A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 10

Finstock was a fortress of grey stone nestled in the barren landscape of Durmain. I didn’t know what to expect as we arrived, but this cluster of towering, aged buildings was far from what I imagined.

It had been a long night, one full of concern for Althea’s wellbeing. I’d tried to distract myself with racking my brain for any mention of such a place as Finstock. There was nothing. Perhaps my anxiety made thinking about anything other than the leaking wound that still poured scarlet blood without sign of stopping impossible.

I had come up as clueless as I was when Finstock was first mentioned.

Early dawn was upon us and with it a brisker chill that had sunk into my bones. It was a battle to stop my teeth from chattering and my skin from feeling numb to the touch. All there had been, along the dirt path we rode, were rolling hills and glades so far away that my mind played tricks on me as if I could see the glittering surface of the ocean in the distance.

All of a sudden Finstock was before our party, jutting out amongst the calm of the landscape like an angry blade of stone that reached, unwantedly, into the cloud-filled sky. Torn, black banners hung from the stone face of the fortress. They danced in the wind, slow enough to see the recognisable handprint stained in white. The emblem was everywhere I looked. A mark of the Hunters. The very same that had been imprinted into my father’s flesh.

I recognised the tug in my chest at the thought of him but felt it best to bury the feeling deep down. This was no time for grief, not as the Hunters carted us beneath a stone walkway into a courtyard in the belly of the stone fortress.

My focus was getting Althea healed, then as far away from here as possible. Even my plans for an army had dwindled as I faced the reality of my mistakes. I could not change them, but I could work to make up for them.

Starting with Althea and Gyah’s safety.

All around the straw-covered courtyard Hunters of all ages stood watch as we were paraded within. I caught a glimpse of a few who spat at the wheels of the cart, and others who scowled with such burning intent that I could almost read their minds. They didn’t have to speak aloud the thoughts at seeing fey in this place. It was abundantly clear. Hate, excitement, danger. Each glittering in every set of eyes I caught.

But the Hunters were not the only people to dwell within this place. Nimble, small frames adorned in deep, veiled maroon habits flittered across walkways and through the crowded space. I couldn’t see their features as the heavy material obscured them from view. They paid us no more heed than the Hunters paid them.

Not a single one turned a head to look in our direction as they hurried past in small, quiet groups.

What is this place?

Gyah broke her hour-long silence, startling awake where she sat in the cage. “What is going on?”

Her voice was rough as cracked stone. I looked across the cage as she fought to keep her eyes open, reaching a hand to the back of her head and wincing as she touched it.

“We made it to our destination,” I replied. “Are you alright?”

Gyah shrugged my question off, narrowing her gaze beyond the cage where she took her time to look at each and every Hunter surrounding us. Her stare was fierce, one that I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of, even with a cage of magic-nullifying iron around us. “No good is to come from this, Robin.”

“I know,” I hissed, sweeping my gaze around the courtyard. “They are all Hunters. All of them. Just don’t fight them, let me solve this. For Althea–”

The cart had not even stopped for a moment before a flood of Hunters rushed towards it.

My warning clearly was missed. Gyah jeered, pushing herself into a crouching position as close to Althea’s unconscious body as she could stretch. Even in the face of sudden danger, Gyah was a warrior without the need for steel or claw-tipped wings. Whereas I was a coward, powerless and pathetic, unable to even move a muscle as the threat of so many who hated us rushed forward.

My heart hammered in my chest as the heavy bolt clanged at the cage’s exit. I pulled my legs into my chest, hugging them tight as the door was thrown open and greedy, gloved hands reached inside.

“Keep away from her!” Gyah roared, snapping teeth as she tugged on the chain at her neck. “Touch her and you die.”

To taunt Gyah, one of the Hunters laid a finger on Althea’s cheek. Gyah gnashed teeth together, but it didn’t deter them.

No matter how hard Gyah tried, she had no power to stop the many hands from unlocking the chain at Althea’s throat and then pulling her limp body from the cage until she was hidden in a swarm of leather-clad bodies.

In a matter of seconds, it was only the two of us left. The Cedarfall Princess was taken from view through an open, dark door in a building to the side of the fortress.

Gone, without question or comment.

Gyah was screaming bloody murder. The veins in her neck were straining as she pulled hard on the cuff and chain but to no avail. It was as though the creature within was battling against the iron. And, for a moment, I believed the transformation might have even happened.

Until the sound of someone clearing their throat snapped my attention back to the cage’s open door. In the place the crowd had been now stood three men. Two unrecognisable and the third… the third was Duncan.

“The Cedarfall will have her wounds seen to,” he said, voice dull as he studied his nails carelessly. “In the meantime, I’d recommend calming yourself down before you force me to do it for you.”

“Can we follow her, please,” I pleaded, glancing worriedly to Gyah who silenced herself so quickly that the sudden change frightened me.

Her golden stare was fixated on Duncan. It swirled with hungry vengeance and something more terrifying – promise.

“No. That isn’t how this is going to work.”

“But,” I began, only to be silenced as Duncan whipped his hand up.

“I think you’re forgetting your place, fey.” Duncan simmered with diluted hate, his eyes never leaving me for a second. “She needs to be healed, that is what you wanted, is it not? Because say the word and I will personally drag her back out by her pretty red curls and start off on the long ride to Lockinge. We could even place bets to see if she will survive the journey. Not that you have much of worth to offer up.”

I sat back, defeated and without argument.

Gyah had not given up so easily.

“Take me to her,” Gyah demanded through gritted teeth.

“Why?” He scowled, long fingers flexing at his sides. “Don’t you trust my hospitality?”

“No. Surprisingly, we don’t,” I replied.

“Well, I don’t particularly trust you either. So, I regret to admit that we have something in common. Even if that thought alone makes me wish to scrub boiling oil across my body just to clean it.”

That comment caused the two Hunters behind him to snigger, looking at each other like a pair of mischievous cats.

Duncan glanced between us both, grinning slightly when his eyes found Gyah. “You both are going to follow me. In a moment my good friends here are going to unchain you and I trust you will behave. This is no place to act the hero… do you understand? I may be able to control my desires, but I cannot say the same for some of these men and women.”

It irked me that he didn’t refer to me when he spoke. The threat was aimed at Gyah. Duncan knew I needed to get to Lockinge to have an audience with the Hand, although that desire was barely a simmer now. Whereas Gyah would fight tooth and nail to get to Althea and escape if she had the chance.

He saw her as a threat, he saw me as a fool.

“Give me the chance and I will tear your face off.”

Duncan rolled his eyes. “I admire your conviction, but this is my domain, Eldrae , you would be a brave idiot to attack me here. Brave yes, but still an idiot. Do not give my Hunters a reason to cause you pain; it’s taking me enough conviction not to grant it myself.”

“We’ll behave,” I muttered beneath my breath. “As long as you stick to your end of the bargain.”

“You have a lot to learn, boy. I don’t deal in bargains. Why don’t we show you to your accommodation first though, yes? We are going to have plenty of time to speak. By the time we reach Lockinge, I have a feeling we are all going to be very, very close.”

Even with the countless burning hearths and wax-dripping candelabras, Finstock was a cold place. If the damned iron cuff was not on my neck, I might’ve even enjoyed the comfort of the winter, how it seeped into the stone walls and clung to the itchy sheets that were fitted onto the bed before me.

There was no reprieve from the cold here, no place to hide from it.

Gyah paced the flagstone ground before the door, arms crossed, as though she kept them from battering the very walls down. Trust me, she’d already tried. Furniture lay scattered and shattered around the door. “I can’t just sit here and wait for news knowing Althea is left with those twisted bastards. They could be doing anything to her – anything!”

“There is nothing we can do but wait,” I said, hating the truth of my words. “Duncan made it clear. The more we cause a scene, the longer we wait. He is toying with us.”

Gyah sneered in my direction, setting my skin on fire. “Do you mean there is nothing you want to do? You are right where you wanted to be, aren’t you, Robin? In the belly of the enemy all because you had a whimsical thought that they might help you in your quest for blood. Well, look! Blood is what you have got. Althea’s blood.”

“You’re right,” I said, edging back until I was pressed into the bed.

Gyah’s shocked expression suggested she expected an argument from me on the matter. I had no fight left in me.

“Listen, if there is a chance to get to Althea, you must not take it. With or without me. At least, not yet. You saw where we are. How many Hunters are around us. One wrong moveand we may jeopardise what little help they are reluctantly giving Althea. For the meantime, it’s not a risk worth taking.”

“I told her we should not have followed you.” Gyah stopped dead in her tracks, hands reaching for a sword at her waist that was not there. “Althea was adamant, worried about you. See how she thinks of others but you barely spare a thought for anyone but your wants and needs? I told her you need space, but that was not something she was willing to grant you. I have never seen her so concerned. And there was nothing I could have done to convince her otherwise.”

I couldn’t hold Gyah’s scrutinising gaze, opting to look at my scuffed boots instead. “I had no idea.”

“You wouldn’t have. For that you would have had to stop thinking about yourself for a moment to–”

“I get it, Gyah. And I’m sorry, okay? If I could change it, I would. But that isn’t going to get us out of here.” A string in me snapped, one that I had not realised was pulled too tight. “My father was killed before my very eyes by a man I was beginning to let myself love. In the space of weeks, I have gone from believing I had a family to learning that I have no one. You were right, you should not have followed me.”

Hot, sticky tears sliced down my cheeks. They clung to my lashes, soaked my skin, made me reluctant to blink for fear of becoming blinded by sadness.

Gyah just stared at me, standing within the room of minimal comforts that I’d named our prison, a room that’d been bolted and locked from the outside with god knows how many Hunters listening in.

“Say something then!” I pleaded, unable to handle the harsh silence. “Scream at me, tell me what you really think. Go on, I’m all ears, Gyah. There is nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already told myself.”

I flinched as she strode towards me, preparing myself for a grounding slap or punch to the gut. It never came. Instead, arms wrapped around me, pulling me in tight. One long exhale and I practically melted into Gyah’s embrace like ice above an open flame. Her hand found the back of my head where she supported me. Her chin rested upon my shoulder as she, too, exhaled a breath full of heavy emotion. “Robin, I have been unkind with my choice of words.”

“They… they have been justified.”

Gyah squeezed me tighter. “If I am being honest, I’m scared. It is a feeling I am not used to and one that I do not wish to continue experiencing. I fear for Althea, and I fear for you too.”

“I get it.”

I was scared too. Scared to death that my choices would lead to more death. Althea’s life was in the hands of people who paid coin to hunt her kind and that made me feel as though I was stepping across a bed of knives.

Gyah pulled back, holding me at arm’s length as her eyes studied me from top to bottom. “You really want to do this, don’t you?”

She didn’t need to elaborate. I shook my head in refusal. “I needed an army to face the Oakstorm court. But this isn’t the way. I didn’t think, I see that now. The only one I could think that would jump at the concept of killing a fey king was the Hunters.”

“They’re our enemies. King or not, Doran or you. We are all the same in the Hunters’ eyes.” Gyah chewed on her lip, gaze unfocused as she stared at nothing. Her words hurt, because they were true. “But I can see you have made up your mind. You do not want to be helped. So, once Althea is back to me, and the right moment presents itself, we will leave.”

“I know.” Defeat settled in my chest, making me hollow.

Doran had killed my family. I would repay that debt, but not this way.

“What do we do now?” I asked Gyah, feeling as though she was calm enough to think whereas my mind was a storm of guilt and grief.

“First, we get some answers. Anything we learn about this place and the people here may be useful information for when the chance to escape presents itself,” Gyah whispered, eyes wide. “If there is one thing I have learned during my years of training, it is that the art of listening is one of the greatest passive weapons we all have access to.”

“In a twisted way, I’m glad you are with me.” I couldn’t imagine being here alone, knowing Duncan and his Hunters filled the many rooms within the fortress. Part of me could not help but believe the locked door was not only to stop us from leaving, but to prevent unwanted guests from entering.

“As much as I enjoy your company, I admit there are other places I would wish to spend time with you than this.” Gyah looked around the room with a distrusting stare. “We’re not safe here.”

“I was not safe back in Wychwood. Assassins. Monsters. Doran Oakstorm.” Gyah didn’t tell me I was wrong. “What is to say he will not send his pets after me again?”

“Perhaps Doran will, but you were also never alone in Wychwood. If you followed on this path, you would’ve been. It would’ve changed everything, not just with you and Doran, but you and the fey. The people who are going to expect you to be a king and lead. They’ll never follow you if they know you wanted to side with the Hunters.”

She was right. Just the thought of what I’d done twisted my gut into knots, making bile creep up the back of my throat.

I gritted my teeth together, refusing to make comment. Gyah noticed, her shoulders slumping forward as if the weight of disappointment in me was too much to handle.

“Get some rest, Robin,” Gyah said, releasing me and gesturing to the bed with a flick of a finger. “You’ll need it.”

I grunted and smiled, clearing the tears away with the back of my grime-smeared hand. “I don’t mind taking the first watch.”

Gyah simply shook her head in refusal. “I would very much like to be the one to welcome any Hunter who dares visits this room first. So sleep. I promise to behave, for Althea’s sake, not theirs.”