Page 6 of To Sway a Prince (Tempting Thieves)

6

FINDING THE LIMIT

S omething had changed. The binding wrapped around my spirit like a girdle, tight, uncomfortable, but not precisely painful. More emotional than physical. Its weight held fast as I struggled to comprehend what had happened and how Ramiel had accomplished it so swiftly.

The darkness faded, and I found myself in what appeared to be another section of the tower. Fat globed oil lamps hung on the walls, casting flickering shadows all around me. Though cracks and crevices lined the aged walls, it was well kept and clean, smelling like stone and magic. My nose tickled, the musky scent of stagnant as well as biting fresh magics mingling. Hints of old parchment reached me as well, coating my tongue along with the acrid taste of the binding.

Swearing, I struck my fist against the wall. Bright pain flared through my wrist, and I screamed, just as much from frustration as pain. How had he managed to do it so fast? Binding rituals were supposed to take whole minutes, and he'd just shorthanded the whole thing. Somehow. Somehow!

Maybe he'd messed it up going that fast. Straightening my bodice and adjusting my cloak, I started down the hall. Wretched silver-haired bastard! If he thought I was bested, he had another thing coming.

I didn't even try to stay quiet this time. I just hurried forward. My aura flared out, aware of the sigils and wards. None were hostile. None even slowed me. They weren't even trying. He hadn't sent me back to the cell either. A strange choice, and one I'd ensure he regretted.

A staircase spiraled ahead, and as I neared it, warmth spilled over me in strange and intense waves. My heart skipped at the unexpected sensation—tenderness, heat, affection—almost like a caress that lingered on my skin. It was just like those dreams. So soft. So warm. A distinct mark on the inside of that wall made it easy to remember: a shield with three swords.

I couldn't afford any delays or surprises. So I pushed the sensation away and hurried down the hall. The binding within me tightened with each step, twisting but not painful. It pinched my breaths a little and then settled in. I paused, pressing my hand to it for another breath as I studied it. This was…different. Ramiel could have made the binding curse painful, but he didn't. Even though it tightened, it never reached a point of pain. Essentially just an awareness.

I carried on, scowling at this. Why would he do that? I certainly wouldn't show that courtesy to a trespasser who was trying to free a dragon I'd imprisoned for some purpose. Was it a mistake or perhaps intentional?

Within minutes, I found the staircase that led back down to the stable. The runes and sigils and wards did not react to my presence beyond pulsing a little with light. Nothing new so far. My muscles tightened. He could have easily added a couple unpleasant surprises here.

Nothing in the stairwell either.

As soon as I reached the bottom step and peered into the stable, I slowed. All the dragons so far were fast asleep. I crept farther in, steady and silent. Their breathing filled the stable like a rumbling, rhythmic hum, punctuated by occasional snorts and huffs. Even as they slept as peacefully as if they had never been interrupted.

Zephyrus was still in his cell in the back. He cocked his head when he saw me, not greeting me with his usual enthusiasm. His tail struck the flagstones. I held up my hands to reassure him I was all right as I glanced around. "We're going to sort this out, Zeph." Where was Ramiel?

That miserable, frost-hearted bastard wasn't even down in the stable. He was so confident in his spell, he didn't even deign to be here to ensure it worked? I despised that man more with every passing moment. The sheer arrogance! Well, I'd make sure to be his undoing. He had underestimated me, and he'd regret that.

Zephyrus grunted and folded his wings back tight. He did not sound impressed.

"I'm going to figure this out," I said.

The chiding chuff that followed confirmed he did not believe me. But he didn't sound worried either.

Shaking my head, I drew closer slowly. The first thing was to determine the limits of the binding spell. The lack of pain and discomfort meant that there had been safety measures woven into it, so the pulseporting wouldn't take me somewhere like the middle of a wall.

I got within arm's reach of Zephyrus, and it pulseported me away.

Polph!

The world briefly spun as darkness swept over me. Then I landed in a dark sitting room. No torches or lamps brightened the dark, but my eyes adjusted swiftly.

White sheets draped over the furniture, dust motes swirling lazily from my disturbance. The musky scent of old velvet, ancient silk, and dry wood mingled with faint traces of arcane energy. A large stone fireplace dominated one wall, its hearth cold and empty. I swallowed a snarl of frustration. It was all right. This was just part of the process. I was going to find a way through.

The carved double doors swung open easily, the old hinges silent despite their age and the dust. I charged through and ran down the hall, my boots striking the stones in rapid succession. If he thought he could stop me, he was wrong. This was only a setback. This time I'd get closer before it snapped me away again. And eventually I'd find the weakness and break it apart, rescue Zephyrus, and be on my way. He wanted to underestimate me? Fine! Let him.

I took the stairs two at a time, sprinting past the tapestries that hung along the wall like the sentinels they commemorated. My instincts guided me back to the stable within minutes.

Zephyrus lifted his head again and rested it on the bars. That grunt of his told me precisely what he thought, his eyelids half shading his eyes.

"I'm not giving up," I said, striding forward. This time I came in from the right, angling for a point that just felt a little different.

He gave a short blast of a steamy huff, the grumble of a laugh confirming he wasn't hurt and found this more amusing than concerning. My aura stretched out, searching for any signs of the binding's limits. I hadn't felt anything change really once I got close to Zephyrus, which meant that it wasn't as weak as I would have preferred.

This time it pulseported me when I was barely four feet away from him and coming along the right side of the cell. It dropped me down in a storage hall on the same floor near wooden bins marked with runes to keep the food preserved. Thread rot! Fine, fine. I made note of the direction. The right side was even stronger. I drew in a deep breath.

Again and again, I charged back down to the stable, attempting another avenue. Each time the binding spell sent me to some other part of the tower. I was getting intimately familiar with this tower. Caein appeared and tried to convince me to calm myself and just enjoy the tower's hospitality, but I ignored him. Like most Nolches, he had some abilities to maneuver items within the tower, but he made no effort to stop me.

It was infuriating. And the angle I chose made no difference. Coming in from the left and coming in at a diagonal got me closest, but neither one allowed me to so much as touch Zephyrus. Worse still, Ramiel had made the binding extend to more than just Zephyrus. It reached the levers, the locks, everything that had to do with freeing Zephyrus.

I couldn't even get near the levers to open it and set him free. No, the bastard had bound that too! I hated him so much. He hadn't even added new wards to hurt me or push me back. The sheer arrogance of it. As if he could just cast a binding spell on me and go on about his business!

And…most infuriatingly of all, apparently he could.

By the sixth time, I was panting, my hair loose around my shoulders and sweat rolling down the back of my neck and along my temples. Once again, it had dropped me down in another hallway with paintings, incense, and rugs.

"Perhaps the lady would like to rest?" Caein proposed, his voice seeming to come more from the nearest doorway rather than just the entirety of the ceiling above.

I shoved my tangled hair back and bound it up. "No."

"You understand that binding spells are not easily broken."

"All binding spells have weaknesses," I said sharply. Before he could say anything further, I raced forward. Back to the curving staircase, back to the stable. On the way, I came up with new names and insults for Ramiel as I made mental checklists of other angles I could try. There was a weakness in this binding spell. There had to be!

As I charged ahead, my shoulder clipped the door frame. I yelped. I'd caught my cloak on a hook. It scraped across my shoulder and tugged at my sleeve as well, pulling it down just enough to reveal a trace of the scourge I'd inflicted on myself years ago.

Caein hummed. "You seared off your mate bond?"

Nolches were hard to fool. A knot formed in my throat. Searing off the mate bond wasn't precisely right, but it was right enough I had no desire to go into the details or correct him further. The burn was deep. It wasn't likely to ever heal enough to allow another to form or the original to continue. "Hired a witch." It took me a moment to free myself, and I rubbed my arm. "Enough people died because of me. Didn't need to doom my mate too." It was one of the many things I regretted. It had seemed so selfless and smart at the time, but grieving youths should not be permitted to make such choices. Now I had to live with it.

"The arrogance of you fae never ceases to amaze me," he said. His tone had softened, seeming more gentle than judgmental. "Why?"

"I don't feel like discussing my motivations with a stranger." I pressed my hand over the old scar on my shoulder. Sometimes it still ached and throbbed as if it were a fresh wound.

A low, contemplative sound followed. "Would you take it back if you could?"

"It doesn't matter. I don't deal in what can never be," I said. Squeezing my shoulder for one moment more, I drew in a deep breath and started back into the hall, slower this time.

I would take it back if I could. I'd practically been a child when I made that choice. A child who thought she knew her mind. I certainly wouldn't have been grateful to the witch for refusing me. But the older version of myself peered back on that child and wished someone had been there to shake sense into her or refuse to let her cross that line. Someone to tell her that as real as the pain and the fear were, it should not have dictated something so important. The worst thing about being alone was that your mistakes truly were all your own.

"Fate is a difficult thing to deny," Caein said in response. His voice swirled softly above me. "The bond of the beloved is one of the sacred bonds. Sometimes it all comes together in a way altogether separate from what we expected. In fact, I'd say that that is what happens more often than not."

"We all make our choices." And those we love suffer them as well. Even if they did nothing wrong. I quickened my pace and returned to the stable, grateful Caein did not seem to follow.

This time I tried to climb the bars of the deep blue-green dragon's cell and navigate my way over. Even though I was eight feet in the air, the pulseport snatched me up and dragged me away. I landed with a thud on a dark-blue rug in front of a massive bookshelf that spanned most of a wall.

"Having fun?"

Every muscle in my body tightened. "So you finally decided to crawl out of your hole?" I growled, struggling to my feet. The first time we'd met I'd been hanging upside down, but landing on my backside with my hair tangled and my face red with sweat and exertion was a close second for humiliating appearances. Not that I'd let him know how embarrassed I was. My anger and frustration were now high enough that even the passive enchantments I'd put on my hair were coming undone.

I was now in the same library I had seen him get attacked by that spectral kangaroo—the omenfang—that's what he had called it. Almost every inch of the walls was covered in shelves of some kind. The wooden floorboards were well oiled and well kept, not creaking even a little as I shifted my weight. He stood behind a massive desk, palms braced against the polished surface amid a massive array of books, bleached bones, a carved wooden bowl with rune stones, cracked gemstones scattered about, incense, dried herbs, and all manner of other odds and sundries. An inkwell sat on top of one leatherbound manuscript, the quill secured with a sparking bit of energy. A spindle with silver thread sat on the top of five books, almost at my eye level.

My gut clenched at that. I hated those things. Knotweavers typically used them to control the larger lengths of magic that they unwound, but I refused.

Ramiel did not act as if he noticed my reaction. His long silver hair was a sleek curtain pushed over one side as if he combed his fingers from right to left while thinking. "This is my home, and I have many serious tasks which require my attention. I couldn't waste more time babysitting you."

I lifted my chin. In the past hours, I had exhausted every angle of reaching Zephyrus except going under. Absent digging a tunnel beneath the cell and finding a way to create a line of sight, that wasn't going to happen. So…I was going to learn more and uncover the weaknesses in another way. "I get the impression I'm annoying you."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" He asked it in such a flat tone that a younger me might have thought he was genuinely asking.

"There's a very simple way to fix all of this. Let Zephyrus go and let both of us leave." I spread my hands wide as if making some grand new point.

"Your bargaining position is poor," he said.

"I have offered to pay a ransom for him if that is what you require. I'm sure we can come up with something. And just know that if you refuse, I will find a way to break this spell. So save us all some time and let us go."

"You can't break the binding spell," he said as evenly as if he told me the sun rose in the east.

"No spell is impervious," I responded. Not entirely true, but I didn't really want to go into those exceptions. The suggestion that he might love me even a little was preposterous, and just saying that reminded me that most likely no one except Zephyrus would ever care about me. Who would want the reason for the successful razing of Theodas City? I had to steel myself so that the tears did not rise to the backs of my eyes.

Except for Zephyrus, everyone who loved me died that day, and all because of me.

"No. I just know how to seal it so you can't break it," he said. His lips pressed in a cold, faint smile. "You are not as clever as you think you are, little gnat."

"Go ahead and think that." I strode closer, staying on the opposite side of the spindle. "You will have to kill me if you want to stop me from rescuing Zephyrus. And a Sentinel like you should have no trouble with that." Rage flashed sharper in me, and I spread my arms wide. "Is that what you want? Do you want to kill me now? Just go ahead and get it over with, rune fiend!"

He slammed his hand down on the desktop, and a great force slammed into me. I lurched backwards, striking the shelf. I barely drew a breath before he was on me, his arms caging me in.