Page 14 of Bound in Violet Ink
A true prison.
There’s an undeniable elegance in this monstrosity that all the Seelie courts send their unwanted prisoners, and yet it’s completely worn down with time and misery. After crossing through the courtyard, the double doors open like an opening to a void. Walking through the front entry, there’s a moisture in the air from the drizzling rain, one that makes everything about this place that much more miserable.
My eyes seem to adjust quicker than the rest, spotting a few duskborn near a corner, lingering just beyond the reach of the light. Silent. Watchful. As we make our way through, I notice some sit like gargoyles with gleaming eyes. Not with madness. No, that would be too typical of stories we tell children. This is calculation. Recognition. A knowingness that makes my skin itch, like they’re aware I come from the place they serve, andloathe. It’s hard to peel my eyes away when I hear about them all the time, the creatures bred by the Seelies to hunt down the Unseelie in their own land.
They’re sotalland thick with muscle, their silvery hair almost silken. Their angles are sharper, and so are their fangs. Their breed is said to be bred and born all in complete darkness within the systems of caves that require blood offerings fromthe Seelie. The ones at the Carrows are bred in the very caverns of this place, taking advantage of their fiercely protective nature over their homeland.
Perfect guards that can catch any escapee.
If any part of this goes poorly, I’m truly and dearly fucked.
So why does that not terrify me?
We advance deeper into this place, guided by a Seelie guard, my wool cloak still covered in small droplets of water. Even the wax of the candles is made with a darker color. It’s so quiet that our footsteps echo throughout until I can hear the clamor of inmates.
Focus.
It’stheirpresence that makes me anxious. The idea that I survived Silas all these years, only to meet my death at the hands of people inside of here that spins so much bitter resentment in my stomach.
What am I to do here? Heal Kane and leave to see who my next suitor is before Faust gets hold of me? It seems like Silas doesn’t trust me with the next suitor and is skipping right to the twisted one. And yet, I already know my answer. Kane wants me for one reason or another, but if he can secure my freedom, I don’t care what I have to do.
Lean into that.
We may have had a momentary sense of fun, but giving him my concern seems entirely unwarranted. It’s no longer something to get me through the days. Interacting with him will break any illusion of safety I had, and if Silas is telling the truth, then I need to be as cunning as all these puppeteers who think I’m still affixed to strings.
The corridor narrows, stone arching overhead like a closing throat. Iron sconces flicker low with golden flames, casting shadows that crawl and slither along the walls like they know Ishouldn’t be here. The further I walk, the more the air thickens. Not just with cold, but with…presence.
I start to feel it before I see them—his people.
Can Isensethe Unseelie?
The prison has many cells, some of which are large and dark, with people chained to corners. Then there are those that are isolated, but still held behind iron bars. Some only have doors, and sometimes I even see the cells that are wooden coverings in a hole in the floor.
When we pass a particularly large collection of people who are all living within the same confined space, one of them leans slightly forward, a grin spreading far too slowly across his face. His teeth are bloodstained, and hesniffsthe air. “She smells like warmth,” he murmurs to no one, to everyone. “That won’t last.”
I don’t flinch. Iwon’t.
Another one, massive and tattooed, slams a fist against the bars, the metal ringing out like a funeral bell. “Oh, we’lleatthat softness right off your bones.”
The guard that guides me stiffens but keeps walking. And it’s the way none of them seem shocked that gives me deep worry. It feels orchestrated.
Like I’m being escorted as a sacrifice to the altar.
The only thing I can’t control is my rapid breathing, something I hope is well hidden behind a stolid visage.
The only bit of sanity remaining is when we pass a giant archway that reveals the library I’ve heard so many stories of. So far, it’s the only place that’s offered any natural light. Being greeted by the sun after passing through such darkness is, admittedly, a humbling experience.
It doesn’t last for long as we round another corner, the sunlight even more prominent through aged, foggy windows that reveal a massive courtyard where people are training andfighting. “Dothosemen have better behavior?” I ask, the sunlight almost like protection, giving me a semblance of calm.
“I wouldn’t assume that at all,” the guard says. “The one who offered to eat your flesh had just come in from the courtyard.”
“Oh.”
Okay, so not a single inch of this place is to be trusted.
The narrow tunnels consume us once more until dumping us out into a mezzanine with a large, circular hole in the ceiling for sunlight, a built-in dirty pond below where water drips down.
It’sthenthat I catch the faintest scent of Kane, so small it’s like passing a vase of fresh flowers, but I’m not sure where it comes from.
