Aurelia
Time means nothing trapped in a perpetual haze of pain and fear. My only indication it passes at all is the hunger and thirst building inside me, the weakness of my limbs, and the pounding in my head.
The ropes cut into the skin of my wrists, my tongue is bone dry, and I’m bound so thoroughly, I can’t even sink down to the floor to rest my aching feet. More than once, I’ve fallen asleep for a moment or two, then woken to the agony of my entire body bucking against the restraints.
The worst, though, is the silence. It makes me grateful for the pain, because it proves I still live. I do not know what I believed would happen when I stepped inside these stone walls, but it was not this.
With nothing but my thoughts to distract me from the unending fear I will die before anyone comes back for me, I try to recall happier times. My grandmother’s kindly face, the way I’d sit at her feet and play with my simple straw doll as she told stories.
“Your grandfather was whip smart,” she says as she brushes my hair. “He found scraps and shavings of iron scattered through the realm, and he collected them. He was determined to forge a weapon—just in case he ever found a way to kill the King. Your mother was but a young thing. Only eighteen when he’d collected enough iron to make a single blade. He intended to put an end to the Fae’s control of us and free the entire realm.”
I stare up at her, wide-eyed and confused. “But we are not free.”
She sighs, and her eyes turn sad. “He convinced fifty of the realm’s strongest men to join him, and many more pledged their support, though they were hesitant. On Market day, the fifty of them surrounded the Fae King and his guards. Your grandfather was quick, and he stabbed one of the guards with the iron blade, then tried to kill the King. But a second guard jumped in front of the King at the last moment.
“He started a war—the only war we have ever fought with the Fae. But it lasted less than two days. The King and his court used their magic to ruin the lands. The sheep started to die, the crops withered, and darkness blanketed the realm. They poisoned the water, and by the second morning, more than a hundred were dead, and all fifty of the men who’d participated in the attack surrendered themselves to the King. That was the last I ever saw of your grandfather.”
I force my head up, the only part of my body I can control, and try to stretch my neck. It does little good. My father is safe. For now. The King promised he would remain free, and though the Fae are evil tricksters, they cannot lie. That is my only comfort.
Some time later, the door opens with a loudthunk, and I jerk in my bonds. Terror sends my heart racing, my breaths tearing from my chest in short, frantic pants.
“You poor thing.” The Prince’s smooth voice is right next to my ear, so close I whimper weakly as my instincts kick in and I try to pull my head away. But he grabs a fistful of my hair. “Stay still, my bride, and I will ease some of your discomfort.”
Not your bride.
He loosens the gag, ripping it from my mouth and sending the worst pain I have ever felt along my tongue and the corners of my lips where the fabric had stuck. I scream, and he covers my mouth. “You must learn to behave, or I will silence you another way. Perhaps one much more permanent.”
Sobbing, I nod, and he removes his hand. At this point, I’ll do anything he wants if he’ll just untie me, and I am about to tell him so when the ropes fall away, so quickly it must be by magic, and I collapse into his arms.
My body holds no strength, and he carries me a few steps, then sits with me in his lap. I can feel his erection pressing into my bottom, and I want to shove at him, but I cannot move.
Something presses to my lips, and then the sweetest taste fills my mouth. My grandmother’s warning echoes through my mind a moment too late.
“Do not accept food or drink from the Fae’s hand. Their magic will consume you, and you will never want to leave them.”
I swallow on instinct, my hunger and thirst in this moment overwhelming, and the Prince croons to me in his native tongue, words I don’t understand but that I know, deep down, are meant to sway me, to bind me to him in a way I cannot allow.
Still, I do not resist, and my body floats as I drink my fill. I’m only dimly aware of him laying me down and brushing his lips to my cheek. “You will come to love it here, my sweet Lia.And you will love me. I know it.”
I still can’t see. He never removed the blindfold, but even if he had, I lack the strength to open my eyes. Sleep pulls me under, and in my dreams, he comes to me, comforts me, and I want to give in, but then a deep voice—one I recognize but cannot place—sends warmth all through me.
Fight him, Aurelia. I will come for you. Even if I must die, I will save you.
* * *
The Prince
My beauty rests, the sweet draught I gave her too powerful for any being to fight. Blindfolded, helpless, lashed to the post in the center of this barren room, she was perfection when I entered. Her pain strengthens me, feeds my power, and the more I make her suffer, the more she will desire me.
“Come,” I command, and two of the King’s guards enter the room. One carries a spinning wheel, and the other balances a bale of straw across his shoulders. My father’s plan is brilliant. Give her an impossible task, punish her severely when she fails, and then offer her another bargain. One she will be too weak to refuse.
My father claimed my mother in a similar fashion, though my methods will be slightly more...severe. After all, this human woman was strong enough to offer herself in sacrifice to save that pitiful drunkard, Abbot. She will not sway to my side easily.
“Pile the straw three bales high along that wall,” I say, and the guards nod, leaving the room to retrieve the rest of what I am certain will become the thing my future bride hates most in this world.
When nine bales line one side of the tower room, I dismiss them, taking a final moment to watch her sleep. Already I can sense her emotions. Her fear of me abates with the draught and my magic, and something akin to gratefulness replaces it.
After all, it was the King who bound her. I released her. Saved her. And tomorrow…I will begin wooing her.
