Page 60 of Blackwarden
Keres
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I honestly assumed Bevgyah would leave me chained up in my room until the next revel. I’d broken all her rules and intended to break a few more as soon as I was physically able. After she’d pulled me down and had her way with me, she’d left me sprawled out on the floor with my wrists still shackled. I was too exhausted to move when a guard came and finally released me. At some point I’d managed to drag myself to my bed, but a sick feeling had settled in my stomach and made it impossible for me to rest.
I thought I could endure, but I couldn’t. My heart had woven so tightly around Rosalin, I couldn’t bear to see her suffer. Her hands on my body when she’d kissed me branded my soul with certainty. I had to find a way to get her out of here, and I was more than willing to die to do it.
Rolling out of bed, I held on to the canopy post for balance as I stood straight, tucking my wings against my back. Every inch of my body ached from standing in chains for twenty-four hours. The bruises around my wrists were beginning to fade, but the pain penetrated deep into my bones.
This curse kept me from taking Rosalin back through the portal, but there had to be another way to get her out of the Unseelie Court. I needed to continue distracting Bevgyah until I figured it out. And I needed to do it fast because I was running out of time to request my sentence be changed. Once Rosalin was safe, I could remind the Hag Queen of the loophole, and once I was dead, my hope was Bevgyah would lose interest in Rosalin. This was all I could do for her now. If only I had full use of my shadows, but I’d failed to figure out how to break the curse, and I was truly worthless as the queen’s Blackwarden.
I trudged down the hall toward the Hag’s suite in nothing but pants. I didn’t bother getting completely dressed. She’d want me naked anyway. If I was lucky, she’d be readying herself to wander down to her harem. She’d barred me from entering there until further notice, and after the years of enduring her punishments, I knew I had little hope of forcing my way.
I didn’t knock. I barged in, half expecting to find her in the middle of some nefarious entertainment. Instead, my heart plummeted into my stomach. A pale human girl had been shackled up in Bevgyah’s room. One with very familiar brown hair. I had a perfect view of her bare back, ligature bruising around her thighs and ankles. I sucked in a breath, trying to control the shadows building around me as my fury ignited.
A sob escaped Rosalin as she wriggled in an attempt to look behind her and see who’d just entered. “Please, Majesty,” she whimpered as she shifted her weight. “No more. I beg you.”
“Don’t move,” I said, rage dripping from my voice. This was my fault. I was the idiot who had confessed to loving Rosalin knowing Bevgyah would retaliate. I was responsible for every scrap of Rosalin’s punishment. Every bruise, every pain she felt. Something raw and terrible cracked open inside me as I took each step closer.
I reached up and fumbled with the shackles at her wrists. I’d need a key. A sob escaped her as I started throwing open drawers in a mad attempt to find some way to get her down. There wasnothing. I turned back to her, anger and fear vibrating through me in a strange mix as she hung there, naked and broken. I’d have to try and use my magic, what pathetic slivers of it I could manipulate.
She watched me with weary eyes as I stepped closer. Without thinking, I reached for her face. She flinched at my touch, and I cursed myself. Bevgyah had likely done more than siphon her. I’d been abused by the Hag for hundreds of years. I would have flinched too if I didn’t know what was going on.
“I’m sorry,” she said, another tear gliding down her cheek.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” I closed my eyes, begging my shadows for help. If the Mother abandoned me entirely after, I’d accept my fate.
Here in the Unseelie Court, so close to Bevgyah, what little magic I had was unpredictable and hard to control. She’d done such a good job of twisting my shadows around her own magic, they were nearly worthless to me, other than for opening the portal.
But I had to try.
I focused on the locks at Rosalin’s wrists. I was familiar with these shackles. They’d been around my own wrists earlier in the day. Taking a deep breath, I reached with my mind, hoping my shadows would follow, willing them to turn the tumblers in the locks. I hadn’t attempted anything like this in ages, but I was desperate. It had to work because I had to get Rosalin down.
There was no other option. I had to save her.
Seconds slipped by as I focused. It was taking too long, and I worried Bevgyah would come barging in at any moment. I was too busy focusing on the locks to pay attention to any emotions other than Rosalin’s hope that radiated out from her like a beacon. She had far more faith in me than I had in myself.
She was silent, her soft breaths calm as they caressed my shoulder. I wanted to open my eyes, to hold her, to close the distance between my lips and hers, but I needed tofocus.Another moment, and I heard the unmistakable click of a lock then reached up topull one of her wrists free. She clung to me as I switched my focus to the other shackle.
When the second lock clicked open, I pulled her against me, holding her weight entirely. I was scared I’d hurt her if I touched her in the wrong places, but she didn’t shy away, wrapping her arms over my shoulders and clinging to me as she trembled in fear. When she finally stood on both feet, she swayed from the effort. Worried she wasn’t strong enough to stand on her own, I swept her into my arms.
“I’ve got you,” I said as I set her on the bed and took her face in my hands.
She avoided my gaze as I looked her over for injuries. Her eyes were hollow and lined with dark circles, lips deathly pale. Her usually rosy cheeks had been reduced to a sickly pallor. They were all signs of being heavily siphoned.
“Are you hurt?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. I could feel her despair, her shame. She was trying to disappear from what Bevgyah had done to her. Horrible embarrassing things. But I just needed to know that she would be okay.
“Please, Rosalin. Talk to me.”
She looked at me with wide eyes. My own growing round. I blinked hard a few times as if clearing my mind from a dream.
How had I been able to speak her name? The curse had kept me from saying it out loud since coming to the Unseelie Court.
“What did you call me?”
Chapter 31 ~ Hag’s Heart
