Page 30 of Fae Exile

“I will,” Reed said without turning, pushing his torch at an umbrac that was undulating more than the rest. “I’ll fight for you and your family.”

“As will I,” Roan said. “I know what it’s like to be underestimated and dismissed just because of what you’re like.”

“None of us are going to be fighting anyone if we don’t get out of here alive,” Finnian said. “Elowyn, your power, can you increase it?”

“I damn well hope so, because we’re all getting out of here in one piece.” I kissed the dragonling on the nose. “Saffron, you need to go with Pru now. I need to kick some motherfucking ass.”

12.AS LONG AS WE HAVE A CHANCE

~ RUSH ~

My fingers curled around a bar of Gadiel’s cell as I leaned back to examine the damp stone wall beside Hiroshi, Ryder, West, and me. “What kind of illusion’s on it?” I asked the man on the wrong side of the cage.

The former visdrake, his title now stripped of him, sat on the dank floor and leaned against the same wall. There was no furniture within the shadowed depths of his prison, no bed to soften the endless hours, no commode to preserve his tenuous dignity.

The man my brothers and I considered a comrade, if not an outright friend, rose stiffly from the floor and walked toward us. From his gait alone, I would have guessed he was hundreds of years old. He was about my age, if not younger than my eighty years.

“What kind of illusion?” he repeated, his question rough like a dull saw struggling to make it through wood. Last I’d seen him, his voice had been as melodic as a well-tuned lute. “No doubt, the absolute worst kind.She’s behind it.”

“And everything she does is awful,” Ryder said, his comment both obvious and distracted sounding. Like me, I imagined he was focused on not reacting both to the sight and stench ofthe man who’d once been agile, strong, handsome, and elegant. Gadiel used to exude confidence.

His long hair hung in limp, greasy braids around his face, which had grown gaunt in the weeks since he’d fought in the Gladius Probatio. His eyes had lost all their shine, now dark and haunted.

“Man, we’re so fucking sorry we had any part in putting you here,” Ryder told him.

I thought Gadiel attempted a sad smile, but it came off as a pained grimace around his cracked and bleeding lips. “Like I told Rush, it’s all right. We do what we have to do.”

West pressed himself flush to the bars, lowering his voice so there’d be no chance of it being overheard. “If we’d known you were down to fight, we would’ve wanted to work with you. We’ve been trying to take her down for years.”

Hiroshi nodded. “We’re finally close.” His usually calm, unperturbed expression tightened. “Or closer anyhow.”

“We had to apprehend you so she wouldn’t suspect,” West breathed.

Gadiel looked across the four of us, meeting my stare the longest. “I guessed as much.”

“You did? How?” Ryder asked sharply.

We were all too aware the queen probably only believed part of our act. But we needed her to keep thinking she had us in her thrall for as long as possible, that whatever control she had over us was enough so she wouldn’t attempt to exert more.

Gadiel shrugged and laughed morosely. “I know you all too well. And regrettably”—he clenched his jaw, and with how thin his face had become, it stood out like the edge of a knife—“I know her too well also.”

“Shedid this to you?” I asked, taking in the many lacerations that marred his body and the many more gaping slices in thefabric of his tunic and britches, where he likely had already healed. A large bloodstain colored the entire front of his shirt.

One of his eyelids drooped, and when he chortled bitterly, I noticed two teeth missing. Those would take months to regrow.

“Of course she didn’t, but she watched some of the time. Ivar had a go at me.” Absently, he rubbed a hand gingerly across the area of his abdomen, as if even that light touch hurt.

Ivar had launched himself between Gadiel’s arrow and its intended target. He would have made Gadiel pay not only for attempting to murder the queen, but also for the arrow to the heart he’d taken in her stead.

“What Braque does is the worst though.” Gadiel’s eyes glistened as they held mine. “He forces a potion on me that slows my healing.”

Hiroshi gasped.

“I feel everything they do to me all day and night long. I heal no faster than a human now.”

“By the Ethers...” Hiroshi whispered.

Still staring at me, as if reaching through my body to touch my essence, Gadiel implored, his voice steadier than it had been so far: “No matter what, don’t let them catch you. Don’t let her send you here. The pygmy ogres think what they do isfun.” Tears welled along the bottom rim of his eyes but didn’t fall.

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