What was happening to me? Why couldn't I think straight?
"I see the silver cuffs are coming in handy," Tyr said with a small chuckle.
I whipped my head back around and stared at him. He'd done this? He knew what silver did to Fae. Wait? This was silver and it was weakening me. Had it happened? Had my powers finally come to the forefront? The physician at the Court of Frost had said my Fae powers were weak, practically nonexistent. Could I … I considered what to do, but no matter how heated my skin grew, as soon as I felt a tingle of magical energy pour into it, it was quickly washed away by the effect of the silver.
"I'm innocent," I mumbled. "I haven't done anything wrong."
"You are Fae and you are no innocent." The King strode down the steps of his throne until he stood right before me. My head fell back onto my shoulders and I looked up into his older, scarred face. What had he done to receive those scars? I wondered. How many had he killed in his effort to rid the world of Fae?
It was wrong. Why couldn't he see that? Fae were part of nature. They were neither bad nor good. Just as humans were neither bad nor good.
"You destroyed a large portion of the countryside of my Kingdom, little treacherous Fae girl," he said coldly.
I had? It was growing harder and harder to think.
"In one week's time, you will be presented to the public and at dawn on the seventh day, you will be executed. Your death will mark the final battle between humans and Fae. With the help of my advisor"—my head sank forward and turned until I could see Tyr, who watched me with sinister amusement—"we will finally be rid of your dangerous race and, with your extinction, we will usher in the Age of Mankind."
Genocide. That's what he was talking about. The extinction of an entire race of creatures. The only ones who might escape would be those in Alfheim. Actually … with Tyr on the side of humans, perhaps even they weren't safe. What did he have planned? I had to find out.
"What—" I began, but the King waved his hand, cutting me off.
"Take her away," he ordered.
Hands gripped my arms and jerked me up. I bent over, breathing hard as sweat slid down my temples. An aching started at the top of my spine and ricocheted up through my skull.
"With one of your magical orbs, we will destroy you and your kind," the King called after me as I was pulled from the throne room. "Enjoy your last days on this Earth."
Despite my weakness, I struggled against the guards' grip. My vision blurred. "No!" I yelled. "You can't! He's not human! It's all a trap!"
I argued. I fought. I struggled. But the throne doors closed behind me as I was hauled up and over a man's shoulder and, just before the black creeping at the edges of my vision overtook me completely, I saw the image of a human King with the head of a Fae. My mind replaced the burned portrait of a generic head with that of first Roan's then Orion's and finally Sorrell's.
No matter what, I had to stop this.
Chapter Five
Orion
By the time we got back to the Crimson Court, I was ready to throttle anyone who got in my way. We needed to move the castle, so that was what we did, just the three of us, dragging it back to Amnestia. I couldn't lie, it was harder without Cress there.
Well, if I was being honest, everything was harder without her.
Moving the castle seemed to drain us all more than usual, and since we weren't about to go to bed with any of the other Court ladies it meant that it was going to take us a while to recover our power after such a taxing task. We each sat there for a while after we'd landed just trying to gather ourselves together.
"We should check on the human girl," Roan said quietly.
The three of us pushed to our feet and began to make our way to the library. I wasn't sure if it was just me, but the hallways felt so much longer and darker. Even though we were back in Amnestia, we didn't have a plan on how to find Cress, and every time I even thought about it my mind went on the fritz, panic and darkness clouding it.
Finally, the large wooden doors of the library loomed in front of us and my legs almost gave out in relief. The trek from the Lanuaet to the library had never felt so long before. As I looked at my throne brothers, I knew I wasn't the only one feeling the effects of getting the castle out of the Fae realm and back to Amnestia.
When we pushed the doors open my heart stopped as I saw Nellie, in all her human glory, sitting there chatting with a young Fae male. The three of us froze as we each took in the scene before us. Nellie and her Fae companion looked up at us as we entered, the blood draining from the male's face.
"What is he doing here? And with her?" Sorrell said, stabbing a finger in the direction of Nellie and her companion as Groffet came around the desk area.
"I-I-I've helped Groffet in the past, my Lord," the Fae male said, speaking up unexpectedly. From the looks of him, pale and rather scrawny looking, I'd expected him to cower, especially in the face of Sorrell's anger, but he didn't. He may have been a lesser male, but he was brave and stood his ground, something I found impressive.
"Ash is trustworthy. He has helped me on many occasions, and I know he wouldn't betray us or Ms. Nellie over there. He'll keep his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him," Groffet said as he crossed his arms over his chest, daring Sorrell to disagree with him.
Of course none of us did. We were all smarter than that. Disagreeing with Groffet when he felt strongly about something was like yelling into the wind. It might be heard, but it didn't stick around. Nor did it change a damn thing.
"Fine," I growled before either of the others could say anything more.
Roan stepped in and leveled both Groffet and the male Fae, Ash, with a dark look. "We need to speak with the…” He flicked a glance between them and surprisingly, instead of saying “human” he spoke the girl’s name. “We must speak with Nellie."
"What's wrong?" she asked, and then she seemed to realize something. Her eyes roamed between us, scanning for something—Cress—and when her search came up empty, a worried frown turned her lips down. "Where's Cress?" she asked.
A dark, sinister feeling stabbed me in the gut, and having felt this particular emotion many times before, I could easily place it. Guilt. The vile creature clawed at my insides, laughing as it reminded me that this girl’s friend, someone we had—someone I had—sworn to protect had not returned with us. Nellie’s gaze pleaded with us, as if she could sense the onslaught of bad news and still hoped that her instincts were wrong.
It shredded something inside me to confirm her obvious fears. Except, I didn’t get the chance. My answer was interrupted by another.
"She was taken." Sorrell’s voice was icy as the temperature of the room dropped. A wave of cold air washed outwardly from his figure, visible only in the way Nellie shivered and stepped closer to her newfound friend. His anger was palpable.
"What do you mean t-taken?" Nellie stuttered, eyes round, luminous. Lost. I gritted my teeth when she shook her head and seemed to suck all of that fear back inside herself as she took a step towards us, a brighter fury coming forth. “Where is she?” she demanded. “What’s happened to her?” Were she Fae, I suspect, the fire in her eyes might rival even Roan’s. Unfortunately for her, however, she was not. The girl possessed no magic, and in our Court, she was nothing but a guest—the guest of a lost Changeling who had been stolen from us—and she was precariously close to the edge of both of my throne brothers’ tolerance for humans.