Page 59 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)

ODESSA, PRESENT

M y ass hurts, my wrists burn and my head pounds. At the same time my thoughts are racing, my heart aches, and I’m shaking so much my teeth chatter.

Every single part of me feels like it’s going to break, both emotionally and physically.

I’m seated on the back of a horse with my wrists bound in front of me, a blindfold over my eyes and another strip of fabric shoved in my mouth. My horse is being led by one of the Hydrattan soldiers, and I have no way of knowing where we are or how much longer it will take to reach Magnus’s castle.

If I focus, I can hear Kastian breathing somewhere to my left.

Before they put my blindfold on, I got a glimpse of the arrow wound on Kastian’s shoulder.

I hadn’t realized he’d been magically healing himself while the soldiers closed in on us, but he must have, because the wound looks nearly cured.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like he was able to purify the sedative poison because he’s still out cold.

None of that matters though, as long as he’s alive.

I keep reminding myself that Kastian isn’t dead and neither am I. As long we’re alive, everything will be fine.

I repeat that in my head over and over, trying to believe it, but the longer we ride, the harder it is to remain optimistic. My thoughts become more frantic and question after question occurs to me.

How did the soldiers find us?

Why were they sent in the first place?

When Kastian and I don’t turn up at the border, will Jett realize what’s happened, or did they find him too?

And most of all, why would Magnus want to kidnap me, again.

I was willing to go to his castle anyway as the emissary, but now he’s destroyed any hope of peace.

When Daemon finds out about this—that the Hydrattan soldiers shot and poisoned Kastian, and took both of us against our will—I know he’ll crush Hydratta, even without his growing army.

I can’t think of a single answer, and the uncertainty makes my mind race, drowning out anything else. Drowning out the thoughts of what was happening just before the soldiers arrived—what I thought I felt…what it might mean…

Something inside me seems to leap at that thought, and even though I’m blindfolded, I turn my face toward the sound of Kastian’s breathing.

The feeling in my chest is almost like a heartbeat, but different somehow. Warmer. I’m almost certain I know what it is, even if I don’t understand exactly how it got there.

Somehow, Kastian and I are bonded.

That can only mean we always were—or at least, he knew we were even if he didn’t remember why.

I don’t understand how this happened, but I swear I’m going to find out. We’re going to get out of this and talk about the bond. I’m going to find a way to undo the vow I made a hundred years ago.

I’ll fix everything—first, we just need to survive.

W e ride for what feels like hours—long enough for my legs to go numb and my anxiety to transition to despair.

The soldiers don’t talk much, communicating only in grunts and the occasional sharp order. The silence becomes its own sort of torture—every hoofbeat a reminder that we are utterly at their mercy, and there’s nothing to do but wait and pray I can still hear Kastian breathing when the ride ends.

Eventually, the sounds of the swamp disappear, and the air gets easier to breathe.

Brightness shines beyond the fabric covering my eyes, and the rhythm and sound of the horses’ hooves make me think we've finally reached a main road.

Soon after that, the horses slow. There's a brief, jarring stop and some clattering as one of the soldiers dismounts.

I jump at the sound of a sharp voice somewhere to my right. “Bend down so I can reach your blindfold. I’m going to take it off so you can see while you get down from the horse.”

I bend as much as possible despite the restraints, and a hand grasps the fabric over my eyes and tugs it away. The sudden light burns, and I have to squint until my eyes adjust.

We’ve stopped in front of an achingly familiar white stone castle. I glance up and see the wide, round balcony on its face. It’s empty, which is something of a relief. I was expecting to see King Magnus standing there, watching us arrive, just as Kastian’s family did a hundred years ago.

I turn my head, searching for Kastian, desperate to see if he’s alright and to gauge his reaction to being back here after so long.

My eyes land on the soldiers standing by their horses, looking exhausted after the long journey.

Kastian isn’t among them. Cold dread washes over me.

Oh gods, what if I’ve been listening to one of the soldiers breathing all this time?

What if they left him in the swamp? What if?—

“Mmmm,” I try to speak, the gag muffling any actual words.

The Fae soldier who took off my blindfold snorts, unimpressed. She’s dressed identically to the soldier who shot Kastian, but she’s slightly thinner and her braided hair is a dull blonde

She grips my calf and hauls me down from the horse. I lose my balance and nearly collapse, but she holds my shoulder until I can balance. The world seems to tip and roll around me, but I steady myself and glare up at her with every ounce of fury I can muster.

“Mmmm!” I try again, more insistently.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t scream.”

She yanks the sodden gag out of my mouth, and I gasp, tasting blood and cloth and the sour reek of my own breath. “Where’s Kastian? What did you do to him?”

The guard’s grip tightens on my arm. “He’s alive,” she says, like it’s an inconvenience.

“If Magnus hurts him—” My voice cracks.

“ King Magnus,” she corrects me with a scowl.

“Fuck your king.”

She scowls harder and shoves me forward a few paces. “From what I heard, you will be.”

My eyes widen and I draw back. That thought is not only revolting, it fills me with a deep aversion and disgust that feels so much stronger than any reaction I was capable of yesterday.

Could that be a side effect of the potential soul-bond?

Or perhaps I simply never thought of it in such vivid terms before

“Move!” The soldier barks, nudging me to walk. “I can’t carry you, so your only other choice is to be dragged, and we’re going up lots of stairs. Personally, I’d just walk.”

I glower at her, refusing to move. “Tell me where Kastian is!”

The soldier sighs in exasperation. She ignores my demand and, evidently giving up on the idea that I’m going to cooperate, uses every ounce of her Fae strength to wrench me up the path toward the castle.

She yanks so hard that I hear my shoulder pop.

A jolt shoots through me from clavicle to fingertip, and I bite the inside of my cheek to hold back tears that have nothing to do with the pain.

To distract myself from the throbbing in my arm and the desire to cry with frustration, I focus on analyzing the courtyard as I’m dragged up to the castle.

Magnus must have selected all the female soldiers to go find me, because every other guard we pass is male. I sneer at the dozens of men stationed around the front of the castle, all dressed in identical bright green jackets.

When Alix and Daemon took over Vernallis, they changed all the guards’ uniforms from red to blue.

To many, it had seemed like an unnecessary move, but this is precisely why they did it.

Magnus’s court looks exactly like the court of King Sebastian and Queen Marbella, and if I didn’t know better, I would think nothing had changed from a century ago.

It makes the new regime feel like pretenders to the throne—which in this case, is exactly what Magnus is.

As we pass through the white stone archway into the castle courtyard, few of the guards swivel to look at us. Every single one has thick wads of cotton jammed into his ears.

“Looks like you’re all afraid of me,” I mutter as we cross the courtyard and enter the palace, passing by two more guards with cotton in their ears.

“The king doesn’t like to take any chances,” my guard answers, her tone reverent and her eyes turning wide and earnest.

I glare at her, disgusted. She seems like the type to worship power. “You must be young to think your king is a god. I remember Magnus when he was just a social-climbing advisor. He wasn’t impressive then, and he’s still nothing now.”

She spins abruptly to face me, and I see the anger snap in her eyes before I feel it in my jaw—her palm cracks across my face, hard enough to split my lip. The taste of blood explodes in my mouth.

My face burns, and for a second I’m too stunned to react. The guard smiles, looking satisfied, and starts to turn away.

My surprise clears and without thinking, I lunge, knocking into her hard enough that both of us go tumbling backward into the stone wall of the entrance hall.

She grunts as her head bounces off the white marble. My hands and wrists are still bound, but that doesn’t stop me from driving my elbow straight down onto her nose. There’s a sickening crunch, and she howls, vivid red blood spattering onto the bright white floor.

I jump to my feet, and for a glorious second I think I’ve won.

I turn to run, but before I’ve gone a single step, a heavy weight slams into me from behind.

Another guard materializes from nowhere to wrap his arms around my waist and pin me.

He’s massive, all thick slabs of muscle, and he lifts me off the ground, my feet kicking uselessly in the air.

The female soldier is already back on her feet, her nose bleeding rivers down her face.

She wipes it with the back of her hand and glares at me like she’s deciding which part of me to break next.

She pulls off a glove, exposing her pale, sharp-nailed fingers, then slaps me again—this time on the other cheek.

“You bitch!” she snarls, voice muffled by her own blood. “I’d kill you if the king didn’t want you alive.”

“Lucky me,” I spit back, not even aware of the pain in my face.

She presses a hand to her bleeding nose, and her eyes dart to the other soldier. “Take her inside. I’ll follow you.”

“What?” the guard holding me nearly yells. “I can’t hear you.”

“Take her inside!” the soldier screams.

Either he can hear her now, or he just assumes what to do, because the guard doesn’t hesitate. He carries me across the entrance hall and through the arched doorway. The female soldier follows, pinching her nose and grumbling furiously under her breath.

My lips curve into a smile. At least no one can say I went quietly.

T he interior of the castle is almost exactly as I remember it: high domed ceilings, archways carved with flowers and stars, sunlight streaming in through colored glass and splattering rainbows over the white marble floors.

The soldiers don’t take me to the throne room. Instead, we veer left, down a corridor lined with ancient tapestries. At the end of the hall is a winding marble staircase, which ascends at least eight levels before finally ending with a heavy wooden door.

The guard holding me stops on the top landing, and steps aside so the female guard can unlock the door.

She looks slightly out of breath as she produces a ring of keys from her belt, then shoves the door open to reveal a small round room.

The large guard, hardly even winded from the climb, carries me inside.

I expected to be standing in a cell, but instead I find myself in a bedroom.

There’s a large four-poster bed with a golden canopy and several shelves of books.

A wardrobe stands between two large windows, and there’s even a small adjoining bathing room.

In spite of everything, my eyes land on the bathtub, and a wave of relief washes over me.

“I can take it from here,” the female soldier tells the large guard.

“What?” he asks again.

“Of for the love of—” She looks furious as she shoves him out of the room and closes the door behind him, leaving us alone. I square my shoulders and back up, eyeing her warily.

She glares at me with hatred on her face. “The king wants to see you.”

“Oh, goody.”

Her glower intensifies. “You should be thrilled because otherwise I’d fuck up your face.”

“I’d still be prettier than you.”

Her cheeks redden behind the blood, and she looks, if possible, even angrier. “Go in there and take a bath. You’re disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, being kidnapped twice in 72 hours will do that.”

She scoffs. “You stupid bitch, you don’t even realize how lucky you are. Take a bath, but don’t take too long. I’ll find you something else to wear.”

I want to argue with her just out of spite, but a large part of me wants the bath more. “Are you going to untie my hands first?”

She looks at me, and I know she’s thinking about saying no, but apparently common sense wins out. The soldier unties me, and I stumble into the bathing room. The door closes, and I immediately rush to the window.

As I look outside, my heart sinks.

It’s clear why the soldier wasn’t worried about leaving me in here alone.

We’re hundreds of feet off the ground, probably in one of the towers.

Below, I can see the edge of the garden and a familiar iron fence.

Beyond it is a rocky cliff and a small beach, then nothing but water as far as the eye can see.

I’ve never wished I could fly more than I do right now.