“Rowan, go to her,” I whisper. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He hesitates for one final, agonising second. He looks at me, eyes wild and bloodshot, searching mine for a promise I know I’m about to break.
“Stay where I can see you, Hawthorne,” he commands. “Do you hear me? You do not move!” He lunges down towards Bryn, dropping his sword to help Sam. The moment his fingers leave mine, I move.
I bolt for the door in one swoop.
“Elodie, NO!” Rowan screams, the sound the most painful thing I’ve had to hear from his mouth. Pure, unadulterated betrayal. He springs up toward me, but Bryn collapses against his chest. He reaches out on instinct, catching her head. I move fast, not looking back. I can’t. If I see his face, I won’t be able to do this.
“KAEL! Stop her!” Rowan bellows from behind. Kael turns his head towards me, his weight pressing against the front door.
“Elodie, don’t do this. We can’t protect you from him,” he yells at me as I move to the back door as quickly as I can.
No, but I can save you all from him.
“I’m sorry.” I yell back, tears filling my eyes. Sprinting forward, adrenaline surges through me as I yank the door open. My lungs burning, I round the corner of the cottage.
“I’m here!” I shout, raising my hands, my breath coming in ragged gasps. “Take me. Just leave them alone.” Aldric tilts his head at me, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face.
“A selfless choice, my little gardener. Seize her.” He flicks his fingers toward the guards to my right as they move in, grabbing my arms and clamping heavy gauntlets onto my wrists.
“ELODIE!”
The window behind me shatters, Rowan’s fist punching through the glass. Shards spray over the porch before I see his face. A bloodied, frantic, and absolutely feral expression that breaks me. I’m lifted onto a horse, and as soon as the king gives the signal, I watch the only home I have ever truly found fade into the distance.
Chapter 27
Elodie
The ride to the castle is longer than I remember it ever being. Not because of the distance, but because of the dull ache on my wrists, where the iron of my cuffs bites into the bone. Because of the guilt of the knights surrounding me, who have lost friends because of my past failures. I refuse to bow my head like the helpless captured animal I am being made out to be. I just keep telling myself there wasn’t another way. If anyone in that house dies, the blood is on my hands. The gates of the castle groan open at our approach. A storm gathers overhead, with grey clouds coiled in restless layers above the towers. It’s harrowing.
The castle has never been a place I could think of as home, but knowing Rowan is not here with me, not here in this stone fortress makes fear settle low in my stomach. I’m hauled from the horse, my boots scraping the cobbled ground as my shoulder knocks against the guard’s breastplate. The guards have never been aggressive before, never once placing a hand on me. But now, they drag me roughly. Iron-clad fingers digging into the soft flesh of my arms, I wince as he presses into my cut from earlier, the bloodied rag now dry on my skin. Is he going to kill me? No, he still needs me. The desperation in his face is as clear as ever before. The king’s eyes looking back to mine.
Wild and unruly.
His neck is now covered in thin black veins spreading up and over his jaw, his teeth black, his eyes so hollowed out he looks as though he could already be dead. I don’t know where he’s taking me.
I expect a prison or dungeon, but they drag me up through polished corridors.
Climbing a narrow spiral staircase as we emerge into one tower. This is not a dungeon. It can’t be. It’s beautiful, gilded furniture with tall arched windows overlooking the inner courtyard. A balcony trimmed with iron ivy, silk draping in deep emerald. A four-poster bed sits to one side, carved with intricate leaves and vines. And in the centre of the room. A silver cage. Aldric turns to me and instructs the guards to remove the gauntlets as they unclasp the heavy cuffs. My wrists are already bruised, throbbing in sheer pain. I reach out instinctively to rub them, holding them firm to try to ease the raw burning sensation.
“Put her in the cage,” he says simply.
“What?!” I shout, shaking my head, trying to dig my heels into the marble floor. It’s a futile attempt, of course, the guards lifting me by my arms as I kick my legs as hard as I can.
“No. Please, no.” Protesting does nothing.
I’m met with a hollow silence.
They haul me closer to the silver cage. It’s tiny, inhumane. I am shoved inside, the space so small it drags up all my nightmares. There is no room to move. I am forced to sit with my back pressed against the freezing vertical bars, my knees pulled tightly against my chest. My shins press against the gate in front, no room to stand, barely room to breathe. Every time I try to shift, the cage groans, reminding me of just how enclosed I am. How stupid I was to call that glasshouse my prison. This… this is worse than I could have ever imagined. Aldric walks toward me, his boots clicking rhythmically on the marble.
“Now, you can probably tell I am looking a little worse for wear,” he says, clasping his hands together behind his back. I choose not to respond.
“I need the Widowsbloom, little gardener. And I need it now.” I tilt my chin up in defiance, refusing to help him.
“My Aethelings tell me the Aethelguard has been unbound,” he remarks with a sly grin.
It worked? Bryn did it?
“Why would you need fire, Elodie?” he paces a slow circle around the cage, the iron bars casting long shadows over my face.
