ARWEN
LAZARUS DIDN’T SO MUCH AS smirk as I joined him.
His eyes were unreadable, trained on mine, and I remembered he
could read my thoughts as plainly as if I’d screamed them at him.
He said nothing as I stepped one foot down into the shallow steps, and then descended until my body was submerged. The rush of flowing water and bubbling of springs filled my head and I dipped myself under.
Enveloped by warm silence, all I could hear was my own pulse in my eardrums.
Liquid, peaceful stillness.
When I emerged and wiped my eyes, Lazarus wasn’t even looking.
“Quite the performance,” he said, his back to me as he surveyed his steamy, water-lush domain. “I’d title it Woman Proves She Is Different Now.”
I only scowled.
A gnarled scar cut down the muscled planes along his spine. The damaged skin undulated, rippling as he spread his arms across the water’s surface. Kane had bestowed that upon him. Wielding the Blade of the Sun, all those years ago.
I stilled my mutilated heart into submission. Lazarus wouldn’t hear my longing.
But I could channel that rage. Could try to use any minutes alone with him to my advantage.
“Was it your own revenge? Back at Hemlock…” Despite the agony, I allowed myself to think of Kane’s roars of anguish. “Making him think you’d killed me?”
“Nothing of the sort.” Lazarus turned, expression still unreadable. “My son has always been ruled by his emotions. I only sought to heighten them. However, it appears I got more than I bargained for—your prince hasn’t been seen in months. Perhaps I succeeded in breaking him completely. Perhaps he’s gone mad from the loss. Or perhaps…a fate far more tragic: death at his own hand.”
Even as dread curled around my lungs, I didn’t break from his unflinching stare. “Kane would never abandon his people.”
Lazarus reclined against the pool’s edge. “Your love is enviable. My own wife died many years ago.”
I could have screamed. “You killed her.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never been forced to sacrifice for a greater cause.”
I would have sacrificed my very life to end you.
If he’d heard my thoughts, he didn’t comment. “But you will. You and I, Arwen, are the last two of our kind in existence. Together we will repopulate an entire race of strong, powerful true Fae. No weak halflings, no dirty mortals. That sacrifice will be your legacy. You should be on your knees, thanking me for such an honor.”
Before I could spit at him, Kane’s voice snarled softly through my mind.
Don’t play into his game, bird. That’s what he wants.
“There are only two of us, we’ll never have an entire realm of true Fae.
They’d have to—”
It was his smug, pleased expression that silenced my words and sent my stomach churning.
“Inbreeding?”
“Many great monarchies kept the bloodline pure with such practices.
Ancient Fae and mortal alike.”
The revolting thought was too much to comprehend. My own children, forced to breed with one another. With their own father, surely. “You foul, repugnant—”
“Those burns.” Lazarus motioned to my torso. “Are they from my sergeant, whom you murdered?”
I fought the urge to cover myself as the memory of Halden’s blistering iron sizzled against my skin. “Yes.”
“And the one across your collarbone, or those down your back, are they all from him as well? A bit of a sadist, my sergeant.” Lazarus tutted as if it was a shame. “Scarring my property…I’d take his other hand for that, were he still alive.”
Revulsion twisted in my gut at the thought of Lazarus studying my naked body with such careful precision, like I was some prized specimen. Those scars were my memories. My strength fighting his wolflike mercenary. My will, unbroken by my stepfather’s belt.
I sneered at him.
“Don’t,” he chastised. “You’ll wrinkle the face of my queen.”
When I curved my mouth down farther he only smirked and waded to stand under a steaming marble spigot shaped as the mouth of a fanged fish. He angled his neck, allowing the steaming fresh water to cascade down his marred back. “Maddox tells me you’ve been questioning Wyn about my motives.”
My eyes betrayed me, slamming into Maddox’s cold, unflinching gaze. Why I felt surprised was beyond me. He was snide and callous and would clearly lick the ground Lazarus walked upon for a chance to move up in his ranks. But to have spied on Wyn and me…listened to our private conversations…
Maybe what upset me was the realization that I’d not had a single moment of true privacy since I’d been brought here.
But Maddox’s smug lips curling upward had no effect on me now. Not compared to the fear in Wyn’s dismayed hazel eyes. His bobbing throat sent waves of lighte rippling down my spine. Some strange instinct that confused heal with protect.
“I assumed you would have summoned me to your bed by now,” I admitted to Lazarus, bracing myself. “But that’s why I’m here, right?”
“Close those legs, eager girl.”
Over the rush of water I heard Maddox cease his incessant atonal hum to snicker.
“The Lumerian Solstice is in a few days time. We celebrate the bountiful harvest at the end of autumn with a ball each year, and I’d like you to attend as my betrothed.”
I scowled at him. “Could you not have just forced me? Why bring me here and ask?”
“That would not be very befitting of your future husband, would it? Have you been treated poorly while here, Arwen? No dungeon, no torture, no suffering. Frankly, I’m still waiting on your gratitude.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he’d be waiting a long damn time for that, but—
He needed me. He needed me to behave beside him. To attend willingly.
Maybe I could use this audience, this slight power I held, for information. “What is it you celebrate? There is no harvest. There are no crops for the
people of Lumera to harvest.”
Lazarus’s grin was withering in its cruelty.
What had Kane told me all those months ago in his wine cellar? That lighte was a resource born into every Fae from Lumera’s earth, and if it was overused—either from the reaping of Lazarus’s citizens or the influx of crowded slums—the land itself suffered.
I pointed to my bruised veins from months of harvesting. “Your land is dying because of this. It’s why the air outside my room is choked with dirt. Why it rained fire this morning. Because you are juicing your own people to the pulp.”
His teeth gleamed through the steam as he jerked his chin toward my veins again. “Perhaps that is the bountiful harvest we celebrate here in Solaris.”
Of course. Lighte. All the lighte that allowed his people to live in excess while everyone outside the capital suffered.
And all the lighte he was gathering for his war.
“You’ll change your mind on my practices soon enough,” he added. “When we take Evendell and raze it of all the useless mortal lives, you and I will have fresh land for our offspring. We’ll build Evendell into something grander than even Lumera’s former glory. And one day only the truest Fae will inhabit that realm. Don’t you want a world of creatures just like you? Isn’t your power, your lighte lonely?”
Rage gripped me, bruising my heart with its iron grasp. “All those people, murdered…I will never aid you in such a quest. I will never bear you offspring. And I will never attend some ruthless, barbarian ritual disguised as a phony celebration.”
Interest, not irritation, flickered in his depthless silver eyes as he prowled closer through the water. In a low, rough voice he said, “Octavia has been insatiable over you. Just dying to see you crawl over her coals. And with burns like those”—he ran a single pruned thumb across the top of my breast and I jumped backward, my skin writhing—“I’d imagine you have a particularly strong aversion to open flame on bare flesh. Shall we find out?”
No sooner did he say the words than the bath doors flew open with a calamitous crash. I flinched despite myself.
Octavia strode in, dreary gray dress hanging loosely off her bony figure and mopping up water as she walked across wet floors.
“Out,” he instructed me, voice harsher than it had yet been.
Despite the heat from the bubbling springs and the steam rising off my skin, my veins had filled with ice. I paused, shivering. I could stay put and be forced from the water, or climb out of my own accord and voluntarily suffer Octavia’s torture. And not just any torture—not a beating or a whipping—but the burning of my flesh.
I—I couldn’t do it.
Smoke-scented visions of Halden’s white-hot iron pressed against my abdomen in a damp Peridot jungle sent my fingers trembling.
I had a little bit of lighte—I was not completely powerless.
But when I stood from the water, cool air veiled in steam kissing across my neck and breasts and thighs…I wondered if I was not even more helpless than I had been before. Equipped with shreds of my power and unable to use any of it. It was barely a spark. I’d be overpowered immediately.
With as much courage as I could muster, I walked to Octavia. She was only a few inches taller than me, and I lifted my chin as she appraised my dripping body.
“You can’t imagine,” she hissed, “how long I’ve waited for this.”
And I understood why now. She saw me as ungrateful for the only thing she craved: the throne at Lazarus’s side. I wished I could tell her she could have it. I’d never wanted anything less.
With a soft whisper of words I didn’t know and a whirl of earthly wind around the marble and suds, a bed of crackling coals presented themselves at my feet.
Each hiss that sounded when a bubbling pool nearby spit a drop of water atop them reminded me of the sound I’d hear—the sounds I’d make—when I was forced to kneel, still utterly naked. My skin, melting—
“Or,” Lazarus said from the opaque turquoise pool, undulating as he waded through it, “you could attend the Solstice.”
Hatred etched itself into my heart, my neck prickling as sweat gathered along my brow and underneath my arms. My body knew the agony. It knew, even as I chose now to let this happen, how desperately I’d fight the minute the glowing red coals touched my flesh.
How completely exposed and humiliated I’d be. Already was.
But if he wanted to announce me as his queen to the court—if he needed to show his power, his bounty—then I couldn’t let him. Not under any circumstances.
So I said nothing.
“Goody.” Octavia grinned.
Bravery failing me, I flinched as she moved for my head. Her snake smile grew as she grasped my hair, my scalp already screaming.
“Wait, wait,” Lazarus drawled casually. Bored. “This won’t do.”
Oh, Stones, what now—
“Octavia, start with her hobbled guard, will you?” “What?” My thin voice gave my horror away.
The kingsguards across the baths shifted. Maddox’s eyes flashed with delight.
“Your Majesty,” Wyn stammered. “Why?”
“You didn’t think you’d go unpunished, did you? For what you revealed?”
Wyn opened his mouth, but to say what, I’d never know. Octavia’s ruthless magic snatched him where he stood at the base of those sprawling alabaster stairs and yanked him toward the coals.
“Stop,” I cried, clawing at Octavia. Lighte rippled beneath my skin, but my body froze. With some kind of enchantment, the sorceress brought Wyn down to his knees and held his face near the coals. Ready, eager to plunge him against the blanket of sizzling rock below.
Wyn was shaking. Stoic, but shaking nonetheless. He gritted his teeth as Octavia lowered his face.
The pleas ripped from me. “Stop, please—”
This couldn’t happen, not to him. I couldn’t stomach the awfulness. My imploring eyes shot to Lazarus and once again found his glare laced with more intrigue than anything else.
That…that was why he was doing this.
Because I couldn’t stand the awfulness.
Why Lazarus was punishing Wyn. Not for his indiscretion. But because he knew I’d never let someone else suffer for my choices. He was using my morality against me. Waiting for me to fold—
And as Octavia pressed Wyn’s clear, golden skin into the sizzling coals…I did.
“Fine, fine, I’ll go!”
My voice rang out, loud enough for them to hear over the snap of the embers and the rumble of the hot springs somewhere deep down below our feet. Wyn’s cheek hovered not an inch above the rocks. “I’ll attend. I’ll be good. Please, just stop this.”
Octavia slid her eyes to her king.
I did the same, though nausea churned my stomach. I swallowed with a wince.
“How good?” Lazarus asked, one graying brow lifted. “Whatever you need.”
With a brief, curt nod from her king, Octavia released me and Wyn from our spells and the coals evaporated into mist.
Wyn didn’t look at me as our matching exhales rent the room.
“I know you think yourself very courageous,” Lazarus said, wading through the water to stand from the pool. His chiseled shoulders and powerful, thick legs did not look like they belonged to a man his age. They looked like he could crush me with one hard stomp. “That your prince will come to save you, or like some sword-wielding heroine you’ll surprise us all and save yourself. But whether you grin and take it like a proper queen, bejeweled and draped in Solaris finery, or you’re bound and muzzled in my dungeons like a sow for breeding, you will bear my heirs.”
His eyes shredded me as he drew near, and I fought the urge to squirm.
“You are no champion. You are no brave heroine. You are no prophesied savior of realms. You, Arwen, are just a womb. That is all you will ever be, until one day, you are dead.”
Octavia hadn’t needed her coals. His words might as well have been a brand.
Somehow, I thought, I will watch you die before that day comes.
But Lazarus said nothing at all. He only slipped into a silk robe held by a kingsguard of his own and strolled out, leaving Wyn and Maddox in his wake, stiff as corpses.
Maddox’s eyes held a carnivorous grin, and my neck and cheeks heated with shame. I looked down at my useless bare body, and my powerless hands, still tingling with lighte.
“Let’s go, womb,” Maddox hissed.
Wyn, still kneeling on the wet floor, said nothing at all.
The easy gurgles of the baths and rush of the water fountains filled my mind, replacing all the anger and self-hatred. All the loneliness and despair.
I walked on unsteady legs, slipped my damp, ripped nightgown back on, and followed Maddox up that stone staircase. Wyn limped quietly behind us.
Out in the atrium, Maddox hummed a pleased tune to himself as he strolled past. Beside me, Wyn had slowed to a pace that resembled a crawl. I’d never seen his gait so slow and fitful.
Octavia had known what she was doing when she forced him to kneel.
Hot, fresh ire filtered through me. “I’m sorry,” I said under my breath.
“What could you possibly be sorry for?” “They used you to get to me.”
Wyn shook his head, every step sending his armor jangling and curls rustling across his face. “I should never have shared with you what I did. Someone is always listening here.”
Those words clanged through my mind.
Lazarus had so thoroughly ignored every single barb I’d flung at him in my thoughts. It wasn’t like him. A man who made a point to show how deep inside your brain he was, and how powerless you were to stop him. I’d never forget how utterly horrifying it had been to be so invaded the first night we met in Siren’s Bay. How even my own thoughts belonged to him.
“He didn’t read my mind today.” I barely murmured the words. Handmaidens and guards passed us as we strolled down the black-and- white-walled halls, and Maddox was only a few feet ahead of us, that incessant tune filtering through his lips.
Wyn shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t find your thoughts worth listening to.”
I had threatened him. Told him I’d watch him die. He hadn’t even smirked.
Was it possible he was weaker today? Maybe ill? “Wyn, why does he need my lighte?”
Wyn bared his teeth in a way that told me the pain in his knee was worsening. These hallways were endless—winding and rife with dizzying mirrors and hidden passageways. And those ornate ceilings with their
arches and fine molding so, so high—all of it, built to inspire vertigo and aching, restless eyes.
“The lighte he reaps fuels everything,” Wyn said with a wince. “This city. This palace. His mercenaries. His weaponry. The entire Lumerian war machine.”
“But he drains me even though he needs me full of lighte to conceive.
He must need my lighte specifically.”
“You’re full-blooded. Your lighte is more potent than anyone’s, other than his.”
Hadn’t Kane told me many Fae and mortals alike in Solaris had become addicted to lighte once they’d begun to intake more than their body made? Had Lazarus become dependent on it? I was the only other full-blooded Fae alive. Maybe he needed my lighte to support his own.
He was weak. That must’ve been it. Why he wouldn’t allow me even enough lighte to conceive. He couldn’t produce an heir, either.
“Wyn…”
But Wyn’s grimace told me what his next words confirmed. “Enough questions for today.”
“Just one—” “I can’t.”
I stopped in my tracks.
Wyn winced as he did the same, rubbing at his leg. His greaves were still wet where he’d knelt on that slick marble.
Of course he couldn’t discuss this with me. Physically, mentally—I thought our burgeoning friendship might actually be killing the kingsguard.
And it was foolish of me as well. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? I had no allies here. Someone was always listening, always ready to use you or your vulnerabilities against you. I couldn’t confide in Wyn. I was thoroughly alone.
“Right,” I said, my eyes finding the floor, my own reflection bloodred and warped. “I know.”
“I’m sorry, Arwen.” When I lifted my chin, Wyn stepped closer, eyes flickering with more sorrow, more guilt than I could stand. “Really. I am.”
He grasped at his knee once more, grimacing.
“Stay still.” Before Maddox could notice, I knelt to the ground and pressed both my hands into Wyn’s lame leg. Eager lighte jumped from my fingertips, thrilled to do something before it was ripped from my veins once again.
The cartilage beneath his armor was old and scarred, but with what little power I had, fresh muscle and sinew sprouted beneath my palms, reinforcing the weaker joints that had been sore for decades.
When the last meager drop of my power had permeated Wyn’s skin, I stood.
“What…” Wyn flexed the limb in disbelief. Bending the joint and redistributing his weight. When his eyes found mine again, they welled with tears. “Why did you do that?”
I swallowed against the emotion in my throat. “I couldn’t watch you limp anymore.”
“Yeah.” He held my eyes with quiet intensity. “You could have.”
The words felt familiar to me, though I couldn’t place them. But the memory faded as we walked back in silence to my gilded, velvet prison.
