Chapter1
Crossroads
Raewyn
So this was how it would end… my grand adventure in the Fae palace, my whirlwind love affair with Stellon.
My life.
Standing at the locked door of my dark cell, I rattled the bars, hoping thatthistime it might actually do something. I’d paced the small enclosure most of the day—at least as far as my ankle chain allowed me to roam.
Exhausted by the time complete darkness fell, I’d attempted to sleep, but the stench of this place was nauseating, and the fear of what would happen to me next wasn’t exactly rest-inducing.
My life could end at any moment, either by execution—or by ending up in the King’s retinue where I’d only wish I was dead.
Just the thought of him filled my mouth with a sour taste, and my skin crawled in repulsion as I relived the way he’d touched my neck while taunting his son.
My body kept sending me commands to flee, to get as far as possible from Castle Seaspire, but as the cold, solid bars in my hands reminded me, escape was impossible.
Gaining freedom from the dungeon once had been a miracle. I wasn’t going to get another one.
Stellon couldn’t rescue me now.
Like me, he’d been locked away by his father, punished for the crime of loving a lowly human.
What a mistake it had been to let myself come to depend on someone else, to believe in his promises of happily ever after. I knew he’d meant them, but look how things had turned out.
Love had made me blind.
Now both of us would face the consequences of that foolish faith.
Stellon would never take another free step in his eternal lifetime, forcibly married to an Elven woman he didn’t love, spending the rest of his days under his powerful sire’s thumb.
And my days… well they might be numbered in the single digits. The fact I was still breathing meant Pharis hadn’t yet told his father about my involvement in the assassination plot.
But he would. And then I’d be hanged.
Yes, that was the most likely scenario. Perhaps I’d never have to worry about the horrifying prospect of becoming one of the King’s personalattendants—or the torture of being a member of Stellon’s retinue where I’d always be at arm’s reach and yet a world apart from him.
Just close enough to see him living his life bonded to another woman and be constantly reminded how close we’d come to happiness.
I seethed with renewed anger at the way Pharis had lied to his brother, promising Stellon he’d never betray his trust and then minutes later turning around and alerting their father to our escape.
It had to have been him. How else would the King have known?
Perhaps I should have carried out the Earthwife’s plan after all—at least with the royal spare and his evil father, the bad half of the Fae royal family.
The thought of killing someone still turned my stomach, but the King deserved no less for what he was doing to the human women in his retinue, keeping them brainwashed, at his beck and call until he tired of them and put them out to be shunned by their villages and communities.
And Pharis… if I ever saw his beautiful, wicked face again, Iwouldfinish the job.
I’d utterly failed to deliver on my end of the bargain with the Earthwife, and my little sisters and my poor father would pay the price. Once I was gone, they’d have no one to protect them or advocate for them.
They’d be left at the mercy of Sorcha, who had none.
The witch would make it out of here eventually one way or another. Was she even still here in the dungeon or had she used her wiles—and her mysterious magic—to escape already?
Yanking again at my chain, I let out a scream of frustration.
