Page 70 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

“What is the point of all this?” I allowed any semblance of politeness to drop. “I am not to blame for your son’s stubbornness.”

“We’ll see about that.” She stopped moving and turned to the guards. “Please escort Miss Cruinn to her cell.”

“Cell?” I kicked my legs and pushed my body backward, but the guards moved quickly and were at my side instantly. “What’s happening? You can’t do this. I’m not a prisoner!” They gripped my arms, and I could not stop the flurry of images that crossed my vision. Memories of my uncle’s guard’s grabbing me and dragging me to the tower—to the pain of the High Throne.

“Please!” I called out, my feet catching on the stones as I tried anything to halt the guards from taking me away. “Shay!” I screamed. “Rainn!”

No one came. The courtiers in the corner, a tittering audience, watched with glee. I wrenched my neck as I tried to turn back to Lady Bloodtide, but the guards had a sure grip, and I was out of the doors in moments.

“Tormalugh!” I shrieked, squirming and kicking out as the guards continued to drag me down the hallway. “ANYBODY!”

No one came to my rescue when I was dragged down to the castle’s lower levels. The walls were carved into the bedrock of the lake itself. Cold, and without even a flicker of light. The lake felt strange—the water was too heavy, and every breath hurt my throat as I was carried to the dungeon by two guards with tridents on their backs and helmets covering their faces.

We descended the steps, and I found that my chest would not expand all of the way when I took a breath. I gagged, hunched over—but the guards didn’t stop; they just pulled me forward.

One of the guards lit a faelight torch, bright enough to show a few steps in front of us. The light caught a shimmering vein in the wall—iron. The stone was saturated with it, poisoning the water around us.

I wasn’t sure if iron affected merfolk as it did the undine, but I quickly realized why I felt so sick and weak. It stood to reason that a dungeon would use any manner at its disposal to ensure that the prisoners stayed too weak to attempt escape.

I shuddered and looked to the ceiling, praying to Belisama that someone would save me.

I’d told them. I’d said the merfolk would find a way to blame me, and they did.

I should have escaped when I had the chance, I groused.I should have let Cormac Illfin die.

He saved you,another voice inside of me argued.

From his own soldier?I scoffed at my conflicted thoughts.

Another voice piped up, a male one this time.Judge a fae by the measure of his own actions, not by the actions of others. We can only control whatwedo. No matter how many orders you give a soldier, the final decision will always rest with the man holding the sword.

The voice rang in my ears as if he had been speaking directly into my brain. I shook my head to clear it, wondering where my mind had conjured up such a philosophy. The voice certainly didn’t belong to any males I had met before.

Once we reached the bottom of the steps, we were confronted by a wall of iron bars. My headache intensified. I was close enough to the surrounded water that my skin prickled and burned. Every instinct screamed to swim as far and fast as possible from the iron in the water.

The guards waited silently as if they had made the journey hundreds of times before, and the iron didn’t bother them. A long moment passed, and then another before someone emerged from the darkness on the other side. A grizzled merman, with several scales missing and a scar that ran from his hip to his fin. His eyes were cold and cruel, and his lips were bared in a snarl that showed he was missing a canine.

“This the whelp?” the merman on the other side of the bars grunted.

“This one’s for you, Jitney. Try to keep her in one piece,” one of the guards spoke.

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Jitney, the merman, muttered. “I’ll try and keep her out of Eldun’s clutches for as long as I can, but he’s got a taste for blood and Lady Bloodtide’s ear. There isn’t much I can do if he takes a shine to her.” Jitney removed a bulky iron key from his belt and unlocked the door. Even in the water, the iron creaked as the door swung open against the rest of the bars.

“Lady Bloodtide said she is to be untouched,” one of my guards reiterated.

“Then the lady should learn to reign in her pet torturer,” Jitney snapped. “Come on, whelp. Got to get ya to ya cell.”

I glanced at the guards before swimming forward, a hiss of pain passing through my teeth as my arm brushed the iron bars. My breath was stolen from my lungs, and my head spun as if caught in a whirlpool. I tried not to show how sick I felt, but I wasn’t sure how successful I was.

As if the merman was aware of my pain and found it amusing, he tittered a laugh as he glanced down at my now blistering arm.

“Don’t get a lot of undine down here,” the merman commented lightly as he closed the door behind me and locked it.

“Why?” I sneered. “Not enough beds?”

Jitney ignored my sarcasm. “Lady Bloodtide doesn’t suffer fools. She rarely gives punishments, favoring execution instead,” he noted as if he was talking about the weather. “There must be something interesting about you. I’m sure the torturer’s chair will find your secrets soon enough.”

“The torturer’s chair?” I wheezed.

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