I pushed the door open, and it swung silently inward. There was only one prisoner on this level. Brushing my fingers against a glyph on the inside wall, I activated the Fae lanterns,and the flames flickered to life, bathing the small room and the cells that lined the walls in a warm glow.
“Come to finish me off?” Draven drawled from where he was stretched out on the ground of the cell at the end of the room. He leapt to his feet with a grace I hadn’t thought he was capable of in his current state and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “You’re welcome to open these doors and try it.” Solid red eyes that promised death locked onto me. “I dare you.”
I kept the surprise off my face as I slowly walked over to his cell. Draven was a predator, and it was never wise to let a predator know they unnerved you.
“You’re looking better. Last time I saw you, I was pretty sure we’d be digging your grave within the hour, or you know, chucking your Fae corpse off a cliff.”
Casually, I let my eyes drift over him. He hadn’t been given a change of clothing, so he was still coated in dried blood, but I could see patches of smooth skin beneath the tattered fabric. Even if he had used healing glyphs on himself, he should have been exhausted from the effort without someone to drink from.
Had someone snuck down here and fed him? No. There were guards loyal to Carmilla posted at the entry door to the stairwell, and that was the only way in here.
“Half Fae,” Draven corrected. “But it does come with its benefits.”
I tapped the iron bars of his cell. “I bet.”
Despite his healthier-looking appearance, he was standing in the center of the cell, as far away from the walls and doors as he could get. Clearly the iron bothered him, but it hadn’t blocked his ability to heal. Maybe because he was half Moroi, he wasn’t as sensitive to it as most Fae? I’d have to tell Carmilla. We might want to have guards posted in this room as well.
“So”—he cocked his head—“if you’re not here to attempt to kill me, why did you bother coming down here? Too scared to chat with the dark-haired beauty who you so thoroughly betrayed?”
I winced before I could kill the movement, and Draven laughed.
“Samara will understand,” I snapped. “She just needs to calm down for a few days, and then I’ll tell her everything. Carmilla has the best interests of the Moroi at heart.”
Draven shook his head. “Oh? Is that why she imprisoned children? I can hear their cries even down here.”
“It’s temporary,” I ground out.
“Ah. So cruelty is fine so long as it’s only for a short amount of time. Such a wonderful leader to follow.”
“She’s a vast improvement over your mother.” My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “We dumped her body outside, by the way. Figured the monsters could use a snack.”
If my words caused him any pain, Draven hid it well. He raised one of his hands in front of him and studied his nails as he let them shift to claws. “Trust me when I say that nobody was happier than me to see my mother’s headless body on the floor.” He frowned. “Actually, I wish I had been more with it so I could have truly appreciated the moment.”
“And your father?” I closely watched Draven’s face, looking for any reaction. “How will you feel when it’s his corpse in a pool of blood?”
Draven let out a chilling laugh and sank back to the ground in a cross-legged position. Then he let his hands sink into the floor on either side of him, and I noticed some of the stones had been broken up enough that it was more dirt than anything at this point. His posture relaxed, and some of the red receded in his eyes.
“If I were you, I’d walk back up those stairs to where Samara is locked up and plead for mercy. She loves you and,despite everything, would at least grant you a swift death.” My heart clenched at the admission that he knew Samara loved me.
“She’ll forgive me.” Even I could hear the uncertainty in my words though.
Draven just smiled. “She won’t. If you had only betrayed her, perhaps over time she would have, because again, my fierce love is kindhearted, but your actions have put Kieran, Alaric, and Roth in danger. Carmilla isn’t a fool. She knows the way to controlling her niece is through those she loves. And that”—he leaned forward slightly—“is not something Samara will forgive.”
I looked away from the fallen prince, because he was right. Samara would never forgive me if something happened to those she loved because of all this. It had never occurred to me that Carmilla would use Kieran or Alaric like that. Maybe Roth because Carmilla wasn’t as close to them as the other two, but even then, Roth was clearly an asset.
I also hadn’t thought Carmilla would imprison children, so maybe my judgment of character wasn’t as good as I’d previously believed.
“None of it really matters though,” Draven continued, drawing me out of my dark contemplations. “Because Erendriel will come, and then all of you will wish you’d had the foresight to just slit your own throats rather than deal with his wrath.”
“I thought you said your father didn’t care about you?” I sneered. Of course he’d been fucking lying.
“Oh, he doesn’t.” Draven shrugged. “I mean, he probably wants to carve me apart himself, given that I killed several of his best soldiers, but Velika was important to his plans, and her death will set him back. He has a bit of a temper when it comes to that kind of thing.”
“We can handle him.” I crossed my arms. If anything, itmight be easier if he came to us. We could get this over and done with once and for all. “I’ve fought wraiths before, and Erendriel is just one Fae.”
Draven chuckled darkly, and the hairs rose on the back of my neck. “He’s not though. Erendriel is the Seelie King.
* * *
