Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(29)

She gasps and staggers backward as she sees his grin become a grimace and his eyes roll back. He falls to his knees and collapses. She cannot feel the shock of his death, of what she’s just done—her first kill—because no sooner has he crumpled to the floor than three more appear where he had been. Vultures, everywhere.

And their eyes—the way they blaze behind those black masks. It suddenly becomes obvious to Aurora that they are more than mere soldiers. They are under the spell of some unfathomable magic.

She is surrounded too quickly; the tide of the battle has crashed epically and too soon. She has led all of these women, whom she pledged to help, into certain death. Panic, thick and ugly as tar, stops her throat—she is panting and heaving as she lunges at one of her attackers, unable to best him. She is forced to her knees and looks up just as a metal-coated knee is thrust up into her chin. Her jaw rattles as blood fills her mouth, sparks swarming her vision, followed by a swift and heady blackness.

When Aurora comes to, she is chained to a chair, her head slumped onto her shoulder. She glances up blearily, her vision swimming. The room spins. The person across from her flickers like a candlelit dream.

Pale face, ravaged by a wide, rippled scar.

Aurora blinks.

Beautiful lips.

Dark, piercing, depthless eyes.

A crown of unmistakable iron thorns.

The opening notes of the rose lullaby trickle into Aurora’s mind: One night reviled . . .

She swallows and blinks again, her vision finally coming into focus.

Before her sits the faerie queen, Malfleur.

There’s something wrong with Aurora’s face. It must be puffy; one eye is so swollen she can barely see out of it. She licks her lips and tastes blood. She tries to concentrate, but her thoughts dance into the shadows.

A cynical part of her, a part she hardly knew ’til now, wants to laugh at what a fool she is. How she imagined storming the throne room and bargaining with Queen Malfleur like an equal. How stupidly, naively unafraid she’d been.

She squints and looks at the queen.

Malfleur’s smile stretches across her face as though pulled that way by invisible strings.

Where are they, where is Wren— She cuts off. Her voice is gone again, she realizes. The effort to speak singes her throat, coming out as a rattling gasp. She struggles against the shackles binding her wrists.

“I find it almost enchanting,” Queen Malfleur says calmly, then takes a sip from a goblet of something dark. Aurora wonders if it’s blood. “Your arrival. An unexpected gift.”

Malfleur’s grin is a sickle, carving into Aurora’s heart. She clenches her muscles and tugs against the chains again, to no avail.

“I nearly didn’t recognize you,” the faerie queen goes on, her eyes scanning Aurora from her tangled blond hair to her ragged garments.

She must not, she realizes, look anything like she once did. Aurora grits her teeth.

“But your friend—Wren, is it?—was crying out your name over and over.”

What did you do to her? . . . Once again, the words die in Aurora’s mouth, and her chest clenches from the pain of it. She’s voiceless.

“What I found most intriguing,” Malfleur adds, “was that you murmured a reply, which the girl seemed to hear, though I could not.” She pauses, eyeing Aurora as though awaiting a response. “It got me thinking, of course. You must know my sister was very powerful once.”

Was.

Malfleur purses her lips. Aurora stares at her. She had believed Wren when she’d told her that Malfleur entered Sommeil and murdered Belcoeur, but the coldness of Malfleur’s demeanor still comes as a shock.

“It seems my sister’s world,” the queen says, rising from her chair, “and by extension, those who were raised there, have a sort of immunity to the work of the other fae.” She begins to pace, her long dark gown spilling across stone like black oil. “Like an invisible shield. Thus the tithes taken from you appear to be nonexistent among her people.”

Aurora takes in her surroundings as the queen paces. It’s a small room, more of a cell, really, and six walled. Judging by the light, high up. Probably in a tower. There are no furnishings other than the two chairs. There are, however, two doors. Malfleur comes to one of the doors, pauses, and turns to catch Aurora’s gaze.

“Belcoeur could outpower the rest of them, perhaps. Unfortunately for her, though, she could not outdo me.”

The queen’s words send a chill through Aurora as she wrenches open the door. Through it lies an even smaller adjoining cell, dark and windowless—and in the center sits Wren, hunched on the floor, tied up and whimpering faintly. A rag is stuffed in her mouth.

Malfleur picks up Wren by the elbow and drags her into Aurora’s chamber. She yanks the rag from Wren’s mouth, and Aurora winces as the girl lets out a choking sob. The rag is covered in blood and dirt.

Aurora’s arms strain against the chains. “Let her go!” she commands, thrilled at the rush of her voice’s return, which brings with it a surge of anger. Now that Wren is here, Aurora can speak—though only Wren can hear it.

“Now, Aurora.” Malfleur smiles and retakes her seat, shoving Wren to her knees at the foot of her chair like a dog. “Tell me. What brings you to Blackthorn?”

Aurora struggles and pulls but cannot free her hands. “Let her go and I’ll tell you.”