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Too late, I’d forgotten while lost in him as I had been countless times before, that my mother and the sorceress were still with us, still watching us…
Now separating us.
“No,” I screamed as soldiers poured in through the windows. Soldiers I’d known since before I could utter a word chained my husband in iron before he could drift into smoke and cedar.
The sorceress vanished, leaving my mother standing at the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. “Take it out to the square.”
“Mother,” I growled, hurrying to the soldiers. “Release him right now.”
She ignored me when I repeated myself and ushered them to the doors. Dade laughed low, his head hung at the ground. “Nicely done, Nikaya.”
Her teeth snapped. “I learned from the worst.”
“Release him. You made a promise.” I pushed and shoved at the group of soldiers, but I couldn’t get through, and then strong hands pulled me away.
I kicked behind me, twirling to smack Elhn in the cheek. I didn’t apologize, nor care for his shocked expression as I hissed, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“You are married, are you not?” Mother drawled, nodding at Elhn. “You know where to take her.”
“Take me?” I whirled toward her, but Elhn stole my arms from behind before I could shake some sense into her. “You’re making a mistake, Mother. A grave mistake.”
She paused at the door, Dade now gone, my heart dragging in his absence as the sound of struggle faded in the halls. He could shift. He could still shift and send them all flying, but…
But he was waiting until he was well away from me.
With her back to me, one golden eye peered at me over her shoulder, then she lifted her chin to the windows, the tapestry hanging high upon the walls between them still swaying. “You’ve accomplished all you set out to do. You saved yourself. You’ve saved your people. Now, you must ignore whatever guilt you might feel.” She waded through the doorway. “Leave the rest to me.”
“No, wait,” I called, tugging to no avail as another soldier walked into the throne room and helped Elhn remove me from it and to the stairs outside.
My dress ripped under their brutal hold, beneath my frantic feet. I hissed and spat, about to shift when Elhn stopped and murmured, “Princess, please. We only wish to escort you upstairs safely while the savage is transported to the square.”
Then they would guard me and ensure I could not escape. I refused, kicking and cursing, making to bite the young soldier’s hand, and then the iron chains came out.
Halfway up the spiraling stairs, Elhn gave me a look that said he would use them if I did not comply. I didn’t care. Let them tie me up and bound me. I would never forgive her if she killed him, and I would kill anyone who aided her with my bare hands.
My skin trembled with fury, with the shift I couldn’t afford to make. Not yet. And if those chains wrapped around me… I wasn’t as powerful as Dade nor was I of crimson blood. Even if I could still shift, I was a swan. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to escape the shackles.
Inhaling deep through my nose, I forced myself to nod. To comply even though I longed to snatch the chains from his hand and swing them at both of their heads.
In my rooms, I told myself. Once I’d been locked within my rooms, I would shift and fly out the window.
Of course, they’d already thought of that, panic freezing every vein and breath as I was hauled higher up the stairs. Higher and higher we climbed until we’d reached the tallest tower in the castle.
My parents’ rooms.
I was thrust inside, the door slamming closed behind me, and I knew it was spelled. I could sense it when I stumbled back into the impenetrable wood, so I didn’t bother trying to open it.
Gulping in lungfuls of air, I sca
I pushed away the guilt my mother knew I harbored but not for the reasons she assumed and hurried into the bathing room. The window was sealed, bars of iron burning beneath my fingers when I stepped into the tub and pushed with all my might.
Sinking inside the empty bathing pool, I knew the windows and doorway that led to the small balcony outside would be the same. With my gown clenched in my hands, I blinked at the salts and soaps.
She’d locked me away.
She’d taken the king.
My husband. My mate.
All along, I’d feared she’d have a plan. Weeks ago, I’d have even longed for it. For the female I once knew and admired to return from the grief that tried to drown her and take action so I did not have to.
For I was nothing but a naïve coward. A terrified little fool.
And although she had returned, she was not the same. She would never be the same.
Alarm shot through me as I realized I would never be the same if she went through with this. As I imagined Dade being hurled out onto the city streets to be made a violent example of. A fate handed to the worst of criminals.
He would pay for his crimes with a death slow enough to feel each and every one.
No. “No, no, no,” I whispered, the sound breaking with every fractured breath. “No,” I said louder, my hands slapping over my eyes. “I can’t. He can’t—”
A howl cleaved the air, ear-splitting enough to shake the foundation of the castle—and to shake me out of the suffocating fog of fear I’d let myself stay trapped within.
Look at me, honey bee.
I blinked back tears, my head lifting toward the bedroom.
Out. I needed out. Staring back at those salts, I studied them, the lavender and the citrus and the rose…
Tripping on my skirts, I clambered out of the large tub and hurried into the bedroom. There, under my mother’s pillow where she’d kept it since the attacks began four years ago, was the dagger my father gave to her. A rare steel that came from an island across the Night Sea.
Supposedly enriched by the sweat and labor and resentment of its maker, a goblin slave, it would cut through anything.
But it would not break through iron.
That was fine. It didn’t need to break.
Hurrying to the door, I lowered to the ground some feet away with the blade in my lap and spread my hands upon the stone. I wasn’t sure if it would work, and if it did, how long it would last, but I had to try. I had to keep them from hearing what I was about to attempt.
Shouting and screaming echoed from outside, and I closed my eyes, begging, beseeching, coaxing…
Grow.
Vines snuck through and unfurled from the crevices in the stone, crawling with alarming speed and growing thicker, leafier, as they slithered up the walls and over the door. I blinked, marveling at the dense green wonder that twirled and danced and gathered. In near silence, the scratch of the occasional thorn the only sound, they curled around the cracks of the door and over every inch of the wood until they barely resembled vines at all, but a hedge. A giant, oblong hedge blocking entry.
Racing to the window, I sank below its edge so as not to be seen. I didn’t know how long the barrier would hold if someone entered, perhaps only seconds. I needed longer than seconds, but I grabbed the blade, sawing with both hands and destroying the sharpened edge.
Sweat beaded along my nape, my hairline, and coated my palms, my panic a thrumming hum in my ears. My hand slipped when a crash sounded, loud enough to gather the attention of half the kingdom.