Page 98 of A Bride for the Winter King
My call reverberates along the claustrophobic walls.“Leave this place…”the night whispers,“while you still can.”
“Hello?”
Faint footsteps echo through a few chambers, accompanied by the slow creak of chains dragging over stones. I catch a glimpse of long canines and black scales in the cell closest to me and grip my daggers tightly, my heart pounding.
“Foxtail?” I repeat, a bit louder and with more confidence, acutely aware that time is slipping away.
A rat scurries down the hallway.
“Nightshade?”
My boots thud along the long corridor until I reach the correct cell, where my brother’s fingers are visible between the iron bars. “Foxtail!” I gasp, reaching for him.
Clammy fingers hook around mine, the space between the bars not wide enough for his entire hand to pass through, but my heart swells at the contact. I haven’t seen him in almost a year, back when he formally decided to train as an arrow carver.
His hair has been buzzed off, his prisoner jumpsuit leaving his tattooed arms bare. Red, yellow, and blue patterns now cover his forearms, most of them new. Textured white scars streak along his neck and arms, the tattoos filling up the space between the marks, and I’m taken aback by the heavy muscles he’s developed during our time apart.
“Oh, Foxtail. How did you end up here?”
He grins from ear to ear, his character unchanged despite his appearance. “Have you come to scold me or break me out?”
“Neither—” My fingers clench around his. “I got your sentence reprieved, but they’re transferring you to Murkwood.”
The joy on his face vanishes. “So instead of being executed, I’ll waste away for decades? No one comes out of Murkwood alive, sis,” he says in a scalding tone.
“Why would they send you there in the first place? It’s a Summerlands prison.”
Guilt flickers in and out on his face. His lips part like he's about to offer an explanation, but his features twist into a scowl.
“By Morpheus… you really carved a forbidden arrow.How?Freya herself isn’t capable of sharpening them enough to pierce a Fae’s heart.”
“It’s not that hard.” He gives me the kind of nonchalant shrug that makes me want to strangle him. “With the right tools.”
“You cocky bastard.” I curl my fingers around the iron bars, testing their strength, but the metal doesn’t budge. “Do you even know who it was for?”
Ayaan swats my question away with an awkward wave. “Oh, some spoiled Summer prince.”
“The crown prince?” My eyes narrow, his evasiveness only sharpening my suspicions. “Was it the crown prince, Ayaan?”
“It might have been the crown prince.”
“I will kill you myself! Who have you been associating with? Mom’s old friends? She fled to the new world for a reason. You can’t trust these people—” I press my lips together. My outcry sparked a multitude of footsteps in the neighboring cells, and I force a deep, cleansing breath down my lungs.
“What about you? Did you really enter the Yule pageant?” Ayaan asks, and the unspoken judgment in his voice irks me more than if he’d called me a whore to my face.
“How do you think I saved your sorry ass from being hanged?” I snap.
“I never asked you to do that.”
I arch a brow that says,Are you fucking serious right now?
Ayaan crosses his arms, the red and blue shapes of his tattoos forming the silhouette of a crab over his chest. “Excuse me for not celebrating the fact that I’m about to be transferred to the worse prison in Faerie, when I know my friends will die thinking I betrayed them.” He shakes his head. “Seth Devine might be a weed, but he’s still one of them. Don’t tell me you slept with that sly prince?—”
“Who I sleep with is none of your business.” I study the inked patterns, the crab flanked by a roaring wave.
Ayaan angles his gaze to the sky like I’m the unreasonable one, unaware of my sudden interest for his tattoos. “Thank Eros… You’re out of Wintermere, now.”
I know my brother like the back of my hand, and his apparent relief, along with the peculiar new ink, starts to form dangerous puzzle pieces. Old memories of the crab pendant lying at the bottom of my mother’s jewelry box flash into my mind, and Elio’s stern voice echoes in my ears.For centuries, their followers have been scuttling about the realm in their name.
