The faint light flickered past her drooping eyes, casting shadows across splintered walls. The air grew damp and heavy, the earthy smell of wet dirt everywhere. A chill snaked through her, and she groaned, the sound overly loud in the darkness.
“Awake, are you?” Her captor’s gruff voice chilled her more than the air. “Don’t bother trying to move. That soporific works wonders, doesn’t it? You’ll feel like yourself again soon enough. Though by then, you won’t want to feel anything.”
The words stirred fear inside her. Get up. Move! She managed to shift her lips, but the sound came out garbled, like a child trying to form their first words. Her fingers twitched, the only other rebellion her body could muster.
“Don’t bother trying to resist,” her captor said casually, as if discussing the weather. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”
All of a sudden, she knew him. Drustan Fawst. Cole’s former stepbrother, the one he’d warned her to stay away from. The one who had beat Cole and killed his dog.
Moisture blurred her vison, but she blinked it away, wanting to see everything she could, to figure out where they might be.
They reached the bottom of a staircase, and Drustan turned sharply, making Mistel’s head roll. The space around them seemed to shift. Narrow walls lined with beams gave way to an open tunnel. Above, the ribs of a stone ceiling arched like the carcass of a giant beast.
“You’re going out on the next ship,” Drustan said, “though I might buy you for myself. Either way, no one’s going to find you.”
Buy her? Mistel managed to whisper Cole’s name.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure he’ll try to find you, but he has no idea how to get here. Few do. And I’ll grab him, too, after you’re taken care of. Sell him to Jaelport.” He chuckled darkly. “Can’t have the likes of you two trying to set Nash on the straight and narrow. I’ve put up with far too much from him and his father over the years, waiting for a moment like this. That business should be mine.”
The weight of Drustan’s words pulled Mistel into an abyss. No one was coming for her. Not now, not ever. Her breathing came shallow, frantic. Her fingers trembled, useless at her sides. The soporific had dulled her body, but not her senses. This was everything she’d always dreaded: losing her freedom, being helpless, controlled.
Images from her past flickered through her mind, unbidden and merciless. Sitting at her mother’s side as she died. All the times her father had dismissed her, forbidden her to leave the house, stripped away her independence.
Father’s words rose up in her memory, angry and vivid as when he’d first uttered them.
“One step outside that door, and you’ll see how cruel this world really is. You’ll thank me one day for keeping you here.”
“You think I’m being unfair? Life is unfair, Mistel.”
“Think I don’t know what happens to girls who wander? You’ll end up hurt—or worse—so stay put.”
So she’d stayed, for years, trapped in that tiny house where her mother had died. She endured the loneliness, survived in silence. Now here she was again, trapped, powerless, and spiraling deeper into the chasm of her darkest memories.
And the worst part? The pitch-black corners of her mind that taunted her with things she couldn’t fight, couldn’t escape. She had no way to sing over them, no way to exaggerate or flirt her way out this time.
Drustan’s boots scuffed along over cold dirt, each step carrying her farther from the light, farther from hope. The darkness grew thicker, colder, swallowing her whole. She was trapped, powerless, with nothing but the weight of her dark memories for company. She could no longer be the bold songstress who could brighten even the bleakest moments. In the darkness, she was just Mistel. Small and forgotten. Alone.
And that was the deepest wound of all.
Chapter 37
Cole
Cole’s legs burned as he tore through the falling snow, his breath clouding in erratic bursts. He met Kurtz at the back door to the Black Boar. Snow fell thickly around them, covering the ground with a powdery blanket.
“If she left any tracks, they’re gone now, they are,” Kurtz said, fiddling with the wick of his lantern, coaxing more light from its feeble flame.
Cole glanced down at his boots, already half covered in fresh snow. There was nothing around them—no scuffs, no drag marks, no footprints. “Think Nash was distracting me?” he muttered, more to himself than Kurtz. “Then why show me the passageway?”
“Maybe Drustan was acting on his own,” Kurtz said, “and Nash knows nothing about it, eh?”
Cole fisted his hands as he paced back toward the tavern. “He took her right under my nose. I didn’t even see her come out of the storage room. I was sitting there, tuning my lute. I’m such a fool!”
“We’ll find her, we will,” Kurtz said.
Cole spun back. “You can’t know that!”
“Hey,” Kurtz barked, his tone sharp. “Keep it down, will you?”
