Page 41 of Prince of Ruin

“What the fuck?” My voice is damn near hysterical now, and I don’t even care.

“Remember Weaver?” Tarsus asks, gesturing toward the hairy black and gold tarantula.

I almost laugh. “The thing that ate my dragon.”

“Oh my god. For the last time. She did noteatyourwyvern.”

“Oh. Okay.” I swear I’m about to piss my pants when the thing scurries toward me, stopping just behind one of the guards who has me trapped in their circle.

“Do you remember her?” Tarsus asks again. “Besides seeing her on the battlefield?”

My tongue darts out to wet my lips. “Am I supposed to remember her?” My question isn’t meant to sound sarcastic. What I mean is, if I’m supposed to remember her in order to live, then fuck yes I’ll make myself remember her. But my question comes out sounding more condescending than anything, and it makes Tarsus stand from their throne in obvious anger.

“Well. She damn well remembers you. It was you who chopped off one of her limbs.”

I flinch. “I must have been a real bastard.” My hands are sweating at my sides.

They chuckle and shake their head. “The worst bastard.”

Laughter ripples through the room. My face heats up, panic clawing out of my throat.

Tarsus gestures toward one of the guards. “Ulna, you know what to do.”

The tall, muscular guard standing between me and the harry spider glares at me. At least she’s standing close enough that I can see her expression, though I wish I didn’t. Her stone-cold glare is chilling enough to turn my blood to ice. Her white hair is cropped short. She could easily snap my body in two with one hand.

“With pleasure,” she sneers.

Her hands tighten around her axe. The crowd roars with cheers as Ulna leads me up a flight of stairs. Mugs are crashed together in salute before they guzzle the drink down, then slam the mugs back onto the table. Whatever fun they plan to have with me only makes the atmosphere more chaotic.

Ulna guides me up the marble steps to a balcony that runs the circumference of the hall, Weaver scuttling at her heels. Below, servants are pouring into the hall, refilling beer mugs. I cast one more pleading look at Tarsus, but the prick only lifts their mug in salute, before drinking deeply.

“Weaver is a friendly arachnid,” Tarsus shouts, their voice echoing through the obsidian hall and silencing the cheers and hollers. “But she’s highly attracted to things that run. As in, she dives straight into kill mode. I will give you a head start, and at my signal, she will chase you down.”

And what?I wonder. Suck me dry? Spin me into a coma like Frodo? My breaths come in shortspurts. Ulna releases me, and I glance Tarsus pleadingly, but they must really, truly hate me because they only laugh and say, “You’d better get a move on, Sovereign Clavicle, because Weaver has been waiting for thisday fordecades.”

Aden

I’m barely breathing as I watch Clavicle mount the steps to the balcony that runs the perimeter of the banquet hall. We don’t usually use it for sick games like this, but, well, we don’t often run into some evil king who seeks to destroy us, either.

The point in this exercise is not to kill Clav, but to scare the shit out of him. To show him who holds the power here. Once he realizes his life is at our mercy, he’ll agree to meet with Mother Terra the way Sovereign Wolfsbane did. But unlike Wolfsbane, hopefully Mother Terra will grant Clav’s request. Spine Fae have a closer tie with the dark side of Mother Terra, According to Tarsus, and the hope is that Clav could talk some sense into the Great Mother of this realm, convincing her to stop her hunger for human blood. Convincing her to spareme.

It’s not like she needs human blood, after all. It’s just that she’s a petty goddess who demands fae loyalty above everything else. Since both Tarsus andWolfsbane have grown close to me, then I’m the one Mother Terra wants. She desires proof that they would choose her over their lovers and family.

It’s because Clavicle is here now that I’m still alive. I desperately need him to be afraid of us enough to decide to work for us.

Clav reaches the top of the marble stairwell and looks back at us again, though it’s clear he can’t quite focus on either of our faces. It was my idea to take his glasses away. I’d told Tarsus that if he’s really lying, he won’t even notice his glasses gone when he awoke in our presence. While it’s clear he can’t see well without his glasses, though, it doesn’t really mean anything. He is stuck in a human body, after all, with human weaknesses. That doesn’t mean the ruthless Clavicle isn’t in there, plotting away.

“Ready?” Tarsus snaps beside me, making evenmeflinch. I’m used to Tarsus’ quiet demeanor, their gentleness, but having their lover-turned-enemy around must really put them in a bad mood because they’ve been damn-near insufferable since they first set eyes on Clav. “Set,” Tarsus says, and my back tenses as I stand, fiddle in hand, and position it on my shoulder. “Go!”

Clavicle breaks into a run. He’s tall and slender and fast, I have to give him that. But he’s not fast enough to outrun Weaver. And as much as the human part of me feels for Clavicle’s mortality in this cruel fae world, I remind myself what he’s capable of, whata threat he is to me and my people. He did, after all, lead the bat colony into battle. What human without his memories would march into battle with bat-folk? Not to mention the way he pinned me down the night we fucked. It’s clear he remembers everything and is simply a great actor. Me? Gullible as fuck.

With my fiddle in hand, I stand and drag my bow across the taut strings. As I play, I remind myself of his fury when he pinned me to the bed, a murderous look in his eyes. I don’t even want to think about what he would have done to me if Tarsus hadn’t come to my rescue.

But now I’m the one with the power here. Tarsus gave me the choice of how to punish Clav, and gave me the power to stop it if I changed my mind. Clavicle is nothing more than a selfish, manipulative liar. And while we won’t let him die tonight, I sure as hell want to see him suffer.

As I drag the bow across the fiddle strings, I can feel a bit of that Shadow magic that seeped into the fiddle from Wolfsbane when they found their own Shadow magic. We were invincible together on the battlefield against the Solar Fae. The Shadow magic never did leave me when I said goodbye to Wolf. Instead, much to Tarsus’ dismay, it caressed my mortal soul in its black tendrils, promising power.

As the black smoke curls around the strings now, Tarsus opens their mouth and begins to sing the fae bard they wrote for this very moment.

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