief flash of horror flirting through his eyes as Edain turned toward Mother.
“And my dearest stepmother,” Edain purred, as he went to one knee and kissed her hand.
I don’t know why he came to our court—whether it was to strike vengeance into his faithless father’s heart, or whether it was tear them apart—but the second my mother laid eyes upon him, she could not look away.
“Andraste?” There’s no sign of his sneer now. Merely something rough I can’t identify.
And I’m left scrambling to remember what he asked me.
“Perhaps you’re here because you enjoy seeing me in this state.” I turn on my toes, and agony flares through the right arch of my foot. I’ve been balanced like this for far too long. “Or perhaps you’re here because my mother sent you to do her bidding, like her favorite little pet. I guess we’ll find out.”
He laughs under his breath. “I almost missed your insults. And yes, I guess you’ll find out.”
Hands toy with my wrists, and the heat of his skin warms mine as he stretches up to unlock me. After so long without comfort or warmth, I can barely resist leaning into him, even though I’m fairly certain I stink, and though the servants have doused me with buckets of water every now and then, my skin feels grimy.
“Have a care, my lord. You might soil your robes. I’m still covered in blood and dirt from the Queensmoot.”
He pauses, and I wonder at the hesitation, before his hands turn the key in the lock. “If you think dirt and blood concern me, then you’re most mistaken.”
I tense for the inevitable. My chains start loosening, feeling flooding into raw, bloodless fingers.
I’m finally allowed down from my toes, but my feet have spent too long arched into agonizing points. They’re not prepared for my weight.
As my arms fall, my body collapses like dead meat, and a scream escapes me, regardless of intent.
Somehow, I don’t hit the cold stone floor.
Firm arms catch me and draw me into an embrace, and I barely have the breath to protest. Everything hurts. Everything. My right arm is a blaze of agony, and I fear I’ve dislocated the shoulder.
“Easy” comes a gentle whisper.
I cling to him, quivering from shock as blood rushes back into my starving limbs. And to think that only moments ago, I was saying that pain would not break me.
“Shush.” There are hands on my back, rubbing firmly enough to steal my attention away from my arms and feet.
Oh, gods…. I don’t even have the strength to care if my mortal enemy is the one consoling me. No doubt I’ll pay the price for this later, but right now, I don’t care.
I can’t feel my fingers or move my arm. I clutch at it uselessly, trying to ease the weight of it, and then Edain sets gentle fingers to the socket.
“This might hurt a little,” he says. “On the count of three. One, two—”
He gives a sharp jerk, and I scream as the arm is shoved back into the socket. Mother of mercy. Trembles shiver through me. I think I’m going to be ill, but the last thing I want to do is vomit on his shoes.
Not in front of him.
I grind my teeth together and fight the urge, swallowing down the pain.
Pain is life. Pain is an old friend.
But it doesn’t feel like a friend now. It feels like a bitter enemy stealing the strength from my veins.
“You’ve been here for weeks,” Edain says. “So sit on your ass until you’ve got your feet beneath you.” He slips a waterskin from around his shoulder. “And I’ll pretend I didn’t see your knees quiver.”