My sweet, gentle Frey was gone from this world.
Emotion surged through me, so much, none of it good, that I suddenly felt like I was going to explode.
“No!” I shrieked, pushing her away, I gained my feet, rushed several paces across the room and stopped dead when I saw we were in a room made of stone and there was nothing in it but high, barred windows at least two stories up, three dirty pallets on the floor with thin, rough, tattered wool blankets and a wooden table that looked like its legs held it up by a miracle.
We were in a prison cell.
And I didn’t care.
No, I didn’t care.
“He isn’t dead,” I told Valentine and the blonde as both slowly stood and turned to face me.
“I’m sorry, my princess,” the blonde murmured.
I leaned forward and shrieked, “He isn’t dead!”
Valentine moved toward me, whispering, “My goddess of love –”
“He isn’t dead! He isn’t dead! He isn’t dead!” I screeched then saw even the cool, composed Valentine’s face filled with sorrow and my legs collapsed under me as my body started shuddering with sobs. “He isn’t dead,” I whispered through my tears as both women made it to me, pulled me to my feet and supported me as they moved me back to the pallet. “He isn’t dead,” I repeated, my entire body quaking with the force of my grief as they gently pressed me back down to the dirty mattress. “He isn’t dead,” I whispered as I curled into a ball, arms around my calves, rocking my body back and forth while one of them, I didn’t know who, stroked my hair. “He isn’t dead,” these words were hoarse, rough, ugly, my stomach empty, my heart actually felt broken and that hurt, a lot, too much, so much I couldn’t bear it. It was unbearable. “Please, God, make him not dead.” I whispered then I turned my head, pressed my face into the filthy pallet and I sobbed.
* * * * *
I cried myself out while Valentine stroked my hair and cooed to me. When I was done and turned my face to stare at the stone wall, she gently forced me to sitting on the pallet so my back was to the wall as the blonde went to the table and came back with a plate on which were some slices of ham and a battered copper cup filled with water that was luckily clear and clean.
“Eat, pour votre bebe,” Valentine urged, I looked at her vaguely, nodded just as vaguely, took the plate, set it on my thighs, took the glass, started eating slowly and chased the salty ham with water.
Pour votre bebe.
Our baby.
Would I live to give Frey that?
I looked around the room and doubted it.
Then my eyes fell on the blonde. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Lavinia of Lunwyn, servant of Alabasta,” she replied softly and I nodded because I knew who that was. Frey told me stories of Lunwyn’s most powerful witch and the goddess Alabasta’s servant on this earth.
And Frey told them to me while we were eating dinner in his chateau in Hawkvale.
I felt my throat close, my eyes sting and I looked away, shoving another piece of ham in my mouth and having no clue how I’d get it down.
“Do you think…” Lavinia of Lunwyn started, my eyes moved to her and I swallowed the ham with effort before she finished, “that you can hear what is happening?”
To this, I replied, “Considering my husband is dead and that hits the one to ten scale of bad news you could give me at around five hundred and seventy-two, how bad is the rest of the news?”
“It is bad, not as bad as that,” Lavinia replied.
Nope. Not as bad as that. Outside of the world coming to an end, there was no news worse than that or even close.
I sucked in breath through my nose and nodded, saying, “Well then, hit me with it.”
She nodded back then she and Valentine exchanged a glance and both settled on the pallet on either side of me.
“You have been under a sleeping spell for four days,” Lavinia stated, I nodded, she took in breath and continued. “I was captured and imprisoned here a week ago. You and Valentine arrived yesterday and when you did, Valentine was bound but awake.”
I finished the last piece of ham, set the plate aside, took another drink of water and said, “Okay.”
“We are…” she hesitated, looked to Valentine then back at me, “we are both bound still, though we bear no straps. Wherever we are has a powerful spell over it. Neither of us have command of our magic. It is not gone, we both still feel it, we just cannot command it.”
My eyes slid away and I whispered, “Great.”
“This is why, I am certain, they have brought me here for I would not stand for what is happening to my Lunwyn,” Lavinia told me and I nodded.
Valentine took it from there. “We both can, however, sense things. This is how we know…” she trailed off and I jerked my chin up so she wouldn’t continue.
I didn’t want to hear the words again. I got her. This was how they knew Frey was gone.
Lavinia spoke next. “We also know more, or I do. Valentine senses things but as she is not of this world most of what she senses, she doesn’t understand.”
“And what more do you know?” I asked but I didn’t really care. I wanted to know about my girls and Frey’s men. I wanted to know about Aurora and Atticus. I wanted to know about Skylar. And I wanted to have some time to lick my wounds and then figure out how to get the fuck out of there, out of this world and home, home, home.
“The adela trees burn,” Lavinia whispered, all these thoughts flew from my head and I felt my mouth drop open as I felt my heart squeeze.
Then I whispered back, horrified, “No.”
She nodded, her eyes growing bright. “They do. The trees burn, our glorious, glowing adelas which is bad enough but this means the elves cannot rise.”
I closed my eyes and turned my head away.
The elves could not rise.
And they had no Frey.
I had no Frey.
If I lived to deliver him or her, my son or daughter would have no Frey.
I looked back at Lavinia and said with feeling, “That sucks.”
Her head tipped to the side. “Sucks?”
“Sucks, stinks… it’s awful,” I lifted a hand and rudely, I had to admit, circled it at her to get on with it but I didn’t have it in me to be polite. “What else?”
“Aurora is taken,” Lavinia said gently and I sucked in breath.
Then I let it out on a hissed, “Shit.”
“She lives and she is held captive, like us. Not here but far away, I cannot sense where. But… I am sorry, my princess, I do not sense your father.”
I closed my eyes tight and turned my head again as the hitch in my throat tore out in a wrenching sob. Then, I forced out on a stammer, not looking at her, “He’s… he’s… is he dead?”
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
I lifted a hand to my mouth and curled my fingers around.
I’d lost him again. Again.
Fucking hell once was bad enough.
Tears forced themselves out of my eyes and slid down my face as I fought for control but my chest heaved with the effort and my throat burned so much I thought it would disintegrate. It took awhile and a lot out of me but I pulled my shit together, wiped my face with my hand and looked back at Lavinia.
“What else? My girls? Frey’s men?”
She shook her head but when she saw my face and understood I misread her, she said quickly, “I do not know. I have not met them and therefore I cannot sense them. I can only sense those I’ve met or people of prominence, like your husband. I’m sorry; I have no news of them.”
