The Danger of Destiny (40 page)

There couldn't be more than fifty of them.

How many men were crammed in the first cramped pen? Twenty? Twenty-five? It was difficult to guess, as no one was lining up for a roll call. A few of the men were wounded. They sat slumped at one end of the corral, using the wooden rails as their backrest. The rest were ambulatory, but they milled about restlessly—the fluid grace I expected from their lupine heritage missing. I frowned, studying those men, and realized all of them held their necks stiffly.

Oh Goddess, they'd been collared with silver.

My gaze moved on to the next tight corral. The Fae must have run out of collar restraints, because none of the women wore them. Again, I tried to count heads but soon gave up, because most of those women kept pacing, constantly moving from rail to rail—penned wolves pacing off their prison.

There was no sanitation.

And the Fae had kept the Raha'ells thirsty. The day was hot, despite the approach of sunset, and the splintered bottoms of the water troughs placed between the three pens were bone dry.

I twisted my head and turned my focus to the cluster of Fae who were gathered on the back wall's terrace. The Black Mage stood at the edge of them, easily identified by his somber clothing. Unlike those around him, Helzekiel's interest was not pinned on the cloud over him. He watched the grounds, and the wolves, and his guards.

Next, I searched for the king and found him by the grandeur of his crown. Unnaturally pale, he was a tall man with very long straight platinum hair. He wore a blue jacket, the edges of its sleeves almost as heavily encrusted with jewels as the crown he wore. He stood alone, surrounded by a fan of women.

Behind me, the Old Mage cleared his throat.

“Mutter, mutter, mutter,” he began.

Within those three indistinct words the room's temperature abruptly plunged from warm to chill. Then, sparks—lime green, gold green, and citron yellow—started circulating over the Book of Spells. The wizard waved his gnarled hand over them, and those lively glittering bits blew apart in a bright flash that turned his face a grassy shade.

One page down.

His thin lips began to move again.

I swung back to the window and the Spectacle beneath it.

Where was Trowbridge? And how long did it take to go through the kitchen and grab a bucket? Shouldn't Danen and the others be there by now? Had someone stopped Gwennie and Mouse? Had Plan B been scuttled before it had a chance to spread its sails?

Mutter, mutter, mutter.

Another pop, definitely louder than the first.

Two down.

My heart leaped as Mouse finally walked into the grounds, accompanied by Danen, Brutus, and a barely recognizable Lily. A large pole had been strung with buckets. Danen had one end of it braced on his shoulder; Brutus, the other. Lily trailed after them, her head down, her weary posture transforming her into a lowly servant tasked with taking water to the animals in their pens.

I heard a page turn.

Reaction rippled through the prisoners in the first pen as Danen and Brutus drew close. My gaze darted to the guards. Surely they'd notice the stiffening of the wolves crammed in the corral. Surely they'd notice how one of wounded men struggled to his feet. Couldn't they smell the scent of hope was rising?

And sure enough—one did. He started to turn toward the pens, but Mouse approached him, offering a dipper of water. He accepted it, for the day was hot. Mouse pointed to the sky, and the guard nodded. They both looked up.

Good boy. Keep distracting him while the word is passed.

Behind me—mutter, mutter, mutter.

It was Lily who told the men in the pen. I could tell, even though her mouth barely moved, because those lining the rail closest to her seemed to lean forward as one, straining to hear every detail. Then, one man turned to mutter to those who stood in a close press behind him, and from that word spread faster than virus in a classroom.

Their scent changed, defeat sinking under a layer of hope.

Pop!

Three wards down.

“Where's Trowbridge?” I whispered to Merry.

Just then, Brutus looked up, searching for my window. When he saw me, he widened his eyes meaningfully and he looked toward the castle's back gates.

Had he heard something with his ears that I had not?

The answer to that was simple.

Hell yes.

*   *   *

From outside the tower there was a hoarse shout, and then another, and then the guards were sprinting toward the inside courtyard while the archers on the back wall turned as one to train their bows on the disruption.

Don't fire on my mate!

The Black Mage raced to the terrace's wall and braced his hands on it, stretching to peer down at whatever was taking place. Those of the court members closest to the inner wall followed, anxious geese clucking in alarm.

In my mind's eye, I saw Trowbridge's diversion in torturous detail. My man alone, swinging a sword against a horde of armed men. My mate falling, his body pierced with arrows …

Don't let them hurt you too much. Don't let them—

More shouts.

Behind me, mutter, mutter, mutter.

Pop!

That's four.

“Talk faster, Mage!” I pressed my cheek painfully against the window's stone surround, craning my neck, hoping for a glimpse of the inner courtyard through the gates.

Anxiety was a gorge rising up my throat, ready to spill into a shout of frustration. But before it could spill out of me, the Raha'ells began to keen as one.

I closed my eyes in relief.

The Son of Lukynae had been captured.

*   *   *

My mate entered the Spectacle grounds heavily flanked by a bevy of guards.

He appeared incapable of walking.

Two Fae dragged him across the rough ground. They gripped him just above the elbows, a position that forced his arms to twist back painfully. As he passed through the gates, Trowbridge lifted his head just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his battered face. Ralph was cinched close to Trowbridge's throat. The gold of his pendant writhed, and his amulet shone so brightly, it was hard to look at.

A woman's voice cried out, “Alpha! We are yours to command!”

The guard trailing behind Trowbridge slammed the end of his staff into the muscles between my mate's shoulders. My mate's face twisted in a rictus of pain.

I can't bear this.

I wanted to be down there with the Raha'ells, growling low in my throat as they growled. I wanted a staff of my own, which I'd use with extreme prejudice. I wanted to grow wings. Huge black ones like an avenging angel's. Wings so powerful and filled with such dark promise of retribution that the guards would tremble and cower as I swooped toward them.

But those are wishes.

And wishes never really amount to squat.

Not when you're standing by a fucking window. My magic flared inside me, hot and wicked. It rose up, up, past my heart, down my shoulders, coursing through my veins, to burn the ends of my hand.

Pop!
The fifth ward snapped with a sharp crack, the dispelled magic briefly tingeing the mage's lair acid green.

One to go.

They brought Trowbridge to a patch of beaten earth and forced him to his knees. Then, they all turned expectantly toward the gate.

*   *   *

King Jaden was all about the show. He was the peacock in full display as he sauntered across the grounds, followed closely by his entourage.

“Hurry up, Mage!” I hissed over his mutters.

My love's mouth was bloody, his teeth red rimmed.

When the king stood over the kneeling Son of Lukynae, he raised his voice so all could hear him. “On your belly, dog.”

For this, my mate mustered a short, but pithy, reply. “Fuck. You.”

Jaden gave an amused huff and raised his arm high over Trowbridge's head. Then, smiling, the king started to lower his arm, a few inches at a time.

Very, very slowly.

As if he were pressing down on a great weight.

From what I could see, the Fae didn't have anything in his hand. No weapons, no whip. Nothing except his magic. But it must have been powerful, because Trowbridge flinched as if he'd been struck.

“We are with you, Alpha!” shouted that Raha'ell female again. Except this time she added, “Resist! Resist!” Which prompted another of my mate's pack to begin chanting, “Son of Lukynae! Son of Lukynae! Son of Lukynae!”

Yet another pack member picked up the chorus, and then another, and then they were all chanting, their clenched fists pumping as if they were at a concert, instead of an execution.

“Son of Lukynae!” they howled as Trowbridge's body began to shake.

I'll never know whether Trowbridge allowed it to happen or he couldn't stop it from happening. But part of me crumbled as my mate finally bowed over his knees, his hands flattening on the earth. Then, some unseen force gave him a final heave and threw him violently forward. He sprawled onto his gut, his legs spread, his cheek pressed to the ground.

He did not get up.

The king of the court leaned over Trowbridge's prostrate form to thrust two fingers between Ralph's chain and his neck. Jaden worked the amulet up over my mate's chin and then ruthlessly yanked it free. Then the Fae straightened, and in a dreadful mimicry of the Raha'ells' raised fists he lifted Ralph high in his own.

He pumped his arm twice—smiling to the fading chants of “Son of Lukynae! Son of Lukynae!”—and then pivoted from the waist to play to his audience of entourage.

Yeah. He waved Ralph like he was a freakin' prize.

Blood from Trowbridge's torn ear snaked across his jaw.

“Mage!” I warned in a dreadful voice.

Mutter, mutter—

The final ward broke with a deafening boom, followed by a flash-bomb of cold light that bathed all the items in the rooms—the wizard, the pine table, the once creamy pages of the book and me—with a horrendous lime green.

“Torch the book!” I screamed, reaching to pull Merry off my neck.

The old man conjured up a miniature fireball, as easily as I might flick a lighter, and tipped his hand sideways. The tiny burning ball fell on the book's curling pages.

Whoosh.

That easy. The Book of Spells was aflame.

“And now my vow to
my
Maker is complete,” he said, staring at the blaze.

Bully for you.
I swung back for the window, prepped to do my part and see the prophecy through. And as I did, I heard the old wizard speak again and I smelled magic, but it was magic of the dreadful sort, sweet as cane sugar, as oddly thick as an overripe banana.

Then I got hit with a custom-made conjure.

 

Chapter Twenty-six

I was struck, mid-torso, by a blast of pure energy. No sparks, no light, no blare of trumpets to warm me. It felt as if Goliath had made a fist and punched me in the gut. It hurt so badly; there was an element of disbelief to the pain. Ever hit your shinbone hard enough to feel light-headed?

My magic surged from me as I staggered backward, and without even thinking we reacted.
Take this.
My talent whipped across the room, a green serpent cast on doing some damage on a lying piece of shit.

But as she flew, the wizard swiftly made a motion. A shield! It was too late to issue a magic-recall and far too late to recalculate the GPS. She hit his ward with an inarticulate cry of horror. Instinctively I wrenched my hand back. Instead of popping free, she stretched obscenely, her nose firmly attached to that thing he'd cast.

“Give me the word!” I shouted. My magic rippled and rolled, panicked to free herself from the sucking ward that held her fast. My arm bucked with each of her gyrations. “The king's going to kill Trowbridge!”

“Not yet,” the wizard murmured. “He'll toy with him first.”

“You son of a bitch! Give me the word!”

“Be calm. Accept your fate.”

“Death?” I choked out. “We die, you die.”

“Rest easy, nalera.” He brushed the soot off his sleeve. “Neither you nor he will face an execution. There is no need, for there are alternatives to death.” He glanced down at what remained of his book. “Punishments that inflict no physical pain. Prisons that have no bars.”

My magic thrashed at the end of my line, a tuna running on the hook. I both felt her wild gyrations and didn't, because my brain was taking the pieces of his word puzzle and putting them in awful order.

“The Sleep of Forever,” I whispered.

The Old Mage nodded. “Precisely so.”

Trowbridge and I lay in some dark and dim room, our bodies useless, only our brains awake. Two wolves caught in a forever trap.

The wizard picked up a page, grimacing when it crumbled to ash. “Rest assured the Royal Court will not risk losing their only wizard. In light of the circumstances, they will be agreeable to condemning both of you to an eternal rest.”

“But you're not their only wizard.”

He looked up. “I will be.”

I could hear my talent inside my head; she was screaming.

“You planned this,” I said shakily. “Right from the beginning when you forced me to switch places with Lexi so your soul could share his body and not mine. You wanted to claim his muscles as your own. His legs, yours; his voice, yours. You never intended to share, not for three days, not for a week. Before I even agreed to your bargain, you were calculating how to smother his soul.”

He pushed himself from his lectern. “You give me an omniscience I do not possess. One might anticipate the future, but one may never fully control it. A mage must always react to new circumstances, choosing the best option among the opportunities presented. But yes, the demise of your brother's soul was certainly predetermined as soon as our pact was sealed. I cannot share a body with one who is unwilling to take care of it.” He studied me for a moment. “Will you accept your destiny calmly?”