“Who is he? Do we trust him?” Ansgar whispered into my hair, so soft that I barely heard it.
“Rhylan, what a pleasure to see you,” I mocked as well as a reply, loud enough for the entire room to hear me. “It’s nice to see how you took out the clothes you wore five hundred years ago; did you fancy a walk down memory lane? Did living in my house for the past three weeks while you blackmailed the living hell out of me just so you could shove me inside a bloodied cell bring out your sense of vintage fashion?” I hoped the short summary would be explanation enough and it told Ansgar that no, we do not trust him. But for some unknown reason, Rhylan fought for my life and defended me several times in those three weeks, so I had to continue to hang onto him if that would get me what I wanted. My mate, freed.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, you are splayed in brown and amber, princess. You may make proper use of your words but your feelings can't hide how terrified and desperate you are.” His adamant eyes locked with mine, reading every emotion I had proved incapable to hide and while he did so, Rhylan’s features changed just slightly to relief. But his mask quickly returned, splaying that distasteful smirk across his bronzed cheeks.
“Our deal then?” I demanded. “The prince and I will require a room, lots of gauze and disinfectant, food and drink immediately.” And a toilet, my bladder reminded me.
Ansgar remained close, not uttering a word, but I felt his muscles tense and ready at a moment’s notice. I knew that if I couldn’t convince Rhylan to let us out, he would go crazy at the guards, and judging by the way they held their weapons and shields, clenched tightly for dear life, there was a high probability that he would add those men to the pile of rotting corpses.
“You kept your end, it is up to the prince now,” Rhylan said, acknowledging Ansgar directly for the first time since the doors had opened.
“What do you need me to do?” Ansgar asked, his voice coming out husky. Only then I realised that he had whispered or spoken in a low voice ever since I entered this godforsaken place and this was the first time he had probably spoken fully out loud for days.
“First of all, I will need that dagger.” As soon as Rhylan’s words escaped, Ansgar took a step back, his instinct directing him to use the weapon but he struggled to stop and battled the feeling, his entire body shaking from the effort. “Secondly, should you truly wish to leave the cell, you will have to be transported to a room with an iron door and be iron-bound during the journey,” Rhylan finished half surprised that Ansgar gave him this long and not attacked yet.
“Wherever he goes, I go,” I immediately said, stepping back once again to get myself as close to my mate as I possibly could without shoving him into the wall.
“It never crossed my mind otherwise. Which is why, thirdly, I will need a drop of your blood to enchant the door.”
“What? Why?” I immediately tightened my hands over my chest in an attempt to protect them. Some part of me understood the information as if blood would be taken from my hands, maybe a cut of the palm like they did in movies or a prick of my fingers, but then I realised that the bastard could draw blood from wherever he wished.
“I trust him to be incapable of opening the door, even though I must admire how quickly he is building resistance, but nothing would stop you to escape and wander around, now would it? Which is why the door must be spelled not to open at your touch.”
Rhylan kept his face straight and the same expression tightened across his face, as if he did not care one bit, whatever my choice proved to be.
I turned to Ansgar and looked at him questioningly, but the shivering muscles of his jaw told me what I needed to know. That if I didn't get him out quickly, he would go on a killing rampage and we would have no choice in hell but to remain there, surrounded by dead bodies until we both starved or my heart stopped from panic.
“Fine,” I uttered the word and as soon as I did, three soldiers approached with iron chains, walking towards me, towards Ansgar.
“Stop,” I immediately shouted, and to my surprise, they did. “No one touches him.” I jumped forth and grabbed one of the chain piles from the soldier’s hands. Without uttering a word, I carried them back to Ansgar and set them a few inches from his bare feet. I did the same with the second soldier, who dropped the pile of iron into my arms with a disgusted face, and then, with the third one.
Rhylan allowed all this without saying a word, curiously observing me from the door as the light shone onto his hardened cheeks. Once I had all of them gathered, I untangled one of the chains with difficulty.
“What do I do?” I asked him once I finished, finally raising my gaze to meet his own. His eyes went wide and savage, but I read trust in them also.
“Do my wrists first, then bind them to my torso and wrap me with the chains. Ignore my legs. I need them to walk and I won’t kill them with my bare feet. I’m not that good.” he shifted his gaze from me to Rhylan and the soldiers. “Yet,” he pressed.
I did exactly as he asked and wrapped iron on his wrists first, while he extended them forward to help me and then bound them onto his chest, grimacing and asking for forgiveness every time I burnt a new patch of skin.
Once I was done wrapping my beloved in a ton of iron, not understanding how he could still stand with the amount of pain he must be in, I turned to Rhylan and the guard, all of whom remained silent, patiently waitingfor me to finish.
“We are ready to be escorted outside,” I announced, displaying the most threatening gaze I could muster. They might very well shut the doors on us and leave us abandoned in the darkness, while I struggled to unwrap my mate and possibly hurt him more.
Luckily, Rhylan nodded and my relief must have been evident because I felt my entire body relax, like a hot air balloon that finally released the sandbags and became able to fly away.
The soldiers exchanged looks, probably surprised by their general’s decision but I took advantage of the moment and started walking towards the door, making sure to step decidedly and evenly, all the while checking that Ansgar kept the pace. The moment we stepped through the doors and into the wide corridor I felt instant relief, the claustrophobia I kept hidden releasing me from its grasp. It wasn’t much improvement, we remained underground within a narrow tunnel, but at least there were people around us and lots of torches illuminating the path.
We all walked silently, Rhylan leading the pace with the black cape waving in his tracks like some kind of faerie version of a mean Batman, as Ansgar and I followed after him, me adjusting the pace to my mate whenever necessary. I saw his grimaces while taking the steps and hated myself for making him suffer like this. I guessed that every movement only rattled the chains tighter onto him, causing him more suffering. I wanted to cry, to stop and let it all out right there, all the pain and anxiety that had accumulated and burnt through me. I wanted to expose my weakness, to let everyone know that I was a mere human, who had not dealt with such violence, who could not be dealing with it anymore, that this world was too much and all I wanted to do was take Ansgar and go home.
But I could not, I would not. He needed me to be strong for the both of us, needed to get out of there and the only way out would be to play their game. To fake and lie and cheat until we got what we wanted. Freedom.
So I bit my tongue every time the emotion got the best of me and trailed along, trapped in between the two faeries that had changed my life, Rhylan and Ansgar, the darkness and the light of my current existence. Along with a line of about twenty soldiers who marched right behind us, hands clenched on their weapons as though we would suddenly grow strong and organise a surprise attack.
While we stepped through the narrow dark corridors, I tried to gaze encouragingly at my mate every chance I got, and to my surprise, he did the exact same thing. None of us spoke, there was no need for that since our encouraging looks said it all, but also because we did not trust anyone around us and did not want them to have more details than needed.
Finally, just as my feet threatened to start swelling from the uneven ground and all the missteps I took, we reached one of the ornate corridors heading to living quarters, similar to the ones that lead to the king when I first arrived. Two narrow passageways to the left and Rhylan stopped abruptly in front of a, of course, iron door.
“These are the living quarters for the transformed recruits,” the old fae explained as he turned to us. “We like to keep them in check for a few months until their transformation is complete. This one incorporates a bedroom and a bathing chamber. You will also have fresh water and food.”
