Indeed.
By the end of the afternoon, we had a plan, if a rough one. And even though every fiber of my being was yelling at me to run and save Alvere, I knew I had to stay here and oversee this new, small coalition. They all deferred to me, even Grizzly. He was big and tough and in a tactical skirmish or a one-on-one fight I’d not want to face him, but strategizing an internal coup… was not his forte. Apparently, it was mine.
Merlin held the capital and had the Owl House army, which was considerable, protecting her, not to mention the city’s own defenses. A frontal assault would only harm citizens and weaken our armies as a whole. So, the plan was to assemble the rest of the combined armies and march on the capital in a show of force, but go no further than Elismount, a wide hill overlooking the city from the north. We’d stop and dig in there and see if Merlin sent her forces out to meet us. That way there would be no fighting inside the city. Some farmlands would be trampled, and militiamen would still die, but that would be it. But the hope was to avoid that fight with subterfuge. We’d be sneaking two groups into the city. From my House’s scouting, we knew of a secret way into Owl House’s residence by means of a tavern called The Slippery Eel. And, from questioning one of the captives from House Owl, we knew the route through the warren of tunnels to get into the estate. One group would go to face off with Merlin. I would not be in that group, unfortunately. I’d be in the other group, whose goal it was to free Alvere. I had the word of the other Nobles that Merlin and Hale would be captured, if possible, to be held for trial and punishment for treason. I hadn’t like letting others deal with Merlin, but I’d also known I couldn’t be in two places at once and just in case the team facing Merlin failed, freeing Alvere was also of great importance. If he was killed, Vauphan might truly rise against Elista. If he was allowed to be used for ransom, that could be an even worse fate. The hope was that once freed, he’d be able to bring his army to support ours in a final fight against Merlin if the other crew going in failed, which we all hoped didn’t happen.
I spent a lot of time telling the others everything I knew about defeating a mistweaver. They knew what I knew and had their own sets of abilities to bring to bear. I hoped they’d succeed, though I doubted Merlin would come away from the conflict alive and in custody. She’d fight to the death. They knew that too and were hopefully prepared for it.
I returned to my parents’ house that evening for a quiet dinner. Fin was there and ate with us. Afterward I went into see Dove. She lay, a little too still and too pale. She’d always been fair-skinned, but this pallor was just a little too close to that of a corpse for my liking. I brushed back some of her golden hair.
“I’m so sorry, sister,” I whispered. “I know I didn’t get you into this. You were the one who wanted to come along to appeal to Silvermane.” I sighed. “Though I guess I did get you into this, way back at the beginning of things with… Lord Hale and…” I couldn’t speak for a long moment, I was too infuriated. “He’ll get what’s coming to him I promise.” I sighed again after that. I had hoped something I said would rouse her somehow. But she remained still. After a time, I lay down next to her and held her. “I’m here, sister. Take my strength if you need it. You need to survive.” I couldn’t live with myself if she died having protected me.
It was late when I finally left, exhausted and soul-weary. Fin and I returned to the inn where Silence and Ant were staying. I checked in on Ant, sleeping like a log, good. Silence wasn’t in his room. I suspected I knew where he was, and I was right. He was in my room, curled up on the bed, waiting for me. He rose, when I entered and wordless, came to me, holding me. And my strength gave out then, as I cried into his shoulder.
He helped me into my nightdress and settled in bed with me, simply holding me, helping me to find the peace I needed to rest.
The next day was the same. More meetings and an evening with Dove, then crying myself to sleep in Silence’s arms.
The sixth day after everything had collapsed, we concluded our meetings and dispersed to arrange our various parts of the plan.
Still Dove was unconscious, though some of her color had started to return. She’d live now, we all knew that, but the question became, would she ever wake? I couldn’t stay any longer. I had things to do, so I left her in the care of our parents and returned with Fin, Ant, Silence, Midnight, and the Fey to Cliffside. That night I spent curled up with Silence, Sparrow, and Ant, though we did nothing more than hold each other.
The next day, I began to prepare for the mission.
Chapter 22
Alvere
Weak and bloody,Alvere hung by his wrists, which were manacled above his head and now numb from lack of circulation. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to feel them, given how bloody and torn-up they were after his various struggles to escape. The rest of his body wasn’t much better. His legs were aching and strained from standing on his toes to try to take as much pressure as he could off his wrists. These restraints weren’t made for someone of his height. He’d made the mistake of using his Fey ability of manipulating cloth to escape. He’d almost made it. He would have, if Merlin hadn’t been on her way to see him just as he’d picked the lock on his cell door with a stiffened strip of cloth. She’d taken all this clothes after that. Now he had nothing but the stinging lash marks Merlin liked to leave on him, and the bruises from when she brought Hale to rough him up. He was near to delirious with lack of sleep and lack of food. He got only a small portion of water and a moldy lump of bread every day, force-fed to him in no kind way by the jailer.
His keen ears picked up the soft padding of footfalls outside his cell. He knew those steps well now and had learned to dread them. Merlin was coming.
The key clanked in the lock and the door swung open, the light of the torch held by the jailer stung his eyes and he winced as Merlin strode in. At first, she’d come to him as a torturer, delighting in hurting him, healing him with her mists between sessions so she could continue her work. But now… she came as a seductress, in a wrap, made only of translucent mists.
She pressed her lips to his in a kiss which he didn’t share. As she did, he felt more mists slip down his throat. He’d learned not to resist them, that only led to long choking sessions, which were exceedingly painful.
“You are mine,” she whispered when she stepped back. “You might as well accept it, King Alvere. Your nobles are just about to make me their queen and some of them are saying they don’t want you back at all. You are kept alive only by my kindness, so why don’t you give up and come to me? Come to my bed and give me a true heir of Vauphan for your people.” She fondled his manhood, trying to bring it to arousal, but he found nothing in this stimulating.
“No,” he croaked, voice dry and cracked. “I’d rather die.”
She smiled and there was no mirth in it. “That is also an option.” She raised a finger and mist formed a long nail at the end of it. She dragged that down over his cheek, biting deep, drawing blood. Then she ran it over his chest and stomach in a slow waving pattern.
And where she cut him, the pain lanced into him, far more than such a scrape — deep as it was — should elicit. Her mists must somehow amplify pain, shocking through him in throbbing agony.
He didn’t know by what force of will he was able to resist from screaming, but he did.
She leaned in and licked the blood off his cheek. “You can end this pain with pleasure. Give me an heir.” She stepped back, and the gauzy mists around her vanished. “Am I not an attractive woman?” She reached down for his cock again, pulling hard on the limp flesh. “What will it take to get you to be with me?” She pressed her body to his, which only caused pain where she hadn’t yet healed the long cut down his torso.
“Perhaps,” she whispered. “If I looked like this?” She shimmered and in her place was Legs. She leaned in to kiss him again and this time, in a moment of weakness, delirious, Alvere returned the gesture, longing for his lost love, seeing her there with him. And now the stroking of her hand was indeed bringing him to the fullness of an erection.
“Yes, my king, I need you inside me,” she begged, and though the voice was one he knew so well, it was then that he snapped back to reality.
“No!” he hissed again. “You’re not her. You could never be her!”
The form shimmered, and Merlin was back, growling in fury. “You are a stubborn man. You could have been free long ago, endured much less pain, if you’d only agreed to sleep with me. But no! You insist on pain! Well, then pain you shall have!”
With mist-claws on all five fingers of one hand, she slashed it down over his body, gouging flesh, cutting deep. Then he jerked himself up a little higher as those dangerous fingers wrapped around his parts below, scraping on his thighs and lower belly as she held him.
“You know, if you refuse to be with me, I don’t really have much use for this, now do I? I have been researching and I believe I’ve found a way to extract your seed to implant within me, without your help.” Her hand moved from his cock to his face, fingers digging into his jaw as she drew close. “But I am a benevolent host, and I’ll give you one more chance. When I come next, if you don’t pleasure me and give me your seed willingly, I’ll just take it from you, then I’ll cut off your cock and stuff it down your throat until you choke on it.”
