Lex clenched her hands together. They were screwed. The king had frozen their friends and tossed them out like rubbish. Camille was gone, and now the king had ordered Amund to return her and Garrin to the castle.
“Do it now or pay for your disobedience,” the king said to Amund.
Amund exchanged a glance with Garrin, and said, “I will create a portal, Your Majesty.”
The king’s eyes narrowed.
Lex squeezed Garrin’s arm. “We can’t go. It’s too dangerous.”
He slid his palm to hers, some wild emotion filling his face. “We’re outnumbered.”
“And going with your father is safer than staying? Let’s fight.”
“Don’t be a fool, Dark Prince,” Isle cried out. “Your father will destroy Lexandra just as he destroyed so many others.”
The wave of power that followed hit Lex so hard that she stumbled back. When she regained her bearings, her mother’s expression was frozen, entombed in ice.
Shock filled her, and then tears rushed to her eyes. “Mom!”
“Don’t do this!” Garrin shouted at his father.
Lex lurched toward her mother and slammed her fist against the ice, whirls of condensation floating up. Isle’s pale face was suspended in outrage.
“Remove it! Let her go!” Lex screamed, attempting to re-create Garrin’s power, as she’d done inside the alcove, and break her mother free. But her mind was filled with emotion, and nothing stuck.
“Now, now, Lexandra,” the king said. “Anger won’t help. You wish your mother free?”
Lex swiveled her head toward the king. “Let. Her. Go.”
A sickly smile spread across the king’s face. “Not until you come with me, child. Then I will set your mother free.”
Was “setting her free” some sort of euphemism for death?
Lex looked at Garrin, but he was staring at his father, the color leached from his face.
“It’s up to you, son. More of this”—the king gestured to Lex’s mom—“or we can return to my castle and discuss what I want from your future bride. If that is what she truly is to you.”
A sour taste filled Lex’s mouth. The king knew she wasn’t here to marry Garrin. Knew what Mertha had told Felix. And considering his reaction to Lex sensing Felix’s magic, he knew something of her ability too.
Garrin surged toward his father. “What do you want? Tell me!”
The soldiers surrounding the Dark King unsheathed their swords, protecting him in a starburst of metal. “The girl first,” the king said.
“Never!” Garrin roared. “You’ll never have her.”
“Have her? Son, I don’t wish to possess her. You have my word. Your bride is safe in my castle.”
Garrin’s chest rose and fell. He looked around the room at the dozens of soldiers standing behind his father. Likely more they couldn’t see beyond the cave entrance.
With only ten of them left.
He turned to her and cupped her jaw. “We must go.”
Lex shook her head. How had it come to this? They’d escaped the castle, made their way to the grave caves everyone feared, and were so close to escape. Or had they been? Had the king toyed with them all along?
Lex had never believed herself safe in the Land of Ice. But she’d felt invincible in Garrin’s arms. And now, even Garrin worried.
She couldn’t blame him. The power the Dark King wielded… Her mother hadn’t even time to close her eyes before she was enshrined.
Perhaps the king would honor his word and keep Lex safe, but would he give the same courtesy to his son? A son born out of wedlock, who might not be considered an heir?
Em shuffled over, her face red from crying, and handed Lex her coat.
The way the king had treated Em’s parents and Isle… Lex looked up at Garrin pleadingly. “We can’t agree to this.”
He grabbed her hand. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” But she didn’t trust his father. How could Garrin trust the king after what he’d done? And she couldn’t even voice her concerns because the king was listening to everything.
Garrin nodded, but this time, he looked over Lex’s shoulder as he did.
“The others will remain here, portal creator,” the king said as he approached. “Only Garrin, his bride, and I will return.”
Four of the king’s soldiers moved in to surround Garrin and Lex, but Amund was quicker.
One moment Lex and Garrin were standing side by side, and the next, they were tumbling through a portal Lex hadn’t seen coming. Because it had been formed beneath her feet.
Amund created a portal, just as the king ordered. Only the king wasn’t in it.
Lex screamed as she tumbled ass over teakettle. She wouldn’t have expected a smooth landing after such a rough start, but she sure hadn’t expected their mode of transportation to disappear entirely.
One minute she was careening through colorful lights, and the next, the lights were gone, and land came crashing toward her.
Lex huddled, enacting the tuck-and-roll maneuver Em had taught her during battle practice. It might have worked under normal conditions, but not from twenty feet above ground.
Lex landed hard, rolling through powder and ice until she came to an abrupt stop.
She coughed, the wind knocked out of her, and lifted her head. “Garrin?” All she could see were white mountains, no castle or village.
It was probably too much to ask to be back in the village. She was lucky to not be under the king’s control.
Lex eased onto her knees and stood shakily, hopping on one leg and gripping her wrist and the coat she’s somehow managed to hold on to. She’d sprained her left ankle and possibly broken her arm. As a human, that would have been crippling. But in Tirnan, healing came as quickly as the pain.
She looked behind her and caught sight of Garrin several feet away with blood on his face.
She jerked on the coat and hobbled over, falling to her knees beside Garrin and desperately touching his face. “Are you okay?”
He blinked and grabbed her hand, then he sat up. “Fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
He lifted his fingers to his temple, the tips coming away red. “Landed wrong. Where’s Amund?”
“Over here,” came a voice. Only it wasn’t masculine.
They looked up to find the queen dressed in a green velvet gown trimmed in gold embroidery, her long, wavy, light brown hair swept over one shoulder.
“Mother?” The alchemists who’d taken Garrin at the castle stood beside her. “What have you done?” Garrin asked, and climbed to his feet.
The alchemists weren’t the only ones protecting the queen. Large four-legged animals flanked her and the alchemists, their downy white fur blending eerily with the land.
Lex didn’t have memories of these animals. Their snouts were bearlike, their bodies like a large wolf’s. And their eyes were a bright gold. They were terrifying, with fangs and low, menacing growls.
“Djune,” Garrin said quietly. “They aren’t good for meat or work, but they are strong. And vicious. They must be enthralled by my mother, or she would be in pieces right now.”
“You are correct,” the queen said. “Though if we are being specific, these djune are in thrall to my friends here. Under my command, of course.” The queen tilted her head. “You didn’t think it was your father who’d had you questioned?” She laughed. “I had to know what my child was up to. And what my husband wanted with the female.” She looked Lex over and turned her nose down.
“Why?” Garrin asked.
The queen’s eyes widened. “Don’t look so surprised. You and your father aren’t the only Fae who desire power. Your father has held on to it for longer than most. He’s rather old, you know.”
The queen moved closer, and both alchemists and djune kept pace. “It was a great bother trying to find you and your little woman.” She glanced in the not-too-far distance, and her nose scrunched. “Why in the world would you go to the graves?”
And that was when Lex realized they weren’t far from the caves. A mountain away, at most.
“If I’d been a second later,” the queen said, “you would have arrived at your destination. But my men are very good. They stopped the portal creator from taking you too far.” The queen’s eyes twinkled, and she gestured behind her.
Lex’s heart stopped. “Amund!”
Amund stumbled between four robed alchemists, his face ashen and bruised, blood dripping down his mouth. His left leg dragged behind him, contorted gruesomely.
“Let him go!” Lex shouted, her face heating with rage.
The queen frowned. “How disrespectful. Whatever do you see in her, son?”
“Not your son.” Camille walked out from behind a snowbank.
What in the hell? Camille had escaped before the king could get to her. Had she been here all along, or had she followed them?
The Dark Queen snarled. “You?” She sighed and looked to the sky as though pained. “You are nothing. Merely the vessel that brought me my son. Garrin was always meant to be mine.”
Had the queen lost her mind? Camille hadn’t given Garrin up. He’d been stolen from her.
Garrin’s throat bobbed as he looked between his mother and Camille, his hands clenched at his sides. “Let them go, Mother. Camille has done you no harm, and nor has Amund.” His stance was tense, but his tone soft.
“Hasn’t she?” the queen said, ignoring the question of Amund. “Now that she has joined the party, I recall many grievances against her. That she lay with my husband at the foremost. That she tried to claim you as her own, the most grievous. Everyone knows you are my child. But if the slightest doubt spreads across the land”—her voice quavered, and her eyes hardened—“there can be no question that you are mine.”
Without breaking eye contact, Garrin said, “Why would anyone believe a portal creator over the queen?”
Ailith sniffed, and her chest rose. “Why indeed. Still—”
“Why are we here?” Garrin said. He was deflecting again, drawing the queen’s attention away from Camille and Amund, the latter collapsed and not moving.
Camille held a calculating expression, and Lex worried. There were half a dozen alchemists and only Garrin, Lex, Camille, and a severely injured Amund. So basically, Garrin and Camille, since Lex sucked at controlling her power.
The queen walked closer to Lex until they stood toe to toe. “We are here because the alchemists tell me her power level is distinct.” She tapped her lip and glanced at Garrin. “I wonder why that is? Perhaps it is the reason you are drawn to her?” She looked back at Lex. “You know, he didn’t give in. Not even when my alchemists blocked his magic during several rounds of torture.” The queen smiled with pride.
Lex’s mouth gaped. What kind of woman tortured her son?
Garrin hadn’t gone into detail about what the soldiers and alchemists did to him inside the castle. That he’d suffered made fury rise in her chest.
“Garrin was trained as a mercenary by his father.” The queen shook her head. “But now look at him. What has become of you, son? Every soldier wanted to be you. Every woman wanted to sleep with you. And now you bow to this?” She flicked her fingers at Lex.
“Women still want to sleep with him,” Lex said. “Me included.”
“Lex,” Garrin said. “Don’t.”
Lex threw up her hands. “How can you listen to this? She wants to hurt you.”
His mother laughed. “Hurt him? Oh no, it isn’t Garrin I wish to punish. It is his father.”
