“Do you know who your parents are?” Slaugh asked, ignoring my question.
I scowled. “Of course I do. My mother is Chaya—er, I mean Gelsyne, I guess,” I corrected lamely, feeling slightly ashamed. How could I have lived with my mother my entire life without knowing her real name? “My father was Caol, a water fae.”
“Hmm.” General Slaugh didn’t seem impressed with my answer. He pulled a chain from his pocket, and my heart beat faster as I recognized the pendant dangling from the end. “I researched the origins of this talisman. It’s an ancient primal stone, specifically spelled to nullify fire magic. It seems that it weakened your water magic to a degree as well, which I’m sure yourmotherdid not intend when she put it around your neck as a babe.” He said the wordmotherwith a heavy dose of sarcasm.
I pressed my lips together, the tips of my ears burning with embarrassment. “I’m not sure what the point of this interrogation is,” I said in a scathing tone. “You’re asking questions you already know the answers to, and you aren’t telling me anything I don’t know already.”
Slaugh ignored that. “Where did you find the dragon? And why is he helping you?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to decide how much to tell him. “I found him in an abandoned tower, turned to stone, and woke him up accidentally. He nearly killed me, but I convinced him to help me. Apparently he’s more interested in seeking vengeance against the fae who actually killed his people than some girl.”
“A girl who can use fire magic would be of great interest to a dragon.” Slaugh searched my face with a suspicious glint in his eye, as if trying to detect whether I was being truthful. “It’s hard to believe that you’re as ignorant as you claim to be,” he said after a long moment. “But perhaps that explains why you stayed in that backwoods village for as long as you did.”
I lifted my chin and glared at him. “If I’m so ignorant,” I told him, “then why don’t you do me a favor and enlighten me?”
He shook his head and stepped forward, digging something out of his pouch. “In time,” he told me, pressing a cloth against my mouth. I held my breath as a sickly sweet stench hit my nose, but eventually I was forced to breathe the sleeping potion in. Blackness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I sagged in my chains as I succumbed to the effects, leaving myself at the general’s mercy.
* * *
When I woke,I wasn’t in the dungeon, as I expected to be. Instead, I was lying on a feathery mattress, a down comforter pulled up to my chin. The soft, dreamy notes of a harp floated in the air, nearly lulling me back to sleep.
But the harp meant I wasn’t alone in the room. There was someone else here, playing. Watching me.
I bolted upright, wincing as my head pounded with the motion. Whatever potion was in that rag had been potent stuff. Clutching my head, I noticed the manacles were still locked around my wrists, but the chain between them had been removed. The tiny primal stones set into the metal winked mockingly, and I scowled back at them. I was free to move my wrists, just not my magic. A prisoner in a pretty cage.
“Ahh, you’re awake.” I swung my head toward the sound to see a pretty earth female lounging on the bed next to mine. She wore a gauzy emerald silk dress, her leaf-green hair left to hang around her shoulders in loose waves. Horror caused my heart to stutter in my chest as my gaze snagged on her face—there were delicate black veins creeping beneath her rust-colored skin, feathering the edges of her jaw and cheeks. A similar taint bled outward from her pupils, nearly swallowing her moss-colored eyes entirely.
This girl wasn’t just a captive. She was shadow tainted.
“Who are you??” I asked carefully, studying her features. She wore a placid expression, as though she was simply enjoying a lazy day instead of being held captive in Castle Kaipei, her soul slowly rotting away with shadow sickness.
“I’m Lady Avani.” Avani smiled, setting the book in her lap aside. I blinked, realizing that she wasn’t playing the harp, and glanced around the room, looking for the source. I found the instrument in the corner, an ornate, gilded thing around four feet tall, its strings vibrating of their own accord. It must have been enchanted by witchlings. “General Slaugh told me to help you get settled in.”
I nodded absently, still looking around the space. We were in a large, well-appointed tower room, done up in varying earth tones, possibly at Lady Avani’s request. Disappointment filled me as I realized there wasn’t a single thing in here that could be used as a weapon.
“Are all the other hostages shado—” I was about to say shadow sick, then trailed off in shock as I looked at Avani’s face again. The lines marring her skin had disappeared, along with the blackness tainting her irises. “What happened to your face?”
Avani lifted a hand to touch her cheek, a frown gathering between her eyebrows. “What do you see?”
“I…well, you had these black veins, before,” I said lamely, feeling ten kinds of foolish.
Had I just imagined it? Perhaps the effects of the sleeping potion were still wearing off, and I wasn’t fully awake yet. “But you look great now. Your skin is perfect.”
Lady Avani sighed, but not in relief. “It’s the shadow taint,” she said, her gaze heavy with sadness. “We all take everbright potion daily to ward off the effects of living here, but it’s not quite enough to keep it at bay all the time.”
“We?” I glanced around. “Are there others living here?”
Avani nodded. “Lady Cascada, and Lady Tempest, the other two hostages from the water and air realms. King Aolis keeps us here to keep our houses in line, and make sure the other realms don’t rise against him.” She cocked a head at me. “Cascada will be especially curious to know why you’re here, since there’s no reason for Lady Axlya to send a second hostage.”
“I’m not—” I cut myself off, unsure how much to reveal. Clearly General Slaugh didn’t tell Avani the truth about me, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Aolis was keeping the other houses in line with hostages. Were the other realms really so malcontent with his rule that this was necessary? “I’m not allowed to talk about it,” I decided on.
“I see.” Avani looked disappointed, but she quickly brightened. “Are you hungry? They should be serving dinner soon downstairs.”
I glanced around the room again, noting the door. There were bars on the windows, but the door itself didn’t seem to be anything special. I could probably knock it down with a well-placed kick. “Are we allowed to leave?” I asked dubiously.
Avani laughed, hopping lightly off the bed. The rose vines on her dress moved as she did, and I realized with a start that they were real. “Of course we are,” she said, gliding toward the door. “We might be hostages, but we’re still nobility. King Aolis has to give us some comforts.” She glanced back at me, then frowned. “Although first, we should probably get you dressed.”
I looked down at myself, realizing for the first time that I wore a simple white nightgown. “Is there anything for me to wear?” I asked, glancing at the closet on my side of the room.
