Page 105 of Crown of Roses
Maeve’s breath hitched when he rounded the cell and came up behind her. She could sense him standing there, debating on how best to torture her.
“It’ll only hurt for a minute.” His low, mocking laugh whispered along her neck and she recoiled. “And then, you won’t feel anything at all.”
There was no time to react. White-hot heat seared her tethered hands and a scream ripped free from the barest part of her soul. Her skin was on fire. Burning. Melting. The stench of charred flesh, singed hair, and dissolving metal left her gagging, choking, as scream after harrowing scream scalded her throat. Broken sobs erupted from a place inside her she didn’t even know existed. Her mind begged for death, for this to be her end. Curls of black smoke filled the cell, and nausea swept through her. The pain was too much, the agony was too insufferable. Shadows crashed across her vision, slammed into her, and ate away at her consciousness, until the torment became more than she could endure.
With one fitful, fleeting cry, Maeve went under. Everything around her gave way to the darkness and she felt nothing.
Maeve groaned.
A thousand needles were prodding at her skin, their uncomfortable poking urging her awake. She rolled onto her back and dragged her eyes open, seeing nothing but rocky walls lurching up on both sides and above her. The cell.
She jolted upright and her senses exploded. Her movements were too quick and she lurched to one side, nearly face-planting on the thatch of hay she’d slept on. Her hands slid against the ground and she caught herself before her chin hit the floor. Then she noticed her wrists. Her cuffs were gone, but her skin was flawless. There was no sign of burned flesh or melted silver. The skin beneath her cuffs was perfectly normal. A little pink near her wrists, but normal. Her blood rushed freely, and the magic she’d come to know that was once so dull and distant, now thrived inside her. The vibrancy of it stole her breath. She was wild. And pure.
And fae.
“You’re awake.”
Maeve’s gaze darted to the door of her cell, and there stood Casimir. “You’re alive.”
“I’m alive.” His hood was pulled back, revealing his crop of rich brown hair, and his dark amber eyes skimmed her, hovering over every inch of her. He held a silver cup in his hands, and every so often he’d look down into the contents, then back to her. He tilted his head. “How are you feeling?”
“Exposed.” It seemed like the only logical explanation. The magic flowing through her was unencumbered, and every sensation, every thought and feeling, seemed heightened by it. She glanced at the cup in his hand. “Thirsty.”
“Here, drink this.” The corner of his mouth quirked, but it wasn’t a full smile. He reached through the bars and handed the cup to her. “It should help a little.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip and grimaced. It was bitter and smelled faintly of an overly steeped tea. Taste-wise it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. Turmeric and ginger melded together on her tongue, and she downed the rest of the lukewarm liquid quickly, then passed the cup back to him. “It doesn’t taste the best.”
“No, it’s nothing like your favorite coffee.” Casimir dropped down onto the damp stone floor and stretched his legs out. “But it’ll help keep you calm, if you start feeling like you might spiral out of control.”
Spiral out of control? “Why would I do that?”
He sighed, and it was the sound of a man who’d been broken so many times, he no longer knew what it felt like to be whole. “Because of what I’m about to tell you.”
“Cas, what are you talking about?” Her fingers curled around the metal bars and she searched his face, looking for any tell, any fracture that would help her understand what was happening. “Aren’t you here to rescue me?”
His head dropped back against the wall outside her cell and he folded his hands in his lap. “I was afraid you’d ask me that.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.” A bubble of paranoia rose up inside her, and her magic stirred. Sparkling and vivid. But the herbal tea he’d given her, whatever was in it, had already started working. Her blood calmed, her mind ceased its endless barrage of questions, and she simply plopped down onto the cold stone next to him. The bars supported most of her weight and she found her gaze drawn to the puddle of the same unrecognizable substance from before.
“Let me tell you a story, Maeve. A story about a warrior who’d seen too much in his youth. Who wanted to end his life…until a beautiful faerie princess found him and saved him.” Casimir’s voice was steady and even, a methodic lullaby, rising to meet every cadence. And Maeve found herself enthralled with the tale he wove. “This faerie princess took him to the safety of her home, and soon enough, they fell in love.”
Maeve nodded, and her body relaxed into itself. “That sounds terribly romantic.”
Casimir scoffed, but it wasn’t unkind. “So you would think. But then one day war came to the fae realm, and this warrior, he fought endlessly for his princess. But her father was greedy, and craved power, and so the greed spread like a disease and it claimed the warrior’s true love as well.”
Maeve rubbed her hands along her leggings. An invisible ridge covered part of her thigh, a slight glimmer and shifting play of the light. It was her Aurastone, but it was glamoured. She stared down at it, her curiosity piqued. When had her Aurastone been glamoured? “How unfortunate.”
“Indeed.” Cas turned to the side and when the faint glow of amber faerie lights fell across him, she could finally see his face. It was drawn, pulled down with exhaustion. A kind of sadness haunted his eyes, and the coldness, the deadly accuracy from before, was gone. “But the warrior didn’t give up on her. He fought her battles, all of them. He used the fullest extent of his power, shape-shifting into that of a dragon to wreck worlds for her. Then one day he realized, maybe it was his own magic the princess desired. He convinced himself she would come around, that she would overcome this desperate craving for more, if he could simply get her to see the truth of his heart. And then a plague spread across the realm.”
She was tracing one finger over the glamoured Aurastone when her body went entirely still. While the tea kept her emotions and reactions calm, it was no match for her mind. Something about this story was painfully familiar, a memory she didn’t want to relive, from a time she’d forgotten. “Cas…”
But he continued on like she hadn’t spoken. “The sorceress who ruled the spreading darkness claimed love always conquered. If the warrior chose to remain in his mortal form for eternity, it would remove the temptation of his endless power, and his princess would be saved from that which would eventually destroy her. The sorceress would bind his soul to her and in return, she would bind him in his mortal, human form. It sounded too good to be true, because it was. You see, the faerie princess was too far gone for redemption.”
“No.” The whisper scraped through the air between them and Maeve’s mouth ran as dry as a stream without rain. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be saying what she was hearing. Not Casimir. Not him. She’d known him all of her life. She’d trusted him since the day she was born. For years, he’d been her friend, her constant ally. Her protector and guardian. “Tell me it’s not true, Casimir. Tell me it’s not her.”
His eyes were lost, focused on a memory she couldn’t see. “One day, the faerie princess became so obsessed with enhancing her abilities and magic, that she killed her own mother. And as punishment, the gift of the anam ó Danua was ripped from her. Her power was seized by force. The goddess Danua graced all of Faeven with her presence, and she rid the realm of the horrors brought on by the wicked sorceress Carman. And when Danua banished Carman to the mortal realm, the warrior—soul-bound by an oath—went with her, leaving his true love behind.”
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be…she would’ve known. Wouldn’t she? She sank into the bars supporting her, while her mind tried desperately to piece together the puzzle pieces Casimir tossed her way. He was the warrior, the one who’d traded his soul in exchange for the ability to remain in his mortal form for eternity, in an effort to save Parisa from her power-crazed madness. But he’d failed, because he wasn’t enough. He was in love with her, but his love wasn’t enough to save her, to help her see past the thirst for more control. Maeve sucked in a breath but it was mildewy, and tinged with lingering smoke. Casimir and Parisa. Parisa and Casimir. All this time, all these years. She’d placed her trust in him. Fully and completely. He’d taught her, molded her into a formidable weapon, albeit one who loved books. But she knew him. Though now, it seemed, she knew nothing about him at all.
