Page 47 of Of Ash and Iron (Flame Cursed Fae #3)

Chapter 47

Maddy

M y mother stares at Freydis and shakes her head slowly. "I knew it. I knew you were faking your loyalty to me. There were moments when I believed," she says heavily, "but I knew, deep down, that you two have always been like this. Too close."

If I didn't know better, I would believe there was jealousy in her voice.

Right now, though, all I care about his hiding the tiara.

As carefully as I can, I move, making sure my leg covers the gleaming metal.

Freydis stands up, her skirts flying, providing me enough cover to shove it into the open bag.

"What you're doing is wrong, Mother," she says in an unsure voice. She's scared.

"Shut up and come with me now, both of you."

I glance at Thyrvi as she rumbles a growl. She starts to speak in my mind, but I vanish her instantly. I can't risk her being used against me.

My mother looks at me, and ice forms around her hand. "You may have that creature at your command, but your power is no match for the Queen of the Ice Court," she grinds out.

"I thought you wanted your daughters to be powerful," Freydis says, her voice small.

"I wanted my daughters to be fucking obedient ," Mother says.

Has she been hiding this much vehemence underneath that cool exterior for my whole life? The more I think about it, the easier it is to believe. She's ruled the Ice Court with an iron fist for decades. She's scheming and she's cruel.

Much as I've refused to acknowledge it, I must have known that it was there. I guess so has Freydis.

"Come," Mother says. "Erik is away with Ishild, but I do not trust you in that cell, either of you, until he returns. You're going back in the cage."

My stomach lurches.

"Freydis, give me your staff, and whatever is in that bag."

Freydis completely blocks me from view as I scoop up discarded pieces of jewelry from the floor and load up the bag, carefully stowing the firestone back in the pocket inside my shirt, under the leather wrap.

When I straighten, my mother is glaring at me, challenge in her eyes.

We could try to fight her, but even between us, I don't believe we're strong enough, and she knows it.

When I drop my eyes, she gives a satisfied grunt and strides out of the cell.

"We'll follow her for now, but if we get a chance to run, take it," I whisper to Freydis.

She nods, and together we follow Mother up the tunnel.

Halfway up, she begins to speak.

"You're such a disappointment, Freydis. You're just like your father. He's a disappointment, too. He's weak. You had the capacity to be so much more, and instead, you turn out to be just as soft and pathetic and useless as the rest of them."

Freydis is stiffening beside me as she walks, her face darkening.

"I honestly don't know why I bothered. I've put so much time and energy into bringing you up to be the next queen, and now, there's no chance of that." Mother whirls around abruptly, fury in her face. "Who is supposed to be my heir now? Do you realize what you have done ?"

Freydis steps forward and slaps Mother across the face.

"I hate you!" she screams. "You've treated her like dirt for years. For years I believed it was the only way to keep her safe, but all you were doing was using her! You let her believe she was going to die every single day for decades! I can't believe you would treat anybody like that, let alone your own daughter!"

As Freydis shouts, Mother's face turns redder, something I've never seen before.

My own magic is working without me, swirling around my body, ready to defend my sister. But I'm too late.

Mother cuts Freydis off with a whoosh of snow. My sister flies backward, slamming into the tunnel wall, and I shoot both my hands at my mother.

Ice shards fly, and I've made every single one of them razor sharp. The spikes of them pierce her skin, and she shrieks, turning on me.

She mirrors my exact move.

Her shards pierce my skin everywhere but my leather wrap, but I'm able to bite back my cry. I'm about to call Thyrvi when I hear a snarl and see flickering fire.

It's Inga and Brunnin, running down the tunnel, Orgid right behind them.

We're trapped. The cell is at the other end, and the only exit is blocked. We can't take on three of them.

My mother glares at me as she moves her hands up and down her gowned body, presumably melting the ice shards I lodged into her. Her pristine white-and-blue visage is marred by tiny lines of red blood, and I take a grim satisfaction from that as I help Freydis to her feet.

"You're bleeding," she says.

"They're just small," I tell her.

"You two make me sick," my mother says, then turns to Inga and Orgid, who've skidded to a halt, Inga's massive bear filling a large portion of the tunnel made for giants. "Put them in the cage. I'll bring up the rear and make sure they don't go anywhere," she spits.

Freydis and I don't fight. There's no point. We're outnumbered.

Once we're locked in the cage, my mother speaks to Orgid. "Don't lower it over the side. There's no need. Just keep them where you can see them until Erik returns."

With a last disgusted look at us, she strides down the tunnel behind the fae-sized furniture.

I'm desperate to talk to Freydis, to formulate some sort of plan, but Inga and Orgid take a seat on furs right by the cage.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask them both, and then I look at Inga directly. "And why do you hate me so much?"

She leans over, sneering at me through the woven bars. "You have everything."

"My own mother is threatening to kill me."

She scoffs. "At least you have parents to hate you."

"I'm sorry you don't have any family, but I don't understand what that has to do with me."

She presses her lips together, and it's clear I'm not going to get any more out of her.

I turn to Orgid. "And you?"

"I just think you're scum," he says, then shrugs. "There's no point lying about it, not now. Your mother owns my family."

I'm not surprised. "So you were asked from the start to do this?"

He nods. "She made a deal with my father—we'd be free from her blackmail if we made you miserable enough to leave Featherblade. And then after the strength display, your mother found me and changed the rules. You clearly weren't going to leave, no matter how miserable you were, so we were to disable you, or kill you, if we had to."

Freydis gasps. "Mother didn't tell you to kill her own daughter."

Orgid laughs. "Even after all this, you don't believe it?"

Freydis falls quiet. I feel weirdly numb. Since the confrontation with my father in the cell and the whiplash version of my mother I've just seen, nothing can shock me.

"Did Father know?" Freydis asks eventually in a quiet voice.

"No idea. Your father's weak compared to your mother. Your mother is"—Orgid thinks—" interesting . I should hate her for owning my family, but I find myself unable to stop admiring her."

"That's because you share the same demented, power-hungry desires."

"Oh, you think I'm demented?" Orgid says, and leans forward, a cruel smile lighting his face. "Let me show you just how right you are."

"Orgid…" Inga says warningly.

"Erik said he and Ishild would be hours gathering the army. We've got loads of time," he says dismissively before turning back. "Let's see how your sister fares without some fucked-up place in her brain she can go and hide."

"No!" I scramble to my feet. "Leave her alone."

Freydis touches me on the arm. "It's fine. I can take it."

"No, you shouldn't have to!" I summon Thyrvi, and Inga's bear roars in response. Three ice giants approach.

"To battle!" Thyrvi bellows in my mind, but within seconds, giant hands are grasping for her and the huge, flaming bear is already closing in.

"Shit!" I vanish her again. "I'm sorry, Freydis. I can't?—"

She shakes her head, and Orgid chuckles.

The next two hours are even so much worse than when I was in the cage.

Freydis' screams echo off the mountain walls as Orgid's shadows twist through her mind. Each sob, each plea, carves another scar into my soul.

If the fire in the pit of my stomach was crackling before, it's now an inferno, threatening to consume me from within.

I've exhausted every curse in every language I know, thrown myself against the bars until my shoulders bruise, and threatened Orgid with everything I can imagine he fears.

But nothing stops her torment.

I can only rock back and forth, hugging my knees, trying to block out her whimpers. Even my attempts to soothe her only seem to give Orgid more ammunition.

A massive clang reverberates through the mountain, making Inga snap to attention. "What was that?"

The Frost Giants mobilize with surprising speed, their massive forms converging on the nearest tunnels.

They're leaving.

My hands shake with rage as I press against the bars, watching them go. Hope flares dangerous and bright.

"Go and find out," Orgid says.

Hours of being in charge and inflicting pain have made him overconfident.

Yes. Leave, and take that infernal fucking bear with you!

Inga casts a look at me, clearly decides that I'm safe within my cage, and nods. "I'll be back in a minute." She jogs toward the tunnel that all the Frost Giants are heading down, the clanging still ringing out through the mountain range.

The second she's out of sight, I summon Thyrvi. I don't have any doubt in my mind whatsoever about what I'm about to do. None at all.

"The rules have changed," I say loudly as she appears behind Orgid, to try to mask the sound of her arrival. I'm speaking to Thyrvi, and I pray she understands what I mean. "Everything I said you couldn't do before… do it."

Thyrvi's voice rumbles in my mind. "With pleasure."

Orgid's scowl of confusion barely has time to form. "What are you?—"

Thyrvi's massive paw catches him mid-sentence, sending him sprawling. He skids on the snow with a yelp, shadows shooting from his staff, but my bear is too fast. She bares her teeth silently as she pounces.

With one more massive, magnificent swipe, she sends him sailing off the edge of the ledge.

I hear him scream for a full twenty seconds, and that deep, dark, twisted thing inside me I've been trying to suppress for so long relishes every single one of them.