Fergus stepped forward. “My mother is suspicious of what I’m up to,” he explained. “Which caused a little delay; however, she is choosing not to interfere.” The nereid royals knew how to ride a fence like nobody’s business, it seemed. At least Fergus seemed to be willing to stand up for what was right, which meant he would be a great ruler when his time came.
“My unit and I have helped Fergus’s men route the tunnel system we’ll use to lead everyone to the ships,” Sergei said. “The females have been slowly packing and preparing their children for about half a day’s worth of travel through the tunnels, should the time come.”
“Thank you, Van.” Caelena squeezed my arm, sincerity in her tone. “Your sacrifice gave everyone time. It won’t go unnoticed.”
“Yeah,” Audrey gnawed on her lip. “Everyone was able to see Caelena present your body to Ilia from the security footage Sergei was able to steal. You probably don’t want to see what you looked like for a while, but all the adults in here saw Ilia deem you dead.”
“You’re right.” I nodded at Audrey and swiped my hands across my chest. “I don’t want to see what I looked like, yet. As of right now, what happened to me during the last two days is none of my business.”
Eventually, everyone gave me time to fully come to. I ate a lot of food, because I hadn’t eaten anything in two wholedays. We game-planned what to do next. For now, everyone was still stuck here. Another patrol was sent to the mountains after Caelena returned my body and Audrey started healing me. The patrol didn’t linger, though. They simply spread out, found nothing, and returned home. This gave Caelena and Sergei hope that Ilia and Amber were becoming less confident that there was anything to find in the mountains.
But half a day later, while we were double-checking my vitals in Caelena’s office again, Sergei strode in with a laptop in his hands and a sharp frown on his face.
“We have a problem,” Sergei muttered. His grimace was dramatic on his face as he pulled open a laptop and showed us all the screen.
I gasped at the same time Audrey tensed, and Liam groaned out a “Shit.”
On the screen was a video of Drustan.
Shackled, chained to a wall that reminded me a lot of a dungeon. It wasn’t dark. The dungeon-looking space was made from a light stone, making the image’s clear details easy to point out.
“What the hell?” Audrey whispered.
Drustan was thrashing against his restraints, yelling and growling as he pulled and pulled. His muscles flexed, his teeth clenched in frustration, but eventually, his body would go slack as he fell to his knees. He’d take a moment to rest before battling the restraints again.
“What the fuck is happening?” I asked. “Why is no one helping him?” I ignored how frantic my anger felt in the moment. But my chest twisted painfully watching the video. It waswrong. I kept clenching and unclenching my fists, unable to process the immediate rage I felt watching Drustan, chained and helpless.
Help him, help him, help him.
Caelena was scraping a hand down her face as she watched her cousin struggle. “Ilia shackled him in the dungeon.”
“Gods.” Liam shook his head, rubbing his jaw in thought.
Sergei cleared his throat and said, “This footage was recorded twenty-four hours after we presented Vanessa’s body to Ilia. When we were back here, healing her.”
On the footage, Ilia entered the cell, flanked by three of his guards. Drustan started thrashing more, and even though there was no sound, it was obvious he was shouting and cursing at his father.
Ilia stayed eerily calm, lifting a hand toward his son as his lips moved.
Drustan stilled, frozen.
“No.” Caelena gasped.
Ilia spoke something else to his son, and without hesitation, Drustan dropped to his knees with his hands behind his back.
“He did it…” Audrey breathed, horror lacing her tone. “How did Ilia figure out how to—” She cut herself off by slapping a hand over her mouth in fear.
“We have to help him,” I insisted with a frantic voice. “We need to get Drustan out of there.”
“We will,” Caelena promised. “But we need to be smart about it.”
On the screen, Ilia stepped forward and produced a knife for Drustan to take, who did so stiffly. Like an emotionless robot. With another simple command from Ilia’s lips, Drustan held the knife to his chest.
“No!” I gasped, stepping forward, shoving Audrey out of my way. “No, no, no.” I clutched my hair in my hands, pulling at the roots, "He can’t—he can’t—” But right when Drustan pressed the blade to his chest, drawing blood, Ilia commanded him to stop with a shake of his head.
Drustan obeyed, dropping the knife, and gasping as if he had been holding his breath.
Relief filled my lungs; tears pricked my eyes as I watched Ilia laugh and leave his son chained in a cell.
