Page 28 of The Faebound Trials (Mates and Madness: The Phantom Prince and The Bloodweaver #1)

I saw how they threw Kell and Ellis at the cell across from me.

Ellis snarled at the knights who threw Kell on the ground. He caught him before he hit the wall.

Kell was still unconscious while Ellis rushed to him to cradle his head down to his lap.

The ground was cold, and I refused to sit down. My teeth rattled and the cold bit my skin off.

I kept cursing as I rub my palms together to warm myself up.

It wasn’t winter here in Enoranthas, how was it that the temperature here dropped below degrees?

My eyes fell on the opposite cell and my mind wondered how they ended up exactly where I was.

I wanted to know how they could do that. But I knew years of training, years of retrieving and bloodweaving earned them their abilities to thread through time exactly the way they wanted to, and that made me feel a little jealous.

If only I knew what I could do, would I be like them too? Powerful, fast, and smart.

If only I had accepted what I am, would I be able to escape this place the moment I stumbled upon here and go back to my sister without delay?

I had so many unanswered questions.

Kell and Ellis bloodweaving here made me curious about my parents. I wanted to know the exact same thing my parents were doing.

They made me question what I once believed in. They made me question my hatred and anger, my feelings of neglect and abandonment.

Them bloodweaving here, made me see my parents in a better light, made my hatred ease a little bit.

What if my parents were once stuck in a place like this too?

Stuck in the same problems I had to face right now?

What if my parents were once heavily wounded, making them unable to bloodweave and go back to us?

I felt a sharp knife puncturing my chest, it would break my heart to realize I was hating them for all the wrong reasons.

But I couldn’t help but feel torn apart. I couldn’t help but feel the loneliness, the sadness I had to go through since I was a child.

And those thoughts kept pounding in my head.

There were so many questions, so many things that played in my mind, but they were dead and no one would answer them right now.

But maybe, Kell and Ellis could give me answers? If not exactly about how my parents were leaders of the Order. Maybe things that make all this make sense?

“Ellis… A..re you… alright?” I tried to speak clearly but my teeth were chattering from the freezing cold.

Ellis spared me a glance while he was busy covering Kell with his blue jacket, putting his palm on Kell’s cheek to warm him.

Despite Ellis shivering in the cold, he didn’t hesitate to offer what little he had to Kell.

He took care of him, and touched him like more than brothers would.

“I’m fine. You? Were you hurt? I saw you fall earlier.” Ellis’s voice was warm like honey and soft like clouds.

Compared to his aloof looks, brooding glare, Ellis had always been soft-spoken and gentle. He was kind despite his glaring appearance.

I couldn’t do it anymore because it was freezing cold, so I sat down and tried to keep myself intact.

Standing up made me colder. Curling myself into a ball, I wished for warmth.

I hugged my knees together. I wanted to bury my face, because I was starting to feel my face falling off, somehow I couldn’t feel it anymore.

“I’m… not h..urt. Will, will.. Kell be fine?” I tried to swallow, my tongue felt dry, my throat turned hoarse.

He nodded, he adjusted himself, and pulled Kell as he leaned on the wall. His eyes were on me but he was stroking Kell’s hair gently, like it was a habit.

I saw how unaffected he acts but I saw the slight trembling of his hands.

I looked away, I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable or anything.

“Hey, you’re dying.”

I wanted to laugh when Ellis said that. But he had an alarming expression.

“What?”

His face was serious. I saw how tightly he gripped Kell’s shoulders, as if he wanted to cross the iron bars locking us up.

Then his face changed as if he remembered something.

Maybe he remembered how clueless I was with bloodweaving, with the Order, with how the Order was meant to keep the children of bloodweaver elites hidden to the fae.

“Lowen, you have to use your powers.”

The cold had snapped my mouth shut now. My thoughts were hazy.

I was beginning to see shapes that weren’t originally there.

I saw the dungeon cells had floating spirals, dooming us in.

My mind was drifting.

My mind was losing.

I wanted to flutter my eyes closed and never wake up.

I wanted to sleep forever and never wake up.

But a voice was ringing in my head. And it wasn’t mine, it wasn’t even the voice in my head or the pull of the thread.

It was somehow in front of me. Just meters from where I was.

“Lowen! Lowen. Lowen. Open your eyes!” The panic in his voice was there.

I followed his command, but I didn’t dare speak.

“Use your powers to regulate your temperature or you will die. Listen to me, Lowen, do not fall asleep.”

And I listened to his voice. It was crisp and loud and it echoed to my ears.

And my body wanted to obey his orders.

In my mind I was stuck in a state where I had to claw my way out.

But I knew my body was still and frozen cold.

“We can control our blood without traveling in time, Lowen. So right now, focus on the flow of your body regulating your metabolism.” I heard shuffling. “Pull it, like you would a thread that binds the universe whole. And when you pull it, never let it go.”

Teeth chattering like crazy, it echoed in the frigid dungeons Etaran’s designed for captured mortals who wanted to escape.

I want to fucking stab everyone.

They keep putting me inside a giant fridge.

His voice echoed late in my thoughts, but when he did, instead of trying to claw my way out in the state I was stuck in, I focused on the sound of my breathing, the sound of my blood flowing through my veins.

And I followed Ellis’s word and pulled the same threads that I once pulled when I first bloodweaved.

Now what?

I waited for another order.

And as if he heard me, he began speaking:

“Then reduce the blood flow to your skin, constrict it. Hold it in, reduce it.”

Why should I listen to him?

Because he was saving you.

I took a deep breath and constricted the blood flow in my body.

“Now control your blood temperature.” It was a puzzle but I listened and waited, “whisper or say it, command it as you will. Our blood has water, and water vibrates in rhythmic frequency. Make it as hot as you want and let it flow through your vessels. Distribute enough heat to stabilize your body. Do it carefully, do not easily let it go or it will break. Do it gently or die.”

And I felt it, I followed his words.

Even though I was too weak, even though I was breathing too shallow.

I followed his words like it was religion.

I commanded the blood humming in my veins.

And when I did, I felt the surge of my power flow through it, wild and vivid.

And it ignited.

And soothing, tender warmth kissed my skin in careful caress.