by Everly Frost
He laughs and tugs my braid over my shoulder. His fingers linger on my shoulder. “You’re so pretty when you’re all riled up.”
I scowl at him, standing my ground. Every morning when he gets up, he puts his pillow and blanket back on the bed, and every night he leans across me to get them—even though he could easily walk around to the other side. Each time he drops a kiss on my cheek and each time, it’s closer to my mouth. Last night it was on the corner of my lips.
He smirks. “Fine. After breakfast. There’s something I want to show you anyway.”
It’s still two days until the ‘celebration of my capture’ and Grayson seems remarkably relaxed today. I plow through my meal and wait at the door while he finishes his breakfast. He takes his time, deliberately making me wait for him. Finally, he pushes his chair back.
The door opens without him moving from his seat, but he’s not far behind me as I lean into the hallway outside.
He says, “Follow me.”
We pass a number of rooms, many of them large, all of them opulent, until we finally leave the building through the back door, heading down a path through immaculate gardens. I veer to the right in the direction of the other buildings. I need to get a look at them to figure out which is the prison.
“Not that way,” Grayson says, to my disappointment, pointing to a copse of trees at the end of the path. “This way.”
The pathway ends, turning into a rough leaf-strewn track. The forest is dark and dank compared to the open garden, but he strides right into it. I pause. It’s one thing to stay with him in a brightly lit room. It’s another to follow him into a dark forest.
I say, “I thought we could walk around the garden.” So far I’ve seen nothing that tells me where the prison might be.
“You thought wrong.” He’s far enough inside the shadowed woods that his body is a mere silhouette. He tugs on me with his power, making me take a step before I harness my own power to stop him.
He sighs. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I just want to show you something.”
Said the psycho to his prey.
“Fine, but just because I can’t hurt you personally, doesn’t mean I can’t burn this forest to the ground if I need to,” I warn him.
“Noted.”
I catch up to him and there’s just enough room to walk side by side along the track. I point out: “You know you’re walking in the dark.”
“So?”
“That’s a gargoyle trait. Your eyesight is primed for moonlit nights. Elves need lamps.”
It’s his turn to be exasperated. “You don’t give up, do you?”
I allow myself to smile. “How many gargoyles have you actually met?”
“Uh.” He must not realize I can see as well as he can in the dark because he doesn’t hide his expression. He looks uncomfortable. “Just the ones on the cliff the other day, and many from a distance, but I’ve seen plenty of drawings.”
I scoff. “Oh, you’ve seen drawings. The ones the Elven Command commissioned? Well, then, I guess you’ve met lots of gargoyles. Were you surprised to discover the females don’t look like hideous beasts?”
He shuffles again. “A little.”
I say, bluntly, “Female gargoyles are more beautiful than female elves. But not just on the outside. They have truly beautiful souls. It’s why the males are so protective of their families. They would die for them.”
My emotions are getting away from me. I try to reel them in. “The female you tried to take with you was Llion’s wife, Liliana. She was holding their two babies—the only babies she will ever have. Howl ripped their family apart. She hadn’t seen her babies for a year and then you tried to kill them.”
I stop talking because I have to suppress my feelings. I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. He doesn’t want to know about the gargoyles. He has a picture of them in his mind and they are nothing more than beasts to him. They are the reason he was ridiculed when he was a boy.
Grayson is quiet for a time. Our boots crunch in the leafy carpet and the air grows colder the deeper we travel into the forest. Then he says, “I didn’t meet Howl.”
“Howl was just like the drawings, but worse.”
“You did us a favor when you killed him.” He pulls me to a sudden stop, his grip warm, but firm. “Your mercy is your undoing, Marbella. Howl was ruthless. We were never going to get to the deep springs while he was alive. But you… you won’t betray others to further your own interests. You sacrificed your freedom for those gargoyles on the cliff. You care. It’s your weakness.”
I yank myself out of his hold. “I’d rather be weak than your version of strong.” I will never get through to him. “Now where is this thing you wanted to show me?”
He points. “Right there.”
We’ve reached an opening to a small, circular clearing. The ground inside it is covered in ash and burned tree trunks, as if a sudden, vicious fire burned in this spot. I sense the remnants of sorcery in the ash, the emotions that burned with the unnatural fire, layered with sadness, pain, and rage.
It’s hard to miss the single gravestone in the middle of the clearing.
Grayson loses the mask he keeps over his true emotions. Stepping onto the ashen ground, genuine sadness enters his expression as he says, “I carried him here after you left him where you killed him.”
He’s obviously not talking about Howl.
I whisper, “Gideon Glory.”
Grayson looks at me the same way he did on my first day here, when he grabbed my arm with a vengeance and his expression was filled with wrath.
I say, “That’s why you’re angry with me. Because I killed him.”
He paces out onto the ash, kicking blackened earth up beneath his boots, stopping in front of the grave. “There have been other natural-born sorcerers in our history but only two of us have survived beyond infancy. Do you want to know why?”
I don’t particularly, but I figure he’s not really asking my permission to tell me.
He continues, “Because their families figure out what they are and kill them. They leave them to die in forests like this one.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “All natural-born sorcerers have a different strength. Some can read thoughts, others can manipulate your actions: force you to do things you don’t want to do. But me… I killed my mother and sister at the moment of my birth when my power awakened. The healer who delivered me also died. Nobody wanted to touch me after that. They wanted to leave me where I lay and let me starve to death. Only Gideon kept me alive.”
I try to reconcile what he’s telling me with what I knew about Gideon Glory. The Gideon I knew never did anything for anyone unless it benefitted himself in some way. Even cloaking Grayson would have more likely been for Gideon’s own protection than for Grayson’s sake. But why would Gideon raise a child he knew could kill him? Why would he take that risk? Grayson must have had something he wanted.
Grayson says, “He was my father when I had none. My protector when I had none. I owed him my life. And then you killed him. You killed the only person who ever cared about me.”
The gravestone is like a glaring accusation. Regardless of Gideon’s motives, he was the only family Grayson had. I took Gideon away from him. I don’t know what to say or do. Grayson is angry, but not threatening, despite what he says next…
“I vowed that I would find you and kill you. I convinced the Elven Command to let me join their ranks. I possessed a hundred talon crows searching for you in Erador, but I never found you. It turned out you were deep underground all that time. But when Howl asked for the Rath and Mercy Heartstones I knew they were important. So I broke them up and made them part of me. That was the same day you resurfaced and killed Howl. Now here you are. And you are… nothing like I imagined you.”
His expression softens as he looks at me, a mixture of confusion and intrigue. Maybe he was listening when I was talking about the gargoyles. Maybe I can get through to him. My Virtuous heart is glowing. Cu
rse its empathy. I hate that I understand Grayson’s point of view. Gideon Glory was the father he never had and I was responsible for taking that away from him.
He turns to me, open, needing to know. “Why did you kill him?”
My voice is small. “He was going to kill me.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t that person.”
I search his face for traces of a lie. Does he truly believe that? Are we talking about the same elf? His earnest expression tells me that he honestly believes what he said. I’m hesitant but I have to tell him the truth. “Gideon and the other Elven Commanders killed Baelen. Once they had my storm power, I was next.”
“In self-defense.”
I blink. “What?”
“Baelen Rath attacked them. They fought back in self-defense.”
I can only stare at him, incredulous. “Is that what they told you? They stabbed Baelen in the back while he was in the simulation unable to defend himself. If you don’t believe me, the cuts in his armor prove it.”
A sharp clapping at the edge of the clearing interrupts us. Priscilla steps into the light. “What pretty lies you tell, Marbella.”
By the time I spin back to Grayson, he’s wearing the mask over his emotions again, expressionless, blank. As I search for any sign that he heard what I said, I’m disappointed. Behind the mask is distrust. He doesn’t believe me.
Priscilla smirks as she wraps her manicured fingers around his bicep. I’d give anything to smash that smile right off her face. My power might not have any effect on Grayson, but it would sure sting this female. To hell with nice, Marbella. I grit my teeth, narrow my eyes, and harness my strength, intending to douse her in cold air and freeze that stupid smile on her face. Grayson anticipates me and an invisible shield shoots up between her and me. It’s imperceptible—I sense it instead of see it—and Priscilla doesn’t seem aware of it. My gaze flickers to Grayson’s, meeting his silent warning glare.
Completely oblivious, Priscilla keeps speaking. “Well, I hate to break up this little heart to heart but we have a situation we need to deal with. Grayson, if you don’t mind, our little princess needs to go back to her cage.”
Her fingers play down his forearm as she releases him so he can deal with me. He latches hold of me, gripping my shoulders, his hard gaze clashing with mine. The world spins as he transports me back to the bedroom in an instant. The way he dumps me on the floor when we arrive tells me he’s done talking to me.
Even so, before he returns to Priscilla, he asks me one thing: “Will you stay here while I’m gone or will war start tomorrow?” He looms over me. “Remember that no matter where you go, I will bring you back to me.”
“I’ll stay,” I say, not entirely sure if I’m going to keep my word.
He says, “In case you change your mind, you should know that it takes ten minutes to run to the edge of the cloaked area. You won’t make it to the outside world before I get back.”
In other words, I should say goodbye to any thoughts of at least getting a message out about my location.
I glare at him. “I said that I’ll stay.”
He gives me a single nod and then disappears before my eyes. He told me that every natural-born sorcerer has a particular strength. His might be killing at a single touch, but his ability to travel from one place to another in the blink of an eye is dizzying. Even Baelen can’t travel that fast. I certainly can’t. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.
24. Grayson Glory
The female elf’s body is barely recognizable. Her pale hair is matted with blood, her wrists shackled to the dirty prison wall above her head. Her dress is torn and her arms, legs, every patch of skin, including her face, is burned.
She isn’t breathing.
Priscilla snickers beside me. “Marbella is going to be so upset.”
I spin to Osian Valor. “Who is this?”
He and the other Elven Commanders fill the space inside the cell. I’ve never been to the prison before, didn’t know where to find it. It’s buried deep underground beneath the city. The entire place reeks of death. I passed other cells on my way to this one, each of them filled with females dressed in damaged, filthy armor. One of them, a blue-eyed warrior with blood-splattered blond hair gripped the bars and snarled at the Elven Commanders as we passed. “I will kill you for what you’ve done to her.”
Osian is expressionless. “She is Marbella Mercy’s advisor, Elise.” He gives Priscilla a pointed glare. “Marbella’s reaction is exactly what we need to control.”
My voice is cold. “They are close?”
“Like sisters,” Priscilla purrs. “You will have to control her, Grayson. Marbella can’t be so enraged that she escapes. We need this war to go ahead.”
“Yes. We do.” I agree with her, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m on the right side of it. Marbella tried to convince me that the Elven Commanders, including Gideon, had struck Baelen Rath in the back while he was defenseless. That she had killed Gideon only because he was about to kill her. I need time to process what she said, to decide if I believe her.
I cloaked myself the moment I entered the prison and I maintain the barrier as I reach out to Elise, gently lifting her chin. “What happened?”
Osian shrugs. “We wanted information. We thought she could handle it.”
Torture. I swallow down the bile that rises to my throat. I’ve seen a lot of cruel acts, but the burn marks on her exposed arms and legs make my stomach turn. Every female in the nearby cells would have heard her screams. I’m not a skilled healer, but if the others are really worried about Marbella’s reaction, then all they need to do is—
Osian continues, “We didn’t mean to kill her.”
Kill her?
I force myself to remain impassive. But she isn’t dead.
The small patch of perfectly healed skin beside her left ear tells me she is holding on, desperately trying to heal herself. The fact that she isn’t breathing has nothing to do with it. She’s absorbing oxygen through her skin, just enough to maintain bare conscious thought. She’s existing on her magical power alone. Deep inside her mind, I hear her spellcasting, even though she’s nearly comatose, her thoughts patchy and intermittent. She’s a truly skilled spellcaster to accomplish such a thing.
The Elven Commanders aren’t powerful enough to detect her internal life signs.
No matter what Elise did, punishment should be quick and clean. Never this.
I make a decision, hoping it isn’t the wrong one.
Pasting a cruel smile on my face, I turn back to the others. “You should give her the burial she deserves. Take her body out into the fields and dump it where the talon crows can pick at it.”
Priscilla’s eyes widen, her smile growing as she presses against me, stroking my chest. “Mmm, Grayson, that sounds perfect to me.”
I return her smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Marbella. She won’t give us any trouble.”
25. Marbella Mercy
I race for the door. Grayson told me that he would be ten minutes. If what he said is true then I won’t make it outside the cloaked area, but I can definitely look around inside it. I speed along the corridor, skid to a halt to avoid elves from the House of Verity standing around the corner, and impatiently wait for them to move on before I race in the direction of the back door.
Once there, I run as fast as I can to the buildings I didn’t get to visit earlier. But as I draw closer, I’m disappointed. One of them is a greenhouse filled with exotic flowers. I recognize some of them from pictures Elise showed me once of flowers that are used in healing potions. As I veer away from the greenhouse, I find that the other building is a stable for winged stallions. Most of the stalls inside it are empty, but three of them contain the beautiful creatures.
Could a prison be hidden under the stable? Or was it never here to begin with? I search my memory for what Elwyn Elder said about it… He’d yelled that Grayson was supposed to take me to the prison. He never said it was h
ere. I just assumed. Which means it could be anywhere.
The nearest stallion nickers. There’s no way that ordinary stallions could be kept this close to each other—they are like alpha males and fight each other for control of the herd—but winged stallions are gentle creatures, more like brothers with each other than rivals. Riding one is easy. And they fly much faster than I could run…
My heart lifts but quickly plummets. I won’t make it out in time. I’ve already used up seven of the ten minutes and Grayson said he wouldn’t be that long…
A sharp tug on my spine tells me my time is already up. His power is like a wash of electrified air as he strides up behind me, his presence a powerful reminder of my captivity. He rasps, “You said you’d stay put. What are you doing out here?”
I turn on him. It’s time for me to ask the questions. “Where is the prison? Where are you keeping my Storm Command?” I face up to him with my demand for answers.
He stands his ground but he looks… ashen. Troubled. Maybe even a little worried. My eyes narrow in thought. He can’t be that concerned about me being out here; as he says, he can pull me back to him at any time. Something else has happened but… what?
He asks, “Is that why you wanted to look around?”
“I need to know where they are. I need to know that they’re safe.”
He opens his mouth but closes it. Starts again. “They aren’t here, Marbella.” A tone of urgency enters his voice. “I need you to know that they were never here. That I… had nothing to do with their imprisonment or treatment. I didn’t know. I swear…”
He stops. Inhales. Contemplates me. Doesn’t go on.
Fear slides into my heart, settling there like a cold chill. “What happened? What was the situation you had to deal with?”
My heartstones gleam. In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve only taken the headpiece off so that I can sleep comfortably and, to my knowledge, Grayson has never tried to touch it. Now he studies it, eyeing it, his shoulders drawing forward like a gargoyle would draw his wings around to protect himself, feet planting, telling me he’s bracing for my reaction to whatever he’s about to tell me.
