Page 17

Chapter Seventeen

H arm sat on one of the beds in the stone room that dragon had shoved him, Val, and Daisy into. There weren’t any windows, and the only light came from beneath the thick wooden door and from the single lantern sitting on a table beside his bed.

As soon as Val had set her down, Daisy had crawled beneath the far bed, tucking herself as far from the dragons as she could.

Val gave another inarticulate growl before she slammed her shoulder into the door. “I’m not part of this bargain! Just accept the blasted delivery and let me go!”

She banged her fist against the door before she leaned her forehead against it. If she’d been anyone else, he would have thought she was about to cry.

“I’m sorry.” Harm gripped the edge of the bed. He shouldn’t be hurt. He’d known all along that she was only here to deliver him and be on her way. Nothing more. None of those moments he’d thought they’d shared truly mattered in the end. She would do what it took to save herself.

He couldn’t blame her. Who would want to get stuck in one of these bargains?

“It isn’t your fault.” Val banged her fist on the door again, then kicked it for good measure.

“Still, I’m sorry you’re stuck here with me. I know how much you were counting on delivering me to Golbet and getting on your way.” Harm swallowed, hating the harsh rasp to his voice. “Will your Wild Hunt leader be angry that you’re late again?”

“No, he’ll understand. He knows how dragons can get.” Val slapped her palm on the door one last time before she leaned her back against it, facing him. Her expression remained tight, though he couldn’t quite read the emotion deepening her brown eyes or puckering her forehead. “It isn’t that I want to abandon you. It’s just…I’m just not supposed to be here. If I’m stuck here, then I can’t…” She hissed something almost like a suppressed scream through her teeth.

Harm waited. Staying quiet seemed like the better part of valor right now.

Val sucked in a shuddering breath, her shoulders slumping. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, as if she couldn’t believe she was saying this. “If I’m stuck here, then I can’t do anything to free you.”

She was planning to try to free him. She wasn’t going to just abandon him. The elation lasted only as long as it took for him to remember how dire their situation was.

“I doubt there’s anything even you can do to save me from this.” Harm’s shoulders hunched under the weight of those words, the truth sinking deep into his bones.

He was going to die here in the Fae Realm. He saw that now. He’d never see his father or brother again. Never return to Tulpenland and its brick streets, canals, and windmills. Never figure out why that mysterious fee had meddled by poisoning Gijs and arranging for Harm to be bargained away.

A bargain was just too unbreakable, and Harm was just too weak when compared to dragons and warlords and monarchs. He’d be bound by Bindings, drugged with faerie fruit, and endure the rest of his short life in torment. It was simply inevitable.

“I don’t know. But I can’t find out in here.” Val pushed away from the door and paced at the far end of the ten-foot tether. “And I just can’t…I can’t go to a warlord in the Court of Sand.”

The words seemed almost dragged out of her, as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

She hadn’t seemed this reluctant to go through the Court of Sand before, back when they’d been deciding their route from the Court of Revels. But she was almost as frantic now as Daisy had been when facing the dragons. He didn’t think she’d become that way because of all the monsters. She faced those without flinching.

“Did something happen in the Court of Sand?” Harm worked to keep his tone low as he regarded her .

Val huffed a breath and sank onto the bed across from him. She flexed her fingers on the blanket for a moment before she lifted her gaze to meet his. “I was born in the Court of Sand.”

Harm kept his mouth shut, his gaze unwavering, as he waited for her to continue.

Daisy peeked her nose out from under the bed, giving Val’s ankle a nudge.

Val’s gaze went unfocused as she reached down to pet Daisy. “The local warlord accused my father of treason. Whether or not my father actually committed treason, I don’t know. All I remember is being awakened in the middle of the night. My mother was screaming, my father begging, as we were dragged from our home and forced through a rift into the Realm of Monsters.”

“That sounds terrifying.” Harm had been taken from his own realm, but at least he had been a willing adult. She’d been a child.

“Terrifying.” Val gave a laugh that was more scoff than mirth. “That wasn’t the half of it. My parents weren’t prepared for the starvation, the monsters, the death of that realm. Both of them were dead within days of our banishment. I would’ve died too, if a band of the Wild Hunt hadn’t found me. I bound myself to them, and they raised me.”

Made her who she was, though she didn’t say as much. Being raised by the Wild Hunt certainly explained a lot.

“That sounds like a tough childhood.” Harm scuffed his boots on the floor, resisting the urge to go to her. Right now if he tried to offer the comfort of a hug, he wasn’t sure if she’d fall into his arms or punch him.

Daisy fully wiggled out from under the bed and leaned her body against Val’s legs. The dog was probably doing more to comfort Val than Harm could.

Val gave a shrug, some of the shattered look leaving her eyes. “It is what it is. It isn’t like I can change it now.”

Harm nodded, his gaze dropping. “My mother died when I was ten. It’s been just my father, my brother, and me ever since. It was a good childhood, and I wouldn’t change how close I am with them. But I still miss my mother.”

Val leaned over as Daisy flopped onto her back for a belly rub. “I’ve gone through the Court of Sand plenty of times for missions—the rifts there are the most reliable way into the Realm of Monsters—but I’ve done my best to avoid the warlords. I will never go back to pledging myself to a warlord, noble, or monarch who could use me or banish me or own me like that ever again. The Wild Hunt gives me freedom from that.”

After the things Harm had seen here in the Fae Realm, he could understand that, even if he wasn’t sure the Wild Hunt was the freedom she thought it was. She was here, after all, tied with the same rope he was and bound by the guilt of being complicit in transporting him to captivity.

Harm held up his wrist with the end of the cord. Better to steer the conversation on to a less emotional footing. “It isn’t how I’d like to see the Court of Sand either. But the Court of Sand should be easier to escape from than the dragons, right?”

“Yes and no.” Val’s tone steadied, her face smoothing, as if she too were calmed by their usual discussion about his eventual escape. “The dragons are obsessive about things they consider theirs. Once they have someone bound into their service, it’s incredibly difficult to leave.”

That was what Harm had gathered, based on previous discussions. Escaping a dragon had sounded impossible.

“But they usually don’t find pleasure in cruelty for the sake of cruelty the way many of the other fae do. Human captivity is more business for them than it is about dominating others.” Val’s mouth tipped in a wry line, though it wasn’t a smile. “They’re dragons. They already dominate everyone around them. Few of them feel the need to prove it.”

“In other words, the dragons would have been harder to escape, but I would have likely endured less torture while serving them for the rest of my life.” Harm waved toward the door, his other hand drifting toward the sword still buckled at his hip. That would explain why the dragons hadn’t felt the need to disarm him.

“Correct. The warlords, though…” Val grimaced, her gaze going distant again.

Harm wasn’t about to ask her how bad Warlord Zaya was. Based on his observations of the type of fee?n who dealt in bargains for captive humans, she likely wasn’t the honorable and kindhearted sort. Was she the type who shoved innocent children through rifts into the Realm of Monsters?

More cruel, but more possibility of escape. Harm tried to dredge up a shred of hope.

Nope, things still looked hopeless. He was absolutely going to die here in the Fae Realm. Should he be hopeful that at least a cruel fee would mean he’d likely die sooner rather than later?

“Harm.” That note of steel returned to Val’s voice. Her posture straightened as she stopped petting Daisy, her eyes flinty again in that warrior-look. “I won’t abandon you here in the Fae Realm. As soon as I’m free of this”—she held up her arm with the tether—“I’ll free you. I don’t know how, or if I can. But I promise, I will return you to your home, no matter what it takes.”

Harm opened his mouth. Closed it. He wasn’t sure how to respond to such a big promise. “Thanks. I just…thanks. I don’t think I’d even have a chance of getting home without your help.”

For a moment, her gaze dropped away from his, the muscle at the corner of her jaw knotting as if she didn’t know how to accept his gratitude.

Besides, he knew what neither of them wanted to acknowledge. Just because she’d promised didn’t mean she’d succeed. There was every chance both of them would die in the attempt.

“Look. I should have told you this long before now.” Val leaned backward as Daisy hopped onto the bed and snuggled into her lap. As much as a hefty, muscular dog could snuggle. “But there’s this fae lord who goes by the moniker of the Wild Fae Primrose. He lives in the Court of Knowledge and rescues captive humans. I don’t know how to contact him, but I’ve heard his League is spread over the entire Fae Realm. If I can’t rescue you, then surely the Primrose League can.”

Primrose. That was a flower, wasn’t it?

Harm dug into his pocket, having to search for several moments before he found what he was looking for. He pulled out that small red flower the strange human had given him at the faerie market in the Court of Knowledge. He’d nearly forgotten about it after he’d stuffed it in the magical pocket once he’d changed into his new clothes.

The flower was a little wilted, but it didn’t look as bad as he would’ve expected for having been riding around in his pocket for several days. He held it up for Val to see. “I think I might have met someone in the Primrose League.”

Val’s eyes widened, her gaze traveling from the flower to him. “That’s a wild fae primrose. Where did you get that? When?”

“A man approached me while you were haggling for my sword at the faerie market. He couldn’t have been the Primrose himself since he was human, but he gave me this and told me to trust someone if they gave me another one.” Harm studied the little red flower. Such a small, unassuming thing.

“Good. Then you’ve already come to the attention of the Primrose League.” Val returned to petting Daisy. “They might even be plotting your rescue as we speak.”

Harm dropped his gaze from Val’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you back then. ”

“No, you were absolutely right not to tell me.” Val gave a shrug, as if she wasn’t angry in the slightest that he’d kept something like this from her. Instead, her tone was almost…pleased. “You’re a human in the Fae Realm doing what you need to do to survive. It’s smart never to give information freely, and you should definitely keep as much as you can from your captor. You probably shouldn’t even be telling this to me now.”

“You aren’t my captor.” Harm closed his hand around the flower before he stuck it back in his pocket.

Val held up her arm and pointed at the tether running between them. “Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.” Harm gestured at the door. “You’re as stuck in this mess as I am right now.”

“True.” For the first time, Val’s shoulders relaxed. She leaned against the wall behind her, though she had to keep her arm stretched in front of her because she was at the end of the cord. “At least there are two beds this time.”

“Such luxury.” Harm smoothed his hands over the blanket on his bed. Then he met and held Val’s gaze. “I trust your promise, Val. Far more than I trust a random flower given by a stranger in a dark alley of a faerie market. I trust you . Whatever we’ll face tomorrow in the Court of Sand, we’ll do it together, all right? You won’t have to face a warlord alone, and I know you won’t abandon me there.”

Val looked away from him, focusing on Daisy instead. “You’re far too good for the Fae Realm.”

“I don’t know about that.” Harm sighed and shook his head. “I used to think I was good. I lauded myself for just how good I was. But it was all a show. The proper dress. The proper cleanliness. The proper appearance of virtue. But acting good and being good all the way down to your soul are two different things. I was the former. But if I was the latter? I don’t know.”

He used to judge good as what someone did to put on the proper, societally accepted method of proving their goodness.

But all of that had been stripped away here in the Fae Realm. All the proprieties and rules he’d lived by were gone.

And yet when all the trappings were taken away and the world turned on its head, good and evil were still the same. Right from wrong still mattered. In the end, it was all a matter of the heart instead of the outward appearance. Why would it matter if he wore all the proper layers of clothing, spoke with due gravity, did all the things expected of him, if he didn’t harbor a shred of love and kindness in his heart?

“You are good, Harm.” Val stroked Daisy’s ears, the dog wiggling on her lap. “I’ve seen plenty of evil here in the Fae Realm. Enough to see when someone is different. When that person is kind and loyal, even to the fae escorting him to his grim fate. Your family and your duchy in the Human Realm are fortunate to have you, and it would be a tragedy if someone like you were to die here in the Fae Realm.”

Harm coughed, looking away from her as the back of his neck burned. That was by far the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. “Thank you. ”

The moment hung between them for a moment before Val cleared her throat. “Don’t let it go to your head. Now, we should get some sleep. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

“Aren’t they all?” Harm shook his head, leaned over, and blew out the lamp.