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Chapter 1

Crossroads

R aewyn

So this was how it would end… my grand adventure in the Fae palace, my whirlwind love affair with Stellon.

My life.

Standing at the locked door of my dark cell, I rattled the bars, hoping that this time it might actually do something. I’d paced the small enclosure most of the day—at least as far as my ankle chain allowed me to roam.

Exhausted by the time complete darkness fell, I’d attempted to sleep, but the stench of this place was nauseating, and the fear of what would happen to me next wasn’t exactly rest-inducing.

My life could end at any moment, either by execution—or by ending up in the King’s retinue where I’d only wish I was dead.

Just the thought of him filled my mouth with a sour taste, and my skin crawled in repulsion as I relived the way he’d touched my neck while taunting his son.

My body kept sending me commands to flee, to get as far as possible from Castle Seaspire, but as the cold, solid bars in my hands reminded me, escape was impossible.

Gaining freedom from the dungeon once had been a miracle. I wasn’t going to get another one.

Stellon couldn’t rescue me now.

Like me, he’d been locked away by his father, punished for the crime of loving a lowly human.

What a mistake it had been to let myself come to depend on someone else, to believe in his promises of happily ever after. I knew he’d meant them, but look how things had turned out.

Love had made me blind.

Now both of us would face the consequences of that foolish faith.

Stellon would never take another free step in his eternal lifetime, forcibly married to an Elven woman he didn’t love, spending the rest of his days under his powerful sire’s thumb.

And my days… well they might be numbered in the single digits. The fact I was still breathing meant Pharis hadn’t yet told his father about my involvement in the assassination plot.

But he would. And then I’d be hanged.

Yes, that was the most likely scenario. Perhaps I’d never have to worry about the horrifying prospect of becoming one of the King’s personal attendants —or the torture of being a member of Stellon’s retinue where I’d always be at arm’s reach and yet a world apart from him.

Just close enough to see him living his life bonded to another woman and be constantly reminded how close we’d come to happiness.

I seethed with renewed anger at the way Pharis had lied to his brother, promising Stellon he’d never betray his trust and then minutes later turning around and alerting their father to our escape.

It had to have been him. How else would the King have known?

Perhaps I should have carried out the Earthwife’s plan after all—at least with the royal spare and his evil father, the bad half of the Fae royal family.

The thought of killing someone still turned my stomach, but the King deserved no less for what he was doing to the human women in his retinue, keeping them brainwashed, at his beck and call until he tired of them and put them out to be shunned by their villages and communities.

And Pharis… if I ever saw his beautiful, wicked face again, I would finish the job.

I’d utterly failed to deliver on my end of the bargain with the Earthwife, and my little sisters and my poor father would pay the price. Once I was gone, they’d have no one to protect them or advocate for them.

They’d be left at the mercy of Sorcha, who had none.

The witch would make it out of here eventually one way or another. Was she even still here in the dungeon or had she used her wiles—and her mysterious magic—to escape already?

Yanking again at my chain, I let out a scream of frustration.

“Quiet, girl.”

The jailer’s voice. In the darkness, I hadn’t seen him coming. He was apparently just outside my cell though. I heard the jingle of keys.

“What is happening?” I asked, my heart exploding into a mad scatter of beats.

Was this it? Had Pharis told his father? Would I be led to the gallows now?

The jailer grunted. “Don’t ask me. All I know is you have some kind of mysterious appeal to princes.”

What?

He entered the enclosure and unlocked my ankle restraint then jerked my arm, dragging me toward the cell door.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded to no avail. Was it possible he was taking me to Stellon?

A mysterious appeal to princes. What did that mean?

As we drew closer to the dungeon entrance, I saw a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing there, silhouetted in the candlelight.

My heart leapt with hope but crashed to the filthy stone floor a moment later when the man’s face came into view.

Pharis gave me a cocky grin accompanied by a facetious bow.

“My esteem falls upon you, my lady.”

Drawing up to my full height—which was a foot or more shorter than his—I tilted my chin up in defiance and glared at him.

“Come to do the deed yourself, have you?”

Pharis’ eyes roamed over my body then returned to my face.

“What deed is that, exactly?” he drawled in a provocative tone. I ignored his insolence.

“Executing me of course.”

Pharis’ grin widened. He turned to the jailer, depositing a heavy-looking bag in his palm. He must have been the richest man in the kingdom by this point, excluding the royal family, of course.

“Not a word to anyone or you won’t get the chance to spend a coin of it,” Pharis warned him.

“I understand, Your Highness.” The man nodded, a sober expression on his face.

“One more thing,” Pharis said. “I’ll need you to tie her hands.”

My head jerked up toward him. “Why? What is happening? Where are you taking me?”

He ignored my rapid-fire questions, simply watching as the jailer did as he instructed, pulling my arms behind my back and securing my wrists with a cord of some kind.

Draping a cloak over me, Pharis gripped my upper arm. “Come on then,” he said.

As if I had a choice in the matter.

It was a struggle to keep up with his long stride. I stumbled along beside him, firing questions at him all the way up the long, winding staircase to the main floor of the Fae palace.

“Does the king know? Have I been sentenced to death? Where is Stellon? Is he okay?”

“Be quiet,” Pharis said as we reached the top of the staircase.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If you want to keep your pretty little head on that pretty little neck of yours, you’ll keep your mouth shut until we’re away from the palace.”

We’re leaving the palace? That was unexpected.

As I did indeed want to keep my head attached, I asked no more questions, just moved along with Pharis as best I could down a narrow hallway then through a doorway out into the night.

He increased his pace further, speeding us along until we reached the stables. It was the worst kind of deja vu as we ducked into the building. The last time I was here, the king and his guards ambushed me and Stellon.

This time, there was no one around but the horses, who all lifted their heads in curiosity as Pharis opened the large stable doors. He took my arm again, leading me down the row of immaculately kept stalls.

We stopped in front of one that housed the largest horse I’d ever seen.

Black as night, it looked like some creature from one of the Fae legends I’d read, beautiful and powerful and almost as dangerous as the man urging me toward it.

Opening the stall, Pharis led the horse out and, without warning, lifted me and tossed me onto its saddled back. In one swift move, he mounted the horse behind me then took the reins and commanded it to trot toward the stable exit.

I held my breath as we rode out into the night, half expecting to find armed troops surrounding the building. Nothing waited for us but a clear night sky full of stars and the road leading away from Seaspire.

It felt like an eternity had passed since I’d arrived at this place on the night of the ball. In actuality, it had been only two weeks ago. The most terrifying—and amazing—two weeks of my entire life.

So much beauty and wonder. So much love. So much pain.

Pharis urged the horse into a gallop, and as we rode away, I turned back to look at the palace. Under the stars and moonlight, it almost seemed to emit a light of its own, the high walls and towers taking on a ghostly glow.

And somewhere inside it was Stellon, whose kind face I’d never see again. Who had fallen in love with me and done his best to protect me, in spite of the world of differences that separated us.

My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and my throat ached.

Was he watching from one of those windows right now as his brother spirited me away to gods knew where? Was the King watching, nodding his approval?

No one had attempted to stop Pharis at the gates, just waving him through without a question. Perhaps he was carrying out his father’s orders to get rid of me, to take me somewhere far away from the castle and slay me where Stellon wouldn’t know about it.

When I’d last seen Pharis, he’d been telling his brother how stupid he was for trusting me, calling him a fool for loving me and believing my side of the story.

Though I was grateful to be out of that dungeon, I was not out of danger. This man despised humans and had a particular hatred for me.

“Where are we going?” I demanded.

“I thought I told you not to speak.”

“You said until we were away from the palace,” I said. “We’re away from the palace now.”

“I’d still prefer it if you didn’t speak,” Pharis said.

“I don’t really care what you prefer ,” I snarled. “I want to know where you’re taking me.”

He chuckled, the sound close behind my ear as he leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands, little Wyn.”

I arched my back and leaned forward, trying to put some distance between our bodies. I was already highly uncomfortable riding a horse for the very first time, with my hands tied behind my back, no less.

Pharis’ strong legs bracketed the outsides of mine, and when he leaned forward like that, my bound hands came into contact with some part of his body—I dared not imagine which.

One of his arms clamped around my waist and pulled me upright.

“Don’t lean like that,” he ordered. “You’ll lose your balance and fall off. Do you have any idea how to ride?”

“No, I don’t, but I suspect it would be a whole lot easier if I had the use of my hands,” I snapped back.

“Yes, well I suspect what you’d use them for is to claw my eyeballs out,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a feral human in my life.”

“We tend to get that way when you lock us in dungeons and then kidnap us in the dark of night, tied up like a trussed hen.”

He snorted a laugh. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Kidnapping you?”

“I think you can’t stand the thought of me being anywhere near your brother, and you’ve decided to take matters into your own hands and remove the ‘human infection’ from the palace. Or your father asked you to serve as executioner. Either way, I fully expect to wind up in an unmarked grave somewhere before the sun rises.”

“Stellon never mentioned your dark side,” Pharis quipped then chuckled again. “You’ve quite an imagination.”

“What else could be going on?” I said. “You’ve hated me from the moment you laid eyes on me.”

“The moment I laid eyes on you was at the ballroom entry,” he reminded me. “If you’ll recall, I was quite polite.”

“I was talking about when you found me in Stellon’s bed,” I clarified. “In my real form… as a human.”

Pharis gave no reply apart from a grunt. He stopped the horse. I looked around to see we were in the middle of the crossroads where the Fae lands split off from the human ones.

I had been here not all that long ago, walking Stellon home from the market after he’d taken a beating because of me. It was called The Wheel, named after its many spokes leading off in different directions toward various villages.

“Well?” Pharis said.

“Well what?”

“It would help tremendously if you told me the name of your village and what territory it’s in.”

“Why?” I asked in alarm.

“So I can go there and single-handedly massacre the entire town,” he answered in a withering tone.

I could practically hear his eyes rolling upward.

“So I can take you there, of course. That is why I removed you from the dungeon—at great personal risk and expense, by the way.”

After a pause, he added, “You’re welcome.”

I couldn’t respond. I had no breath.

Twisting in the saddle, I tried to get a look back at him, to read the expression in those enigmatic turquoise eyes.

They told me nothing other than that he was waiting for an answer.

“Are you being serious? You’re really taking me home?” I asked.

“Against my better judgment, yes. I think you should go as far from Seaspire as you can get, but I’m told you’re quite eager to get back to… wherever it is you’re from.”

For a long moment I just sat there, breathing fast, my eyes scanning his face. I did want to go home—more than anything.

I wanted to go there and reunite with my family then gather some supplies and get them out of town before Sorcha managed to find her way out of the dungeon, if she hadn’t already.

“In answer to your obvious question, I’m delivering you to your village because my brother asked me to,” Pharis said. “And because I happen to agree it would be better if you are not in the palace. We’re all safer without you around.”

“Waterdale,” I wheezed. “It’s called Waterdale. It’s in the Three Peaks Valley.”

Pharis’ lips parted, and his dark brows rose. “That’s only a couple hours’ ride from here. You said at the ball you were tired from the long journey.”

“Yes, well… I lied.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he asked with a cluck of his tongue. “An assassin and a liar.”

“About that…”

The quick jerk of the horse to one side interrupted me. I looked up and spotted what the animal was reacting to—a lone rider coming our way.

Pharis pulled the cloak over my head so I could barely see. Then he released the bonds that held my wrists.

“Keep your mouth shut and your face turned away,” he said under his breath. “Lean against me like you’re drunk or sleeping.”

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I could read the seriousness in his voice.

Twisting in the saddle, I relaxed my body, allowing it to slump against him so that my face was on his chest, turned away from the road and the approaching rider.