Page 97 of A Bride for the Winter King
Oh for the love of Eros, how many interruptions can one man stand before he goes mad?
“Beth told me Devi was here,” Sara says, scanning the room. “Where’s Lori?”
“Who’s Lori?”
“No one. Shoot the damn arrow,” I clip.
The obvious confusion on Sara’s face quickly switches from surprise to rage. “You still sent her away? After what we learned?” She puts herself between Devi and me to shield me from the arrow.
“Who’s Lori?” Devi repeats, her voice laced with a hint of impatience, and my stomach flips as she lowers her bow.
Sara’s arms fall to her sides. “Lori is Iris’s doppelgänger. And the loophole to Elio’s curse.”
“Is that true?”
“Youthinkshe’s the loophole,” I grumble.
Devi squints at me and slinks closer, graceful as a cat. She takes a good sniff and retreats, her lips curled in a snarl, her wide black pupils swallowing the silver rim of her irises. “You’re in love and you asked me to shoot you anyway? Do you know how dangerous that is? A love arrow isn’t meant to supersede true love.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not—” The untruthful words stick in my throat.
“Hmph.” She raises a perfectly plucked brow. “Who are you kidding?”
Spring folks deal with love arrows, torrid affairs, and silly infatuations every day, but they’re awfully touchy when it comes to true love.
“True love is a fantasy,” I breathe.
“A friend of mine once wrote: True love transcends crowns, blood, and flesh,” Sara declares.
I wince at the quote of my own words, and the dark hole in my chest swells. “The man who wrote that is dead.”
Devi tucks her forbidden arrow back inside her quiver. “Yes, I see that now. If you’re willing to walk away from love, then you’re not the man I thought you were.” With that, the archer presses her mask back upon her face and saunters off through the mirror.
Chapter 39
A Rising Tide
LORI
Seth draws a rune in blood inside his palm to open the way to his mother’s prison. I watch as he presses his hand flat to the pliable glass on our side of the sceawere, a spell clearly barring the way for anyone to enter that doesn’t know the secret code—or possess the right pedigree.
Given the fact that Seth doesn’t ask me to close my eyes, I figure it’s the latter.
Considering Spring’s acrimonious relationship with the Shadowlands, it’s not surprising that they would take measures to prevent the Shadow King and his kin, along with the other high-born Fae who’ve been taught the ways of the sceawere, to walk in and out of their kingdom at will.
While runes serve as ever-changing addresses for the millions of mirrors peppered across the worlds, it’s very difficult for a traveler to find a place he’s never visited. And in this case, if someone managed to get to this mirror by design or chance, he simply wouldn’t be able to walk through the glass.
Seth lowers his voice to a mere whisper. “The guard is an old friend of mine. We have maybe twenty minutes before her shiftends, and whatever happens, she can’t know you’re here.” He points toward the corridor to our right and draws a timer rune over my arm, the clock set to fifteen minutes. “I’ll make sure she’s too occupied to bother with her last round and meet you back here.”
With a rogue grin, Seth follows the path of bright torches on the left, and I wrap myself up in shadows. The mirror behind us is warded with a set of golden-leafed runes, confirming my hunch that even Damian wouldn’t be able to enter this prison.
The ancient stones of the Secret Springs stronghold have been weathered by centuries of time. Moss creeps between the cracks, the murky air embalmed with pungent fragrances of mildew, overturned earth, and urine.
At the end of the hallway, a long, seemingly endless, corridor spreads on both sides. Doors of rowan wood, each with small, iron-barred windows, are set at regular intervals, all identical. There’s simply too many of them to quietly look inside each one, but the low sound of water churning and frothing lures me to the northern side of the prison.
The stories my mother told about her time in captivity, with only the heavy rumble of the waterfall for comfort, are still fresh in my memory. If she knew her precious son had ended up in that place too… she would have been heartbroken.
After a dozen doors, cold sweat pearls above my brows, and I let my shadow cloak fall. “Foxtail? It’s me.”
