“I don’t,” I was quick to assure him. If anything, I felt safer with him now, to know he could deliver such a punishment and then care for me so tenderly afterward. He’d done it for my benefit, though the soldier in me assured me that I’d made the right decision in chasing after that assassin. It wasn’t in my blood to be meek, which likely meant more punishments for me in the future.
“What are you thinking about now?” he asked, staring at me intently.
“I was thinking this will likely happen again, not because I’dwantto disobey you, but because it’s in my nature to do so.”
He nodded sagely. “I don’t wish to break your spirit, Cedrych, only guide you toward a more constructive path and above all else, keep you safe.”
“Yes, my lord. I didn’t understand before, but I think I’m beginning to.”
“Good.” He smiled, melting me even more, then held out his hand and helped me climb gingerly off the massage table. I slipped my feet into a pair of padded slippers. Made of the softest buttery leather, they molded to my feet and blocked the chill from the stone floor.
Vasil led me out of the baths, back to the metal box that I now knew was called an elevator, down seemingly endless floors until we reached his subterranean dungeon–this one for prisoners not bedmates. It was as tidy and well-kept as every other room in the castle. No mold or mildew or standing water. Clean, if not a little impersonal. The rows of cells were well-maintained too, the metal bars practically gleaming. Each unit had a bed, a latrine and wash basin, a built-in desk and chair, and a floor rug to ward off the chill. There were guest rooms at my mother’s castle that weren’t this nice, which made me wonder why a prisoner would want to leave at all.
Currently there was only one occupant in Vasil’s dungeon, the skilled archer and assassin. Pity the lad was a criminal, because he was really quite talented with a bow and arrow. My ass was tender, but I dragged a chair from one of the unoccupied cells and set it in front of the steel bars that separated me from the prisoner. I motioned to his chair and the lad obeyed, dragging it over so we sat facing each other. Vasil and his guards stood off to the side, watching and listening.
The young man appeared even thinner than my initial assessment with long, unwashed hair and large, moss green eyes that seemed to take up his entire face. “How’s the food?” I asked in elvish, pointing to the empty metal tray. It was good the lad was eating. A strong wind would blow him away.
He blinked and stared straight at me without answering. I asked the question again in fae, which elicited a huffy response. “I don’t speak fae,” he said in elvish.
“But you are fae?” I asked and he only stared back at me with a mulish expression. “So, you wanted to kill me?” I said and he immediately shook his head.
“Not you, Your Highness.Him.” The boy pointed with one bony finger towards Vasil. Vasil, to his credit, seemed completely indifferent.
“You recognize me then?” I asked.
The boy nodded. “You’re the wild one.”
I nearly smiled because that was certainly my reputation. “Prince Cedrych Avondale of Bivenbriar,” I said and held my hand through the bar for the boy to shake. He glanced skittishly at Vasil before offering up his own hand. His fingers were so thin and knobby it was a wonder he could pull back the bowstring at all.
“And you are?” I asked.
“Galen,” he said.
“Family name?”
He shrugged. “If I ever had one, I don’t know it.”
An orphan, one could only assume. “How did a lad like yourself end up here in the elvish realm?”
He swallowed and his slender throat bobbed, a tender thing. “Sold as a sprig. So I was told.”
Sold as a sprig? What would be the purpose in that?
“Sold to whom?” I asked. The boy said nothing, so I continued. “What happened to your wings?”
He shrugged and drew his threadbare robe tighter around him as if ashamed. He stared at his riding boots. The worn leather had been sewn back together in several places and the sole looked nearly worn through. This boy had been a captive from a very young age, had been tortured as well, but he knewwho I was. Whoever was behind this assassination plot was also trafficking in fae children, which made me all the more angry. I wanted to catch the lowlife who’d put this poor boy up to such a dastardly deed. But the only way to do that would be to get more information from him.
“So, what did Lord Vasil do to you to make you want to turn your bow on him?” I asked.
The boy dragged his arm across his nose. “Nuthin’,” he said, blinking his eyes rapidly as if trying not to cry.
“Nothing? Must have been something,” I coaxed.
“T’was nothing at all, Your Highness,” he insisted. “Nothing personal.”
“Then someone put you up to it?” I wagered. His ensuing silence spoke volumes. “Well then, who’s mad enough at Lord Vasil to want him dead?”
“I’m so sorry, Your Highness,” Galen said with a wail.
