A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 9

I was pressed down on the floor of the cart, splinters of wood cutting deep into my palms. With each jolt of the screeching wheels, the cage rocked as we navigated over potholes in the road, forcing my back to slam into the iron bars.

There was nothing I could do to create comfort, not when a chain linked me to the iron bars from the cuff around my neck.

I was leashed like a dog. We all were.

If it wasn’t for the chain that connected Althea to the cage, she would’ve slumped to the ground. I sat opposite her, unable to do anything but watch as her eyes would flutter open and closed. Even in the dark night I could see the thick sheen of sweat that clung across her forehead. The wound on her thigh still oozed blood; it was close to impossible to ignore the tang of copper as it spread in a dark puddle beneath her leg. The bolt had been ripped carelessly from her thigh before the cart had moved. Because of the iron cuff around her neck, she hadn’t been able to heal. It was clear her body couldn’t handle the lack of power; unlike mine, it was not used to being severed from her natural abilities.

Gyah was not unconscious like Althea. She sat in the corner of the cage, watching me like a starved hawk sizing up a fleshy meal. Disdain pulsated from her, silent, taut anger so palpable I gave in to my guilt and refused to look her way.

Around the cage the Hunters rode upon the back of obsidian-coated mares. The cage was being pulled by many as well, the backs of tall Hunters all I could see ahead of us. Duncan was among them, but where, I wasn’t sure. There was something about him that conjured a kindling of fear in my gut. Every now and then I could feel the stinging of eyes across the back of my neck. I would turn to search for him, but never find him. I was still confident Duncan was among the throng, watching with the same hateful stare he’d given me as he held the crossbow between my eyes.

This wasn’t how I saw this ending. Being locked in a cage of iron was far from a possibility. I was so blinded by my desire to cause Oakstorm’s mad king pain that my mind had sugar-coated the idea of finding the Hunters and requesting them to take me to the Hand.

Becoming a prisoner was far from what I imagined, but it was now a painful reality. I put some hope in the knowledge that the Hand wanted an audience with me. But that hope came crashing down when my eyes settled back on Althea.

I dared to close my eyes for a moment of ignorant bliss. It was easier to give in to the darkness of my mind than fight to not look at Gyah, or ignore the army of Hunters and pretend that Althea was not suffering before of me.

Selfish little bird. A voice haunted my mind. You search for reprieve in the dark, but you deserve nothing but the reminder of what you have caused.

I couldn’t discern the voice. Was it my own? Something else? It echoed across my skull, impossible to ignore.

“Something troubling you, princeling?” Gyah spat, her tongue as sharp as a knife.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to regard her. The moon above flickered beyond the bars. It was not full, but its silvered glow danced across Gyah’s dark skin like dawn’s light across a still lake’s surface.

“Gyah, I didn’t want this to happen. Believe me.” I spoke in hushed tones, aware of the many Hunters around us.

Gyah didn’t seem to care who heard. In fact, her voice rose in volume, alerting the few riding beside her to listen in. “I admit you never struck me as a pathetic, careless fool. I gave you the benefit of the doubt over and over. But now look at you. Tied up like cattle being taken to slaughter and still you do not see the reality of what is happening.”

Her words felt like a punch in the stomach.

I rested my head upon the iron bar behind me, pleading for some support but finding it lacking. “I did what I had to.”

“If that’s what gives you peace to believe, then you are more the fool than I think.”

She hated me. Not for any other reason than threatening Althea’s life. I could read that in her silence.

“I am doing this for him ,” I replied through gritted teeth.

“He’s dead, Robin.” Gyah’s features softened, her gaze dropping from mine for only a moment. “Do you truly believe your father would have wanted this? He kept you from the Hunters, turned his back on them himself, yet you have run straight into their arms. And for what?”

“An army,” I admitted, to the amusement of the Hunters around me, who laughed. In a way, I hoped Duncan would listen in. Maybe it would stir something in him, something that would help me get what I needed. “I need an army and no one north of the Wychwood border is willing to aid me against Doran. This is not a path I wished to go down, but the lack of support has placed me here. I’m desperate, Gyah.”

“That you are, Robin Icethorn. Desperate.”

More laughter echoed around us, turning my gut in on itself.

“You truly believe the Hand will aid you?” Gyah asked, although I could tell she already knew the answer. I did too.

“He prepares an army of powered humans. His stance on the fey is clear. If I can give him a reason to attack Oakstorm then he may embrace me. May let me live.”

Gyah stared at me with furrowed brows, judging me as clear as day. “You are forgetting something important. A piece of information that contradicts everything you have just explained to me.”

“Enlighten me.”

Gyah reached up to her ear and flickered it with a finger. “You are fey. We all are. If this Hand wants to go to war against us, that will include you.”

“Maybe it isn’t as simple as that. Erix would not have–” A lump formed suddenly in my throat. I covered my mouth, shocked at the response I had to saying his name.

“I understand it may be hard for you to see it, but Erix didn’t have control over what he did. Even now he is not the same person we have come to know. Erix is nothing but a vessel for Doran now. A puppet with gold strings.”

I’d not allowed myself more than a short moment to think of Erix. Even with my father’s murder replaying in my mind, I always tried to ignore the hands that took his life. The vacant look in Erix’s eyes as he followed the command his father had given him.

Turning my head, I gazed to a huddle of Hunters riding beside us. They could hear what we discussed, confirmed from their assumed laughter and chatter.

“Did you know what Erix was?”

Althea moaned, stealing my attention. Her eyes were cracked open, the whites bloodshot and skin pale around them. She struggled to push herself up to sitting, wincing with a hiss as she dragged her leg back towards her. “We did.”

Those two words sent a sharp chill up my spine. It confirmed what I’d already thought.

“Althea,” Gyah gasped, relief smoothing her features. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” Althea brushed Gyah’s concern away with a weak hand as she replied to me again. “Robin, I knew everything about Erix and his truth. What he was. What that meant. I should have told you, but it was not my story to tell. And for that, I’m sorry.”

The wind was knocked from me. “He begged me to ask him. I refused. Maybe if I’d just allowed him to reveal his truth, he would never have…”

Left me. Turned himself over. Gave up.

Althea scoffed and smiled grimly. “The truth hurts, Robin. For both the person saying it, and the person hearing it.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, losing her battle with consciousness. “I – I would know.”

“Althea, you need to stay awake.” Gyah spoke over me, stopping me from saying something I regretted. “Keep talking.”

A string of inaudible sounds flooded from her paling mouth. Then the Cedarfall princess fell silent once again.

“Althea!” Gyah screamed, pulling against her restraints, trying to reach across the cage.

Nothing roused Althea, her body slumping back to the ground. Gyah continued to fight against her chains, to reach for Althea, but failed miserably each time. The roar she let out finally had Hunters’ heads turning in our direction.

“If she dies,” Gyah looked at me, through me, piercing me with her stare. “Her blood is on your hands.”

Gyah was right. This was my doing. My fault, and there was nothing I could do or say to fix it.

It justified punishment to listen to Gyah’s shouting as she commanded Althea to open her eyes. The iron bars groaned as Gyah tugged and yanked to get closer to the unconscious girl ahead of her. Her desperation was so raw that I was certain the bar would’ve snapped in two if the cuff was not suppressing her abilities.

The cart slowed suddenly, sending me jolting to the side. Around us the Hunters circled on horses, each looking in at the chaos before them. Heavy boots squelched across the sodden ground beyond the stationary cage. Darkness coated everything, making it impossible to see clearly. There were no lights of villages and towns, only the quiet, dark and barren landscape of Durmain with nothing but Hunters around us.

Gyah was too engrossed in her shouting for Althea, her panic hot like pure fire, that she didn’t notice the Hunter come up behind her. But I did. I tried to warn her, but her focus was solely on Althea. Until the hands reached through the bars and latched onto her chain.

The Hunter pulled hard, yanking Gyah back against the bars of the cage. The crack of her skull against metal turned my stomach. It silenced her pleading, and a single gasp escaped her mouth as her expression pinched in pain.

“That’s more than enough excitement for one night.” A face peered through the bars. Deep, forest-green eyes narrowed as he looked across the cage at me.

Duncan Rackley. Finally, he’d shown himself again.

“Don’t”– I pulled forward, straining against the chains – “fucking touch her.”

“Believe me, I’ve no intention of soiling myself.” Duncan released the chain, allowing Gyah’s head to roll forward until her chin was pressed against her chest. I watched, seething, as Duncan stalked around the cage. Not once did he take his gaze off me, not once.

My chest rose and fell, all the while I didn’t take my eyes off Duncan. I stalked him, as he did with me.

“Care to explain what all the fuss is about?” he asked.

It was as if we were the only people in the world, Duncan and I.

“Althea, she’s bleeding out,” I said, jaw taut and voice deep. “Unless you let her have access to her magic, she’ll die.”

“And that is my problem? What do I care if she dies in this very spot? One less fey in the world is exactly what I want.”

“Oh, but you will care when you have to explain to your master why you have let a Cedarfall fey die. A princess!”

There, I saw it, a flicker of something across his dark expression that told me my words had settled into him. “She’s the enemy. If she dies the Hand will hardly pay it any mind. Her body would only join the piles growing in honour of his name.”

“You’re wrong, and you’re lying.”

“Attentive little thing you are.” Duncan smiled, flashing straight white teeth. “I’m impressed.”

“From my understanding, the Hand likes to collect fey with raw power. If you let Althea die, you prevent him from obtaining a fey with the ability to burn this party of Hunters and the acres of land around us with a single thought. Would you truly keep someone with such abilities from him?”

Duncan stopped beside me. My neck ached as I kept my stare on him, not wanting to show defeat by looking away.

There was a weighty moment of silence between us, Duncan studying me through narrowed eyes just as I studied him.

Then he looked at someone behind me. “Change our course to Finstock.”

“But General Rackley, it will add days onto our journey,” the Hunter replied with a light voice overspilling with hesitation. Clearly he wanted to speak up against Duncan, and I could understand why.

Duncan’s face pinched into a frown, his lips curling back from his teeth as though he was a beast that longed for flesh. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, Novice. I gave you a command, follow it.”

“Apologies, General Rackley.”

Duncan turned his attention back to me. “I will see that she is cared for. I wouldn’t want her bleeding out on the Hand’s carpet, that’s no way for a greeting now, is it?”

Shock vibrated through my bones, and all I could think to say back to him were two words that tasted wrong in my mouth. “Thank you.”

Duncan winced as my thanks settled over him. The expression pulled at the scar beneath his eye, making it look hollow as it etched deeper into his skin. “Don’t thank me yet. Where I’m about to take you, you will soon wish to be put back in this cage no matter who is dying within it.”

With that, Duncan smacked a palm onto the cage. It jolted forward. And once again we were on the move. All the while I watched Duncan as he disappeared into the darkness, as if he belonged to it.