"You are a mystery, little witch. It's not often I meet someone I can't break on the first day," Cathal said, biting into an apple.
There was a cage beside him attached to a long wooden arm that was bolted into the wall itself. It could make the cage be winched out to hang over the empty air and let the prisoner inside of it rot in their filth. Yelena straightened her shoulders and looked away from it.
Cathal smiled at her. "You know, I must ask Taranis what he does to train his knights to hold out so long. Your friend is much the same. So today I'm trying something new."
Cathal tossed the apple, grabbed Yelena by her braid, and dragged her to the wall of the battlements. Beneath her in the courtyard, a bloody Avallach had been tied up to a wooden post. He saw her through swollen eyes and grinned.
The afternoon they had been taken, when all of Midir's warriors had surrounded them, Yelena told him to trust her. That she saw a way out if they didn't break, and it looked like he was still trusting her.
Please let this work...she prayed to any goddess that would listen.
"You can stop his suffering right now if you just give me what I want," Cathal demanded, shoving her roughly up against the stonework. "All I need to know is who is the black dragon Midir keeps seeing in his visions? We know it wasn't born in Faerie and isn't a part of Taranis's sniveling court. Just a name, and we will let you both go."
"I have not seen the black dragon you are referring to," Yelena said honestly. She had never seen him shift once. "The worlds are a big place, Cathal. I don't know every dragon."
Cathal's face twisted into a sneer, and he threw her hard to the stone floor. "Hold out her arm."
The warriors hurried to obey, the scent of the fear of their general coming off them in waves. Yelena struggled, more for show than anything. Her magic was screaming at her to fight, fight, fight.
Cathal freed his sharp sword, the edge resting on her forearm above her wrist. Yelena went still as it cut her enough to bleed.
"Tell me who the dragon is, or I will cut off your hand. I know you have some magical abilities. Will you be able to cast without your hand? I wonder..."
Yelena had wondered that too. It didn't matter. As long as they never got tohim, none of it mattered.
Beneath her, she could hear Avallach screaming and cursing Cathal, trying to fight free of his bonds.
Yelena glared up at Cathal. "I have not seen the black dragon," she repeated. She would rather die than give the bastard a thing.
Avallach screamed again, and Cathal's sword came down. The magical manacles were temporarily down to one. Yelena's magic lashed out through blistering agony, sending Cathal and his warriors flying backward as she forced her message free.
So shecouldstill do magic without her hand. Good to know.
Darkness was closing in on her as Cathal dragged her into the cage with its magical binding bars. They had been too slow to get her in there. Her magic had been free long enough that the coldness she had been holding tight had burst free like a dam breaking. Frost spread from the bleeding stump of her arm before sweeping across her body.
Valentine...find me...she whispered in her mind, before shutting her eyes and letting the ice close over her.
5
Valentine sat on the edge of his bed, the vial of sleeping elixir in his hand. He needed to find Yelena and Avallach. Still, he was hesitating. Letting his dragon into his unconscious mind was a risk, and Valentine had done everything in his life to mitigate his magic from hurting anyone.
Even though it hurt you in the process?the voice of his mother whispered to him.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He only ever heard her when his anxiety was high. That was a bigger red flag than his dragon being willing to help for once.
Valentine put the elixir on the bed and took a small bundle of carefully folded bits of paper from his pocket. They were softly foxed around the edges from too much handling. It hadn't seemed to matter that he felt betrayed when he had learned of her deception. He had still been unable to get rid of the folded notes, and they had remained in his pockets to touch from time to time.
He took a long breath in and let himself feel Yelena's magic that had carved the words onto the paper. It was like a breeze on a hot day, like honey on a sore throat. It was a cool balm thatsoothed over the burning fire of his brain. The knife in his chest eased its stabbing, and he breathed in.
"Fuck," he almost sobbed with relief.
He never should have sent that last fucking letter. He should have let his temper cool down instead of lashing out like a wounded child. Gods, he really was a bastard.
Find her, his dragon growled and raked claws at his insides.
Valentine drank down the elixir, lay back on his bed, and held the letters to his chest. "Show me. Help me."
The elixir was strong enough that in less than five minutes, it took him down, down, down into nothingness. Bas might have been the master of dreams and astral travel, but Valentine was no novice. It wasn't a magic he leaned on often, and too late, he thought he should have asked Bas for help.
