Page 4

The huddle of human guards didn’t have the chance to notice our arrival until it was too late. We dealt with them with ease – and by dealt with, I meant slaughtered. With every life taken, my skin itched with the guilt harbouring in my soul. Duncan took the lead down the remaining steps. Blades met flesh, and blood splattered violently across the sand-dusted ground. Their dead bodies were left stationed beyond the iron gate at the bottom of the steep, narrow steps. Although the Hunters didn’t notice our swift arrival until our blades had already pierced their chests, the imprisoned fey saw everything. And yet not a single one gave us away until the job was done.

Deep in the underbelly of Lockinge, the Hunters wouldn’t have heard the struggle that’d occurred far above. The prison felt like another realm entirely, hidden away beneath rock and stone. The world above could’ve been destroyed and the hundreds of captives in this place would never have known.

I surveyed the crowd of fey before me, eyes scanning frantically across every face. Even if I didn’t wish to admit it, I already searched for Jesibel among them. I was thankful that Althea took charge, snatching a key from a slaughtered human and stabbing it frantically into the lock. She was careful to close it behind us. Until we spoke our piece, no one could leave. Everyone, for the success of our plan, had to be on the same page.

No warning could have prepared her for what waited beyond the gate she opened. Althea knew what lurked down in the pits of Lockinge, but the scowl she wore suggested she couldn’t have imagined this. There were so many people. Perhaps even more than there had been when I’d last visited.

“Please, gather around and listen,” Althea shouted as she swept into the prison, us following in tow. Her voice brimmed with command, but there was a soft undertone that couldn’t be ignored. It had its desired effect. The fey closest to the gate parted, like water around a stone, as she made her way inside.

I sensed their desperation to flee now that the chance was there. I just needed them to hold off a little longer.

I watched from behind Althea as the expression on the fey’s faces relaxed in recognition. Unlike when they looked at me, they saw Althea for what she was; the princess of the Cedarfall Court.

A cacophony of confused murmerings and shouts greeted us.

“We are here to free you,” I called out, arms raised as if that could calm the crowd. Slowly, I watched the faces morph around me. Hope sparked behind tired, glazed eyes. “But to ensure each of you makes it out of this place alive, I’m going to need you to listen. For those who cannot hear, spread my message.”

Althea stepped aside, turned her body, and gestured me forwards. As her attention shifted to mine, so did the multitude of captives. “King Robin Icethorn speaks to you, listen if you wish to survive.”

That did it. Like a ripple across a lake, some order settled over the gathered crowd.

I swallowed the lump in my dried throat. There was an overwhelming urge to bring my fist to my lips so I could cough and clear it. I feared worse and expected I would give in to the violent crash of waves in my stomach and vomit from anxiety alone.

Althea had told them who I was, and now they looked at me expectantly. Pushing my discomfort to the attention aside, I lifted my chin and adorned the mask of the king they expected.

“We thought they’d killed you, Robin,” one of the fey admitted. It was a man I recognised from my short stay. He pushed his way through the wall of bodies, to the annoyance of those around him.

The last time I’d seen him, he was gasping for breath after Jesi had sprung upon him, slapping his neck and breaking his nose all within a blink. His dark beard was as wild as before, and the shadows of a blue bruise still haunted his now crooked nose.

I stiffened as he approached. Duncan noticed and stepped close to my side, which had the fey male coming to a halt. Then he noticed Kayne, Lucari and, worst of all, Seraphine, who lingered at the back in hopes she would be forgotten.

“He’s finally sent for us all, hasn’t he. Is the Hand tired of keeping us down here? Has he come for his final tithe?”

“We have nothing to do with the Hand,” I replied, watching as the stillness of the crowd slipped into disorder. “We come on behalf of Wychwood.”

“The realm that chose to forget about us? What good are they to us?” he barked two questions in quick succession, spit flicking over his dried lips where it clung to his wiry beard. The man lifted a calloused finger and pointed to Seraphine, who hardly recoiled at the hate that contorted his face. “She always comes to collect us. The Twins only come when the Hand needs us.”

I pinched my eyes closed, wincing at the reaction I imagined would cross Seraphine’s face. Twins. Not anymore. Her sister had died all those nights ago. It was a topic that Seraphine had warned to be left alone. I only hoped, for our sake, she didn’t react.

“Why not ask your prison guards why we are here?” Seraphine snarled. “Oh wait, they are dead, aren’t they? Shame, perhaps they would have clarified that we are here to save you, you ungrateful–”

“Not,” I said, making my word as sharp as a newly forged blade, “now.”

“What do you want with us… king ?” the man spat, still treating me as anything but the title he used. That word felt more like a curse. I couldn’t blame his distaste for royalty when, collectively across the courts, they had done little to help him or the rest of the captured fey, who had been abducted, forgotten and killed over the years. I didn’t have the time to tell them the truth – that Wychwood never knew of the Below’s existence.

“Your name?” I asked, offering a steady hand. “How about we start there.”

He contemplated my question, confusion sparking across his fatigued gaze. “Names are earned.”

I nodded, almost expecting his reluctance. “Then let me do exactly that.” My hand snaked into my breast pocket. The slim, crafted key that was a newly made copy of the one I’d pried from Peter Torr’s dying hands met my fingers and slipped into my grasp. I pulled it free. His shoulders broadened as I stepped toward him, eyes locked on his freedom.

“What are you doing?”

“Earning your trust.” I spoke as loud as I could muster, wishing that enough of the fey could hear me, and then spread my words throughout the crowd. “I made a promise to return and free you all. This is no place for the fey to be kept, and I wasn’t willing to turn my back on you. I couldn’t go on living my life pleading ignorance to what I found during my last visit.”

Wide-eyed, the fey looked down the length of his swollen nose as I raised my steady hands towards the worn iron cuff at his neck. It took a moment to find the small hole which the key could enter. It’d been rusted over from years of being left. But I found it and with little force, the key fit inside, turning with ease.

It seemed the entire prison inhaled at the same time, including myself. I withdrew my hands and allowed the cuff to break apart. It fell to the ground in twin pieces with a satisfying thud.

He stood there, dumbfounded, with his eyes fixated on the iron that rocked to a stop by his boots. If he blinked, he would have released the tears that clung desperately to his lashes. When he finally looked back at me, his skin had paled. Even his voice was broken as he spoke through a dry, clogged throat.

“Michal,” he said. “My name is Michal.”

My chest filled with an abundance of gratitude. I allowed myself a moment to swell with the realisation that I had done it. I had followed through and freed a fey. One of hundreds, but it was a start.

“Michal, I’m going to need your help if we are all to get out of here. I have ships waiting for us all to board, ships that will take us away from Lockinge for good. But, for that, we must work together.”

Michal seemed transfixed by his newly gained freedom, dirt-covered fingers raised to his neck. Disbelief crackled across his face as his fingers met the red-raw skin hidden behind the iron for countless years. “Tell me what you desire of me, and I shall do it.”

I placed my hand on his shoulder, thankful for the strength of his form. With my spare hand, I presented the silver key to Michal. Hidden within the inside pocket of my jacket, I had a fistful of spares ready to hand out. If we had a chance of getting out of this place quickly, then our small group would need all the help we could get. It is why we had many copies of the keys cut, each ready to pass through the crowd when the moment was right.

“Help me free as many of these fey as you can,” I said, leaning my face toward his. The relief which filled me was so honest that it made my limbs shake. “Don’t stop until every person within this prison feels the same elation as you. Can you do that for me?”

Michal nodded, breath hitching as the silver passed into his hand. “It would be my honour.”

The crowd buzzed with uncontrolled energy at what they had witnessed. I already heard the whispers spread like wildfire throughout the chasm of prisoners. Those closest to Michal begged him to free them first, swallowing him entirely into the throng of bodies until I could barely hear him over their pleas.

I gathered steel inside my lungs as I took a gathering breath before throwing out my shout across the cavern for all to hear. “Once the iron is removed from your necks, please gather yourselves by the gate. I know you wish to leave, but you must wait until we are all ready. There is no knowing what waits for us when we depart, so it is best we do so together. We are broken when separated but unstoppable as one.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Duncan looking at me. I felt his stare before I saw it. Like phantom fingers, his eyes trailed me from foot to head. His prideful grin echoed in the glistening damp that clung to his dark eyes. My heart skipped a beat, and I packed that image of him away into the back of my mind. It was a vision I wished never to forget.

Time was inconsequential within the cavern beneath Lockinge. It should have mattered, but it didn’t follow rules. There was no telling how long it took to work ourselves through the crowd. Althea, Duncan and I pushed ourselves deeper into the crowd, my hands aching as I gripped the key, moving it from one iron cuff to another. It took no time at all for the pocket of spare keys to empty as others like Michal joined our effort.

There were tears. Shouts of glee. Some fey fell to their knees, and others displayed flashes of unlocked magic. I thought I heard the roaring of a beast, followed by the blur of deep, russet fur passing among the crowd. Looking through the moving swell of bodies, I was confident I’d seen a bear. Powerful, thick limbs pounded atop the ground, which quaked beneath their force.

It was a shifter. A fey with the ability to transform into its animalistic form. The clamour shook the dust from the cavern’s walls.

Althea noticed it, too, tears glistening like jewels across her hazel eyes. Pride swelled in every line and crease across her face as she moved her key from neck to neck until the ground was littered with broken castings of iron.

I risked a look toward the gate of the prison. Kayne and Seraphine controlled the crowd, which boiled with the desire to escape this place. They had been forced up a few steps beyond the gate but did well to handle the crowd.

An undeniable panic ate away at my nerves. I half expected a surge of Hunters to flood down from the ground far above and into the prison to stop us. Every passing moment that they didn’t arrive did nothing to calm me. It only prolonged the impending doom of what could happen and urged me to work harder, faster, as I moved deeper into the cave.

My mind was a storm. Destructive and powerful, unable to focus on a single person as faces blurred before me. With every person I worked to free, another was at the forefront of my mind. A name slick across my lips.

Jesibel.

I searched for her. Looking to Duncan and Althea to see if they were the ones to find her and take the iron from her neck. They both knew of her. She had been pivotal to my brief stay in the prison. Her name is embedded into the story of my visit and the connection with Elinor.

I knew I wouldn’t have survived without her intervention all those weeks ago. And every day since, her face had been embedded in my mind like a knife in the flesh of an enemy. Obsidian eyes and midnight hair, Jesi represented the Icethorn Court and everyone who had been exposed to this treatment after my mother and her family had been killed by Doran’s gryvern. I was doing this for her and every soul that had been affected by the chaos of the realms.

Yet I could not find her.

If I added that concern to my shoulders, I would have crumpled before unlocking the final cuff. I had to have faith that she had been freed by Althea or Duncan and that we would be reunited once we left Lockinge far behind us.

Relief had yet to settle. I expected to meet resistance. Not that I hoped for the worst, but everything had gone too close to plan. It unnerved me. I massaged at my lower stomach, turning to work out the knot that had settled within it. Duncan stood like a statue of stone at my side with his hand on my lower back. Even with the material separating his touch from my skin, I still recognised the slow, circular motion his thumb made.

“I am so proud of you,” Duncan whispered to me. I tried to allow his words to fill me with some sense of clarity, but they did not. “It would have been easier to turn your back on these people and place your hope for their rescue in others. I admire the choices you have made.”

“Don’t speak so soon,” I replied. Michal was close to my side, helping the older fey and making it his sole purpose to make sure no one was left bound. I nodded at him, face stoic, as he passed. “Until every single one of them has boarded our ships, I will not mark this as a success.”

Duncan’s hand lifted from my back. The lack of his touch had me turning to look at him, which was exactly what he wished for. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my face to look at him. The prison was engulfed in chaos. I heard some commotion toward the gate, but hoped Seraphine was keeping order.

We were so close to success.

Duncan lowered his face towards mine, cool breath brushing across my skin as his lips closed in on me. I exhaled, expecting to feel the brush of his feather-soft mouth upon mine. But the feeling did not come. I opened my eyes to look deep into his. The green was so vivid this close that I could have felt as though I was lost in a forest with no way out.

Not that I would have ever wished to escape his entrapment.

“Take a moment and allow yourself to truly understand what you have just accomplished.”

“We,” I muttered, gaze flickering between his mouth and his narrowing eyes. “Nothing about this has been solely my doing. Without you, Althea, Seraphine and even Kayne… well, I would have failed before even beginning.”

“There is something endearing about your inability to see what you are capable of, Robin, but one day you are going to learn to reflect on your actions and recognise the effect they have on others.”

I lifted onto my toes, reaching a hand up to the back of Duncan’s head. My fingers coiled through his thick chestnut hair; my nails traced dangerously across his scalp. I felt Duncan melt into a bundle of pleasured shivers.

“Do me a favour and tell me this all again when we reach… home,” I said, staring deep into his soul.

“Is that what you are calling it now?” Duncan tilted his head, allowing my hand to bring him closer to me to close the small gap that was left between us.

As my lips pressed into his, I replied, “Maybe.”

The kiss was brief but deep and passionate. I allowed myself a moment to forget the world around me and focus only on the man in my hold. Duncan, who had turned his back on the indoctrination that he had been subjected to, fell willingly into my hands. We had found each other during a time when neither of us was looking. I would never let go of him, even if there was another name that still lingered at the back of my mind.

No. Don’t. I pushed the thoughts back, keeping them away like wolves from a burning torch. Not him.

“Are you ready to see this through?” Duncan asked, pulling away. My hands tickled across the short hairs that shadowed his jaw until he fell completely from my touch.

The corner of my lip turned upward as we both looked toward the stairwell. My stomach jolted as the darkness beckoned me forward. Far above, the fey would soon file out into the courtyard littered with the slain bodies of Hunters and Kingsmen. How would they react when they looked up to see the sky and the stars and feel the kiss of freedom as the night wind enveloped them in its embrace?

I looked back to Duncan, feeling the swell in my chest and allowing it to steal away my anxiety, if only for a moment.

“Stop!” a high-pitched scream sounded, and I swore my blood turned to ice. I spun around to face the sound, only to see the crowd swell like a tidal wave, right in the direction of the gate.

A crack followed, then the Below silenced. The peace lasted only a moment before fey, mere moments before we’d be ready to lead them to freedom, surged at the gate. Magic cracked the air, splitting it in two. And all I could do was watch as the fey broke through Seraphine’s one-woman guard and ran away from me, directly toward impending danger.