“Get the thing on its feet and clean the filth off its clothes,” the first one muttered. “Mab’s garden, the stench it gives off is foul. Did we piss someone off to get these orders, or what?”
If I thought I’d have been able to manage more than a croak, I might’ve made some quip like, ‘Stench? Yeah, that tends to happen when you lock someone up inside a tree and torment them for days.’
“Her,” I rasped instead. “Not ‘it.’”
Fuck, why was I even bothering? What possible benefit did I expect to gain from the effort?
Indeed, the guards eyeballed me like I was stinking vermin that had just stood up and demanded voting rights. Neither of them responded, merely dragging me upright by the biceps.
It hurt every bit as much as I’d expected it to. How could muscles and joints throb with so much agony without tearing and shattering to pieces? I moaned, choking on the noise. Then the choking tore at my roiling stomach, making me retch. There wasn’t even enough moisture left inside me for bile to come up at this point.
“Try giving it the water,” said the second one. “See if that shuts it up.”
The other one removed one of the weird water-gourd things from a strap over his shoulder and uncorked it, thrusting the opening toward my mouth. I groaned again and clenched my eyes shut. Jesus. At what point had I gotten so thirsty that I could actually smell water when it was nearby?
I bit the inside of my cheek hard. There was some reason I shouldn’t drink this. It was important. Important enough that I’d dumped the last water they’d sent me onto the dirt floor. What was it? Why the hell had I done that instead of slaking my thirst?
Oh. Right.
Faerie food and faerie drink. Faerie gifts... accept them and you gave the faeries a way to control you... or something. I’d drunk Albigard’s mead, and now he could find me anywhere.
But did it really matter anymore? The Fae already controlled me. They already had me, and soon they would kill me—if I didn’t die of thirst before then. I could feel my mouth trying and failing to salivate at the prospect of drinking something. Eating something. The thought of that cool liquid sliding across my tongue and down my throat was like a siren song.
Only one thing held me back. What if Caspian had sent it? What if it was his gift? I swiped out weakly, fresh pain exploding through my body as I knocked the gourd out of the guard’s surprised grip. It hit the ground and splashed across our feet and lower legs.
“Animal!” he growled, and hit me across the face.
My head jerked sideways and the room swayed, but beyond that the impact barely registered amongst my body’s clamoring distress. Maybe I could absorb some of the water soaking my filthy jeans via osmosis. Or would that still count as consuming Fae drink?
“Enough,” said the other guard. “Let’s just deliver it before the Court like we’re supposed to. I can’t get away from it fast enough, honestly.”
Feeling’s mutual, asshole.
The guard holding me grunted. “Yeah. Filthy creature. Can you even imagine letting a demon fuck you? Much less carrying demon-spawn around for months and actually birthing it. Humans are so disgusting.”
God, I wanted to spit at them. I wanted to lift my chin and deliver a cutting verbal smackdown that would leave them smarting for days. I wanted to be a badass faerie-killing assassin and overpower them... take their weapons... leap through the open portal and fuck up every Fae standing between me and wherever they were keeping my father now.
Instead, I stood on shaky legs, my body trembling so hard it threatened to send me straight back down to the ground, feeling the burn behind my eyeballs that meant I’d be crying like a little bitch if I wasn’t too dehydrated to make tears.
“Go to hell,” I managed, more the shape of the words than an actual sound.
The second guard only made a sound of disgust. One of them muttered a new spell, and my damp, muddy clothing instantly dried, the dirt flaking away. Between them, the pair hauled me through the portal to whatever lay on the other side. And what lay on the other side was one of those big, official-looking buildings with plants and flowers choking the interior, like the place we’d met with the Recorder. It might’ve been the same building or a different one. With all the vines and leaves everywhere, it was impossible to tell.
I was dragged inside. A pair of double doors loomed in front of us, flanked by more stony faced guards. Their eyes flicked over me and the one on the right said, “You’re expected. Take the thing inside. They’re ready to begin.”
What few functioning brain cells I possessed were starting to fire intermittently. Maybe this was it. This looked like the kind of building in which you might sentence someone to be executed. Maybe I’d be out of Caspian’s reach soon.
Sudden worry pricked at me. I still didn’t know what had become of my father. He needed care. Medical care, psychological care. He needed to be on Earth, not this terrible and astonishing place inhabited by beautiful monsters. I had to pull myself together enough that I could at least speak. I needed to be able to ask what had happened to him... to beg for his freedom in exchange for my life, if the chance arose.
The doors swung open, but I still couldn’t do more than croak. My throat was as dry as the Sahara no matter how many times I tried to swallow.
The chamber beyond made me certain that I was right about where we were. Like so many things on Dhuinne, it was different in subtle ways from
