Page 25 of The Devil In Blue
I spun to face her, my hand jutting out to grasp her chin. Elanor, of all my ravens, never flinched at my violence. She never shed a tear or yelped with dread. She didn’t even unclasp her hands from in front of her and in turn, I didn’t drive her back against the glass wall. I held her there, fingers biting into her cheeks.
“If it is a game she’s playing, then I will play,” I snarled. “And if I fall into her web, youwillfollow because it is the reason I made you. Do not assume you have a choice.”
Teeth clenched, she stared up at me. “Yes, my king. Always.”
A twinge of guilt stabbed my soul but I swallowed it down. I didn’t have time to battle my own ravens when I had finally found Briar. I was having enough of a struggle when it came to her. Years of thinking I would never see her again. Years of searching. Of suspecting she’d taken my gifts, my love, and my soul with her to the human realm. She lied to me. She used me and she abandoned me. Elanor should have known better than to poke a beast who was already rabid and I was practically foaming at the mouth.
I released Elanor and stepped away.
“She pretends not to know me,” I said, gaining control of myself. “I want to know what she’s playing at. So alive she will remain until I know more. Neither you nor anyone else at Ferrothorn will touch her. understand?”
“Of course,” she inclined her head. “And the prisoner?”
The mere mention of him made me have to stretch my tense neck from side to side with a groan. “Get what you can out of him. I know you still know how. And I know you will enjoy it. Just tell me when he breaks. I want to be there to see it.”
“And the other one? The baron?”
My nose twitched at the mention of him. So much murderous energy was flowing through me, but I needed to be patient. I could not crack under the pressure. If I did, then I had no right to call myself the King of the Glyn.
“Leave him for now,” I said. “I will pay him a visit when the time calls for it. I have a week to do so before the veil falls again. Until then…” I turned to peer up at the palace through the glass walls of the greenhouse. “Briar will be my focus. I need answers.”
“Your focus,” Elanor sighed quietly. “What a dangerous place to be.”
“Indeed.”
“And how will you get answers? She fears you now. Her tears said as much.”
“As she should. I want her to fear me. But I know there is someone else she will not fear. Someone she has yet to meet.”
I felt so much pain when I finally opened my eyes again and not because I’d bashed my head on the marble floor. No, this pain was different and it was the kind I hadn’t felt in years. A debilitating sensation like I’d lost something important. Like I was missing something. Like someone without an arm still felt the ache where that limb once was, I felt the agony of something that was ripped away from me.
And I couldn’t remember what it was.
Father Eli always told me it was better not to remember. To experience such horrors is a curse. To forget them is a blessing. He would tell me those things every day and it kept me from even trying to uncover a past that had destroyed me. But after I woke up in the count’s palace, those phantom wounds were opening up again and I didn’t even know what they were from.
I felt myself slipping into the madness that had gotten me locked inside Southminster in the first place. Without Lucien to keep me sealed out of those memories, I felt the madness stalking me again. And I would fall to it eventually. I knew I would. I already started. I remembered attacking the count and it sickened me. That rage had boiled over so fast and without warning and I’d given into the violent urges that had always been festering in me. If left unchecked, they always told me it would hurt people. Perhaps even kill them.
That wouldn’t be such a bad thing…
But the count had broken something I loved. Something that was mine. The necklace.
It was a stupid trinket and one he gifted me. I shouldn’t have loved it so much when it was given by a man who very clearly hated me for reasons I couldn’t fathom… but I did. Tears stung my eyes when I remembered it shattered on the floor, ripped from me like everything else in my life.
I was staring up at the canopy above me when I heard the heavy door click. I rose up on my elbows to see a man enter my room. I thought it might be the count for a moment, but he held himself differently. Tall with a similar build, the man slid into my chamber with a small tray in one hand. He was humming something that I could hardly hear, but I could tell it was a gentle, soothing melody. A lullaby, perhaps. He wore leather pants with brown boots and a copper-colored tunic hung to his thighs, cinched with a leather belt that wrapped twice around his slender waist.
But the thing that caught my eye the most was the metal mask that covered his face. It looked old and was littered with scrapes and chips, the designs on one side misshapen from what I assumed was years of use. Shaggy black hair was tied into a low ponytail with loose strands framing his covered features.
When the man saw me, he stopped humming and nearly dropped his tray. A dish of food slid to one side and he barely caught it before it fell.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
The stranger walked briskly to my bedside and set the tray down on the nightstand. I saw a bowl of porridge, some toast, and a wooden cup of tea that smelled like citrus and honey.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, reaching out toward my head.
I recoiled, feeling cautious, and scooted across the mattress. Standing, I found a small, round mirror on the wall and approached it, seeing myself for the first time in days. My hair was loose around my face. Without Catlyn to braid it every morning, it was a bit of a mess. My hair had always been a bit untamed with a mix of waves and curls that got tangled easily. But I didn’t mind it. I hadn’t truly looked at my hair in its natural state in years. Light brown eyes with red tones stared back at me, dull and underlined in tired shadows.
