Breandan was positioned on his knees, his arms suspended by roots. The same roots that were wrapped around his knees and legs, along with his torso and neck. They bound him in place. Forced him to kneel without respite.
From the way he sagged in their grip, I had a feeling he was unconscious. Though I couldn’t confirm it. His head hung low, his hair falling forward to conceal his face.
Blood, old and new, stained the clothes he must have been wearing when he was taken. I could also see signs of it on the ground around him. He’d been wounded at some point and left to bleed out. Probably the only thing keeping him alive was the fact that Fae were incredibly hard to kill unless you had the right tools.
“What did they do to him?”
“The same thing they do to all of us.”
Inara had a lost look as her gaze drifted to the tiny root cage suspended from one of the branches. I didn’t need the flash of purple and blue from within to know that was where Lowen was being kept.
“The same thing they’re going to do to you,” Inara added, her gaze swinging back to meet mine. “Unless we get you out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you and Lowen.”
Now that I knew what they had endured, it made me all the more determined to save them. There was also Deborah and Brax’s pack to consider.
“Where are we anyway?” I asked.
“Summer’s Heart.” Inara’s face was sad as she took in the assortment of root spheres and their dead and dying victims. “It used to be beautiful. The tree limbs and the oak’s trunk were home to an assortment of Fae species. This was once a sacred place for the Summer Fae.”
“And now?”
Inara’s features hardened. “It’s a prison.”
I’d gotten that from my first visit to the meadow. Now that I was here, I could see it was worse than I’d previously imagined.
In addition to the many root cages, there were bumps in the otherwise flat meadow that I suspected housed prisoners who’d been imprisoned here for centuries. So long that a carpet of grass and flowers grew over them.
The worst part was that I wasn’t sure all those who’d been pulled underground by the march of time were entirely dead.
“A realm’s heart isn’t a place you can trespass into lightly. You either need power or the custodian’s permission. No one in or out unless he wills it.”
“Custodian?”
Inara nodded in the direction the stag-like creature had wandered off into. “You met him a little while ago.”
“Are you allies?” I asked.
From their interactions, there seemed to be some type of relationship between them. Inara had been the one to stop him during my first visit. From their conversation just now, he seemed just as much a prisoner as she was.
I could use that. Especially if I could undo the enthrallment that they were under.
My gaze dropped to Inara’s collar. Its design was more complicated than the one I’d found around Brax’s neck.
“Maybe once. But now he can’t be trusted any more than I can. As long as we’re under the Summer King’s control, there’s achance we could be forced to betray you. Even if we don’t want to.”
“The solution for that is easy.” I reached for her neck. “I’ll just break the enthrallment.”
Inara evaded my grasp. “No, Aileen. This is one thing you can’t break.”
“Nonsense.”
It’d be difficult, but I was always up for a challenge.
“Aileen, no!” Inara barked, making me freeze in the process of reaching out again. Her expression softened. “Thank you, but no. It’s not necessary.”
“Why won’t you let me help you?”
