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I tapped the back of my fork silently against the table. The evening meal was supposed to be the best part of my day, but I couldn’t focus on anyone at my table when I had a dark sense that my new prisoner was frightened.

I interrupted Fagan’s light-hearted summary of children building snow monsters and smashing them. “Mylo. Is our prisoner safe in the dungeons?”

Of all the elves trapped inside the barrier with me, I trusted Mylo the most. He, Fagan, and my aunt Acantha always ate this meal at my table on the dais.

Mylo dipped his head in a strong nod. “I secured her myself. She won’t be going anywhere, but…” He dropped his voice so nobody outside of our table on the raised dais could hear. “Your Majesty, I’m not sure she has magic. At least, not the same kind as the fae who cursed us.”

Fagan pursed his lips in a worried line but said nothing. He didn’t need to. I knew his opinion tended toward sympathy .

My aunt, the only other elf at our table, leaned closer to me. Any sympathies she’d had when I’d set the prisoner in the courtyard had disappeared. “If she is fae, you cannot trust her. She might act as if she has no magic only to get you to drop your guard. There is no way to know what she has planned.”

I whispered back. “I don’t trust her. And I have a… failsafe. She won’t be able to enact any plans.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell them about the mistek bond. We had all—along with my cousins—shared disgust when we saw them being used in Terrarinmarin decades ago. But it had been the only way I could think of to safely grant her wishes of letting both her and her horrible brother live.

My thoughts drifted back to this afternoon when she’d thrown her tiny body in front of her brother. And then, instead of defending herself, she’d closed her eyes and tried to protect him like a living shield.

It was not so wrong to want to preserve that kind of goodness. But freeing both of them would only have endangered my people here, and I refused to hurt the elves who depended on me any further. It was as she said—they were both alive. Surely that was better than—

I slammed my fork down on the table. It had hit me again—that vague sense of her terror. Like a burnt undercurrent when a sauce boils over and the drippings turn to ash while the pot continues to scent the air, her fear nagged at my senses, then faded, and then came again.

I could no longer deny it, which meant I could no longer ignore it. I stood, and both Fagan and Mylo followed. I waved them back down. “Finish your meal. I need to check on her.” I caught Mylo’s eye. “Which cell?”

He remained standing to answer. “The farthest from the entrance. I didn’t think she needed to be near… the others.”

I nodded and stormed out of the dining hall.

At least I could walk on my own two feet at night. The fire-storming fae who had cursed me left me some dignity. A drekkan growl almost erupted from my elven throat. How I hated that fae. Killing both of the half-fae I’d met earlier would have been easier than dealing with one alive and in my castle. Then my one pleasant meal of the day would not have been so interrupted.

My mind refused to entertain the thought. I might be ruthless, but I didn’t kill for convenience. And the one fae I had killed—she might have deserved it, but her death still left my stomach in a twisted knot whenever I thought about her.

That distinct sense of my prisoner’s fear spiked again as I reached the bottom of the stone staircase that descended below the castle and into the dungeon. I shoved through the door. That spike lingered, and my stomach turned. She should be accustomed to the dungeon by now. Her fears should be shrinking, not growing.

I skipped three steps at a time down the next stairway, and didn’t bother stopping the final door from crashing closed behind me. Bralen, the dungeon guard for the night, stood at a desk near the front and bowed as I plowed past him. We had a small labyrinth of cells, and it would take me several more minutes to reach her at this pace.

Her fear increased again, and a sharp sense of pain punctuated it. I started running. Something was wrong.

I had never held a mistek bond before, and I had not realized it would make me aware of her fears and pain. But the longer it lasted, the more sure I was of the feelings I was trying to interpret.

Just before I rounded the final corner, her anxious voice cried out, “What is wrong with you?!”

One voice snickered in response while another started to answer, “We’re just giving you a proper welcome. If old Bralen had let us use the keys, this would have been even more fun.”

I stopped running and strode toward the two young adults with a glare that threatened death. I turned the corner just in time to see Koan throw a stone at my prisoner. Her wrists were shackled to the wall in magic-cancelling cuffs that forced her to stand. She tried to cover her head with her arms, but Koan’s stone struck her thigh. He and Jolter laughed… and then they saw me.

Smoke poured out of my palms and rose off my shoulders. I felt it, and I stopped it from bursting into flames, but I did not mind if these two krimpets believed they were inches away from death.

They dropped to the ground and pressed their foreheads against the stone floor.

“What. Are. You. Doing?” I spoke through clenched teeth, as much upset at them as at myself for not having come sooner.

They kept their heads to the floor, but Koan answered. “We wanted to meet the fae.”

I clenched my fists. How was it that they could grow up in a kingdom where I demanded discipline, justice, and honor, and still treat someone with such cowardice and cruelty?

I dropped my voice, not quite to the drekkan’s gravelly tone, but one that promised dark justice. “Then perhaps I should release her so she has the opportunity to meet you as well.”

Koan’s horrified face raised from the ground. “But… she’s a fae! She might use an even worse curse than—”

“Then you should have left her alone!” I bellowed at him. He dropped his face back to the ground, and I stepped closer to them. “You attacked someone who could not fight back, could not even defend herself—”

Jolter’s face popped up this time. “Your Majesty! We didn’t really attack her! We didn’t throw any above her waist. We just wanted to…”

I stared at him, but he seemed to have lost the words. Perhaps he finally realized the severity of his actions. “To what?”

He pressed his forehead back to the ground. “Nothing, sir. It was a poor decision.”

Koan side-eyed his brother, but did not lift his head again.

I put a sinister leer in my voice. “Since you attacked someone who could not fight back, run, or protect herself in any way, justice demands you endure the same experience.” I waited a few seconds for that to sink into their minds, and then waved my hand; binding them with invisible magic to the floor in their bowed positions.

I pressed on the gate to her cell and bit back a curse. I had not brought the keys. For the first time since I’d arrived, I focused my gaze on her face. Shadows buried her expression, but I tried to gentle mine. Light from torches in sconces along the wall fell on my face, and I did not want to scare her.

But I was too upset at Koan and Jolter to waste time fetching keys.

I covered the bolt with a hand and melted it, silently cursing the insolent twins. Guiding them into adulthood should have been their father’s task, not mine, but since they were inside the fortress when the curse landed, I was stuck with them. And their father, a reasonable noble with expansive influence, was stuck outside the cursed boundary.

I forced the gate open, ignored its creaking screech, and walked slowly to my prisoner.

She looked up at me with the same bold, blue eyes that had defended her brother. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Her gratitude caught on my lungs and stalled my breath—I did not deserve it. If I had come sooner, I could have stopped them before they actually threw rocks. “I take the safety of my people very seriously.” I spoke softly, hoping to avoid frightening her again, but wanting Koan and Jolter to hear me. “You are now included within that purview.”

She said nothing, so I raised my hand toward her.

She flinched back, brushing against the wall of the cell as a hint of fear worked its way through the mistek bond.

I lowered my hands and my voice. “I’d like to free you from the manacles. You have nothing to fear.”

She nodded, but I still felt her unease. I leaned over her to retrieve the small keys off the shelf three feet above her head. Her body stiffened while I reached over her and remained rigid as I gripped the cuffs. I wanted to say something—anything—to help her relax, but the only thing I could think of was to free her wrists and give her more space.

I unlocked the manacles, returned the key to the shelf, and stepped back two feet.

She rubbed her wrists. “What will you do with me now?”

What would I do with her? I didn’t trust her enough to give her any freedom, but I clearly couldn’t leave her in the dungeon—it had already proven to be unsafe. And I had promised her she’d be safe if her brother stayed away.

A softer fear, more likely anxiety, nudged through the bond and pricked my senses. I needed to convince her she was safe. I needed to stop feeling the evidence of my failure to keep her safe.

Maybe, she needed to see that I would not leave Koan and Jolter unpunished. That was something I could offer her now—evidence of her safety.

I strolled out of the cell to where they were still pinned to the floor, and tore their fine tunics in half, exposing their bare backs. A sharp, soft intake of breath met my ears as I plucked a whip off the wall between two lighting sconces. She must not have expected to see them punished so quickly.

I gestured for her to join me in the hall. “Come.”

She slipped through the cell door I’d left open and stood next to me. I handed her the whip.

She did not take it.

I raised the handle closer to her. “Their consequence for attacking you is fifty lashes each. You may take the penalty out of their flesh.”

She clenched her hands together in front of her waist and said, “I don’t need that.”

I lowered the whip to my side. “What do you need?”

“I…” Her gaze flicked from me to Koan and Jolter, then to the whip, and then back up to me. “I just need them to not attack me again.”

She did not want to see them hurt. I could understand that. “I will punish them, then, and they will never hurt you again.”

“No.” Her voice grew stronger, and she stepped in front of Koan. “I appreciate your help in stopping them, truly I do, but I don’t need to tear them apart to consider justice done. Surely extending them a little kindness will teach them to be kind in return. ”

Koan’s face jerked up. My magic pinned his body, but I’d left his head and neck free to move. He could not resist staring at his unlikely champion. I tapped the handle of the whip against my left palm. “I have extended them patience and kindness for years, and the lesson they seem to have garnered from that is that I will overlook their poor behavior. I cannot allow that to continue.”

She pressed her fists against her hips and eyed me with a fiery determination. “But it’s not really your choice, is it?”

Koan coughed in surprise, and Jolter’s head twisted up to stare bug-eyed at her.

My own lips twitched into a smile. Nobody had ever challenged me with such unassuming openness. “Isn’t it?” I asked.

“No,” she declared. “I was the person they wronged, so I should get to decide the justice that will balance the injury they gave me.”

Was this kind of audacity normal fae behavior? Or human? Or a result of her mixed inheritance? The combination of fear that emanated from her through our bond with the pure boldness that she expressed in her posture and language put me on edge. Should I be protecting her invisible fear? Acquiescing to her obvious mandates? Or insisting on the respect I usually expected?

I tapped the whip handle against my palm again. “I cannot simply release them. They have violated a standard of honor that I expect from adults in Hemlit, especially those that have lived in Sirun as long as they have.”

She raised her chin higher, emphasizing a beautiful face. “Then I’d like to speak to the drekkan.”

“The drekkan?” I repeated. Did she mean…

She interrupted my thoughts. “Yes. His Majesty Aedan, the High King drekkan.”

A smile stole across my face as I debated the best way to answer this request. “Is there a reason you would prefer to speak with a legendary monster over me?”

She smiled and answered in a sweeter voice than I’d heard from her yet. “Of course. I would think that as the High King his opinion on punishments would supersede yours.”

Koan coughed again, and my smile stretched even broader. “You believe he would agree with you in this case?”

My questions made her more nervous, but instead of backing down she tightened her fists and raised her chin a little higher. “I’m sure he would, once I explain the situation.”

I couldn’t help a dark chuckle. “And why are you so sure?”

She narrowed her eyes. “He seemed both honorable and reasonable when I spoke with him this afternoon.”

I raised my brows. “An honorable and reasonable monster? How very generous of you.” Especially considering that I’d nearly killed her.

She arched her own brow. “Will you take me to him?” She scanned the dungeon hall. “I don’t think he’ll fit down here.”

My humor had not been so tickled in ages. I bowed to her and tried to temper the grin on my face. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Aedan Vander Ignim , the cursed High King of Hemlit, drekkan by day and elf by night.”