Page 14 of To Sway a Prince
The carved double doors swung open easily, the old hinges silent despite their age and the dust. I charged through and ran down the hall, my boots striking the stones in rapid succession. If he thought he could stop me, he was wrong. This was only a setback. This time I'd get closer before it snapped me away again. And eventually I'd find the weakness and break it apart, rescue Zephyrus, and be on my way. He wanted to underestimate me? Fine! Let him.
I took the stairs two at a time, sprinting past the tapestries that hung along the wall like the sentinels they commemorated. My instincts guided me back to the stable within minutes.
Zephyrus lifted his head again and rested it on the bars. That grunt of his told me precisely what he thought, his eyelids half shading his eyes.
"I'm not giving up," I said, striding forward. This time I came in from the right, angling for a point that just felt a little different.
He gave a short blast of a steamy huff, the grumble of a laugh confirming he wasn't hurt and found this more amusing than concerning. My aura stretched out, searching for any signs of the binding's limits. I hadn't felt anything change really once I got close to Zephyrus, which meant that it wasn't as weak as I would have preferred.
This time it pulseported me when I was barely four feet away from him and coming along the right side of the cell. It dropped me down in a storage hall on the same floor near wooden bins marked with runes to keep the food preserved. Thread rot! Fine,fine. I made note of the direction. The right side was even stronger. I drew in a deep breath.
Again and again, I charged back down to the stable, attempting another avenue. Each time the binding spell sent me to some other part of the tower. I was getting intimately familiar with this tower. Caein appeared and tried to convince me to calm myself and just enjoy the tower's hospitality, but I ignored him. Like most Nolches, he had some abilities to maneuver items within the tower, but he made no effort to stop me.
It was infuriating. And the angle I chose made no difference. Coming in from the left and coming in at a diagonal got me closest, but neither one allowed me to so much as touch Zephyrus. Worse still, Ramiel had made the binding extend to more than just Zephyrus. It reached the levers, the locks, everything that had to do with freeing Zephyrus.
I couldn't even get near the levers to open it and set him free. No, the bastard had bound that too! I hated him so much. He hadn't even added new wards to hurt me or push me back. The sheer arrogance of it. As if he could just cast a binding spell on me and go on about his business!
And…most infuriatingly of all, apparently he could.
By the sixth time, I was panting, my hair loose around my shoulders and sweat rolling down the back of my neck and along my temples. Once again, it had dropped me down in another hallway with paintings, incense, and rugs.
"Perhaps the lady would like to rest?" Caein proposed, his voice seeming to come more from the nearest doorway rather than just the entirety of the ceiling above.
I shoved my tangled hair back and bound it up. "No."
"You understand that binding spells are not easily broken."
"All binding spells have weaknesses," I said sharply. Before he could say anything further, I raced forward. Back to the curving staircase, back to the stable. On the way, I came up withnew names and insults for Ramiel as I made mental checklists of other angles I could try. There was a weakness in this binding spell. There had to be!
As I charged ahead, my shoulder clipped the door frame. I yelped. I'd caught my cloak on a hook. It scraped across my shoulder and tugged at my sleeve as well, pulling it down just enough to reveal a trace of the scourge I'd inflicted on myself years ago.
Caein hummed. "You seared off your mate bond?"
Nolches were hard to fool. A knot formed in my throat. Searing off the mate bond wasn't precisely right, but it was right enough I had no desire to go into the details or correct him further. The burn was deep. It wasn't likely to ever heal enough to allow another to form or the original to continue. "Hired a witch." It took me a moment to free myself, and I rubbed my arm. "Enough people died because of me. Didn't need to doom my mate too." It was one of the many things I regretted. It had seemed so selfless and smart at the time, but grieving youths should not be permitted to make such choices. Now I had to live with it.
"The arrogance of you fae never ceases to amaze me," he said. His tone had softened, seeming more gentle than judgmental. "Why?"
"I don't feel like discussing my motivations with a stranger." I pressed my hand over the old scar on my shoulder. Sometimes it still ached and throbbed as if it were a fresh wound.
A low, contemplative sound followed. "Would you take it back if you could?"
"It doesn't matter. I don't deal in what can never be," I said. Squeezing my shoulder for one moment more, I drew in a deep breath and started back into the hall, slower this time.
I would take it back if I could. I'd practically been a child when I made that choice. A child who thought she knew hermind. I certainly wouldn't have been grateful to the witch for refusing me. But the older version of myself peered back on that child and wished someone had been there to shake sense into her or refuse to let her cross that line. Someone to tell her that as real as the pain and the fear were, it should not have dictated something so important. The worst thing about being alone was that your mistakes truly were all your own.
"Fate is a difficult thing to deny," Caein said in response. His voice swirled softly above me. "The bond of the beloved is one of the sacred bonds. Sometimes it all comes together in a way altogether separate from what we expected. In fact, I'd say that that is what happens more often than not."
"We all make our choices." And those we love suffer them as well. Even if they did nothing wrong. I quickened my pace and returned to the stable, grateful Caein did not seem to follow.
This time I tried to climb the bars of the deep blue-green dragon's cell and navigate my way over. Even though I was eight feet in the air, the pulseport snatched me up and dragged me away. I landed with a thud on a dark-blue rug in front of a massive bookshelf that spanned most of a wall.
"Having fun?"
Every muscle in my body tightened. "So you finally decided to crawl out of your hole?" I growled, struggling to my feet. The first time we'd met I'd been hanging upside down, but landing on my backside with my hair tangled and my face red with sweat and exertion was a close second for humiliating appearances. Not that I'd let him know how embarrassed I was. My anger and frustration were now high enough that even the passive enchantments I'd put on my hair were coming undone.
I was now in the same library I had seen him get attacked by that spectral kangaroo—the omenfang—that's what he had called it. Almost every inch of the walls was covered in shelves of some kind. The wooden floorboards were well oiled and wellkept, not creaking even a little as I shifted my weight. He stood behind a massive desk, palms braced against the polished surface amid a massive array of books, bleached bones, a carved wooden bowl with rune stones, cracked gemstones scattered about, incense, dried herbs, and all manner of other odds and sundries. An inkwell sat on top of one leatherbound manuscript, the quill secured with a sparking bit of energy. A spindle with silver thread sat on the top of five books, almost at my eye level.
My gut clenched at that. I hated those things. Knotweavers typically used them to control the larger lengths of magic that they unwound, but I refused.
