I only managed to take about three steps back until the king was upon me, gripping my hair with a rough pull and forcing my body to lean forward, towards Rhylan. Since I couldn't really walk, my hair supported the weight and forced my body to drag across with him. I wasn’t sure how my scalp didn’t just rip from my skin because the pain was excruciating, piercing through my head, my neck, and most of my back while bones contorted and followed the King’s lead without my approval.
Rhylan’s eyes locked with mine, emanating pain and disdain as I was dragged closer to him, my hands shifting in the air and blindly trying to catch the King's wrist and better support my weight.
“Release her,” Rhylan threatened, a gulp of dark blood escaping from his mouth as he said the words. Pleaded them. For my safety.
“Ha!” the king mocked, his rage suddenly focusing solely on me. “Why would I do that?” As he said the words he dropped me on the rocky floor, right where Rhylan struggled to pull himself off the ground and grabbed me by the neck, resting a cold object at my throat. I started shaking, feeling the sharpness of the steel against my skin, my entire body trembling with the realisation. This is where I die.
“Don’t…” I tried to speak but the words forced my throat into the knife, making a small cut.
“Let her go, she has nothing to do with this,” Rhylan pleaded on my behalf, his upper half now fully upright.
“Nothing?” the king's voice trembled and I could sense it more than hear it because his every syllable shook his hand just enough to make the blade jiggle against my throat. “Do you take me for a fool, Fear Gorta?” I tensed, it was the first time the king addressed Rhylan per his faerie title.
“She has nothing to do with this. The revenge was solely mine,” Rhylan expelled the words slowly, quietly, wanting to arrange them in front of the king and help him fully realise their meaning.
“Do you not think that I kept my eyes on you long enough to recognise who she is? What she means? That she is the only reason you could take away my Shay? She may have had her flaws, but she was mine! My partner for centuries!”
The king’s voice broke at the mention of his queen or better said the loss of her. Which made me realise that somehow Rhylan had everything to do with it. Drahden pulled my hair tighter, forcing my neck upright, the pressure so taut that I knew the finest movement would easily break my neck. “Do you not think I recognise your kin?” he spat, gripping my hair tighter. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stay there and try not to shake, trying to keep my neck from being either broken or severed.
“Let her go,” Rhylan’s voice accentuated, a promise for revenge lingering in the words. With whatever force he could muster he stood, towering against the king. Against me.
With a single movement of his hand, the tiniest gesture, the king’s arms went rigid, their tightness slowly dissolving around the hold he had on me. Rhylan’s eyes turned into flames, raw energy pulsating with the command, deep pants portraying the effort his body was going through at the execution of the order.
“Anwen,” Rhylan spoke my name but kept his full focus on the king, “very carefully, lift your right arm and drag your hair from his hand.” I did as told, fingers trembling as I found the king’s hand wrapped around my hair. I had to pull a few times and I was sure that half of my hair remained on his statuesque hand, but that was the very last thing I cared about right now.
“Perfect,” he said. “Now slide your neck to the left, very slowly, push yourself against him if you have to but whatever you do, do not lean forward.”
With shaky movements I did as told, feeling how the King struggled to escape the hold of whatever magic Rhylan poured onto him, whom, judging by the blood dripping from his nose, wouldn’t be able to do for much longer. So I released myself from the blade as quickly as I could and skittered towards Rhylan’s legs, crawling my way out from the king’s side.
As soon as he saw that I was safe, Rhylan bent to lift me just enough so I could be able to lean against him and then guided me backward, taking slow and steady steps back.
“I can’t fight him, I am bound to the ruler’s protection,” he explained, answering a question I might have asked. Or thought about asking. “We have minutes to do this,” he added as he kept pushing me, pushing us further and further away, his jaw tightening with each passing second.
I tried to hold onto him, to help sustain his weight when his muscles started trembling from the effort, but it was all in vain, my body so tired and fickle that I knew I was hurting more than helping.
“When I give the signal, run to the cave to your right,” Rhylan gestured in the direction he wanted me to go to by tilting his head, wanting to make sure I understood what right meant and what a cave was.
I nodded and he must have felt me, because his shoulders relaxed only for the slightest of moments, until he took a deep breath, preparing for his next step. “Now!” he said and even before the words were out of his mouth, I started running, or crawling, towards where he pointed.
I didn’t look back but heard the earthquake, the destruction of the ceiling, and all the rubble that pushed into me, sliding into my back, my arms, my legs. Rhylan was by my side moments later, shoving me inside the cave, which I initially thought wouldn't be big enough for the both of us, but after a few metres of darkness, it turned into an impressive conglomerate of columns piled together. Some kind of decor storage room.
“Are you alright?” he grabbed my face to check my response, touched my chest in search of wounds and draped his hands over my arms and legs.
“Yes. You?” I asked, not knowing what else to say, what to do.
“For now,” Rhylan groaned and took a few breaths to calm himself. I’d never seen him injured, never seen him bleeding except for that one evening when Ansgar attacked him but now, he looked terrible. Like his body had been run over by a train and then thrown out of a plane without a parachute. Every single part of him was either a cut, bleeding or a forming bruise and I could not, for the life of me, understand how he'd managed to keep himself alive.
“Anwen, we only have minutes until he gets through and I don’t have time for your snarky remarks right now, okay?” Rhylan’s bloodshot eyes pierced through mine, forcing me to nod.
“You need to survive, need to get out of here,” he stated like it was the most obvious fact.
I nodded. “As soon as I get Ansgar,” I said, trying to reason even now, with the man that had tricked us and used us for his own purposes over and over again.
“For the god’s sake! I do not have time for this. I need to save you; don’t you get that? Don’t you finally understand?” Rage pulsated through his veins as he spat the words, shaking reason into me.
“Why do you care so much?” I asked but the king’s words immediately echoed in my mind.Your kin. “Rhylan?” I said his name, my voice shaking with the impossibility of it all. “Why do you care so much?”
His fingers traced a line along my jaw, eyes wishful and glazy. “You are mine, Anwen. You are of me,” Rhylan said, voice hushed and trembling.
