Page 4 of Wings of Ash & Flame
The second guard’s fist connected with her temple.
Alaire swayed, the world tilting as her knees buckled. She fought to stay conscious, but darkness crept in. The guard’s voicewas the last thing she heard, a vicious promise that followed her into oblivion.
“You should have stayed away.”
A bitter thought echoed in her last fleeting moment of consciousness:I should have stayed away. But I couldn’t.
Two
At twenty-five, Alaire’s future stretched long and miserable ahead of her: a life sentence in Grimstone Penitentiary, home to Cielore’s most notorious female prisoners. Seven months since she’d attacked a fae guard for whipping a starving human boy.
Pathetic.
She blinked away the tears threatening to form. Alaire had learned the hard way that they never amounted to anything. Better to stuff them down—a Grimstone morning ritual. The bile in her throat tasted like copper coins.
Alaire closed her eyes, focusing on controlled breathing just as Blake had taught her.
In. Out. Slow.
The familiar tightness in her chest began to ease. In childhood, she’d developed an affliction of the lungs. It flared anytime she was ill or exposed to smoke or fumes, making it difficult to breathe. Eventually, anxiety and stress would trigger episodes too. During attacks, her exhalations sounded like wind through a rusted pipe dredged from the North Sea.
When she finally opened her eyes, coarse stone walls greeted her. “Good morning to you too,” she muttered.
The cold seeped through her threadbare tunic as she pushed herself upright. A cot sat against the wall, complete with an itchy blanket. Two buckets: one filled with water, the other for waste. Beyond the bars that caged her was another wall and patrolling guards. The cells were arranged so that one never faced another. Muffled voices of other prisoners bounced down the corridor.
Strategic. Isolating. Effective.
Alaire pressed a palm to her forehead. The boy’s open wounds flashed through her mind again.
A guard passed by the hall. Wisps of wind clanged against the bars.
Magic.
The dividing line between humans and fae in Cielore. Fae possessed it; humans didn’t. The original fae bloodlines ruled each territory as their kingdom and were bonded to magnificent winged creatures. Power begets power. It was an endless cycle that ensured the fae maintained a monopoly on social, political, and economic agency—while humans were relegated to the lowest positions, keeping the continent running like well-oiled cogs in a system they could never operate.
During her seven months at Grimstone, Alaire had kept her head down. Making friends was a weakness other prisoners could exploit. After losing her coveted freedom, she needed to learn her lesson.
It hadn’t stopped Elodie, though.
It had been her third or fourth day, and Alaire’s stomach had growled in anticipation of whatever sad concoction they called a meal.
A guard slid a steel tray through the bars. A slop of milky white liquid jiggled on the plate beside a stale piece of bread.
“Morning, sunshine,” came the voice from the adjacent cell. Each morning since Alaire’s arrival, she had greeted her, typically followed by an incessant stream of consciousness that drove her mad.
“Come on. I know you’re in there,” the voice prodded. “It’s a Grimstone rite of passage to sample the house delicacy—Yogurt Surprise.”
“I’ll have to choke it down,” she muttered, eyeing the suspicious breakfast.
Guards lined the walls, their pointed ears stark against their buzz-cut hair. Over the past few days, Alaire had noted which ones seemed more distracted, who’d been alert, and whose eyes were drooping. Information was currency within these walls.
“I’m Elodie, by the way.” Her voice had the grating sound of keys like the orphanage matron’s, always tucked in her skirt pockets.
“Alaire,” she replied. “Do we ever get out of these cells?”
“Once a week. One hour of fresh air. But even then, we’re bound.”
“Lovely.” Alaire forced down a gulp of the so-called yogurt. She immediately regurgitated it in her mouth. It tasted like decayed parsley—somuch worse than it looked. Pinching a hand over her nose, she managed to get a bite down. The alternative was wasting away, and she refused to give them that satisfaction.
