Page 62 of A Sword of Ice
Ashwood, belladonna, and of course, Fae.
Iron cages hung from stalls and swung back and forth, rattled with the desperate rage of the pixies inside. Blue skinned, with sharp, snarling teeth, they tried gnawing at the iron bars of their prison. In other places, she made out High Fae slaves, their heads shaved and collars clamped around their throats, being walked through the streets like pets.
The Fae weren’t the most astonishing things enslaved in the market.
That honor went to the animals.
Creatures were held behind bars like in a zoo, but this? It was crueler.
Tigers with black and blue stripes were corralled into corners by iron spears, evidence of past cruelties prominent over their bodies. Thick black horns had been shorn off into nothing but tiny stumps, and when they snarled, it was to reveal fangs made of iron instead of bone.
Two headed deer in mismatched colors of black and white, magical and holy creatures from Tir na Faie, were laying in a pool of their own blood, their eyes gauged out, their meat being sold by the kilo.
There was a cage filled with horned rabbits, creatures that symbolized good luck, with body parts missing and hanging from knotted rope that swayed with the breeze.
Iona wanted to cry beneath the shadows of her hood, but she held herself straight as they walked through the throng, cloaked and hidden. The only reason they’d decided to wander through the crowd at all was because they were busy, and foreigners walked similarly to how they were, with their hoods pulled over their faces.
This market was what Iona always imagined George to have worked at, but he’d never been purposefully cruel as far as she could tell. His market had never been like this. Everything he sold was already dead and harvested. Not alive and bleeding.
Julius was a formidable presence behind her, and she tried to use him to ground her, to keep her focused. She had the urge to bust down all the cages. She’d always had that impulse at the zoo, because of how helpless and starved they looked, but this was different. These cages were smaller. This was heartbreak in its most ethereal form.
She had to remind herself she was here for her familiar. Just imagining all he was going through made her blood turn cold. Her fingers tapped against her thighs in retaliation against her thoughts. They moved incessantly until she felt Julius’ warm fingers wrap around her wrist, stopping the movement. Like he’d sensed her distress and was grounding her.
The touch was gone as soon as her fingers settled, leaving behind that tingling sensation of rightness.
“I think the bigger animals are over here,” Julius’ voice said gruffly. Even while he calmed her down, she could feel the tension rolling off him. This wasn’t an easy place to be. And if they were caught?
The West Isles had always been a place of savage humans and barbarians. Iona had never really been sure what had happened to it after the fall of the Feylands. George had gifted her with whispered theories about what they’d become, about how they’d called themselves the Kurreen and allied themselves with the Emperor of Illyk. They were an island of mercenaries who rode through the desolate Feylands, looking for magical creatures to take back to their island of iron and cages. They rid themselves of the animals, while the emperor’s soldiers rid the world of the Fae.
They wove their way through the busy place, Iona keeping her eyes straight ahead to avoid looking at something else that would shoot straight through her heart and distract her.
Small cages and stalls made way for the bigger ones. Animals like elephants and bison, animals that could very well have been the last of their kind. She took a breath, and when they rounded a corner, it was like being hit in the chest. The blows came, painful and unyielding. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as a painful cry burst from her lips.
There was a cage beyond, so far and yet she saw everything in it so clearly. She saw her familiar trapped in the corner of the large prison. The Kurreen in their pirate attire were gripping spears that they jabbed against his body.
They might as well have been stabbing her.
Every blow to his body was like pain to her own chest. The bond that had been silent for so long was suddenly screaming, the agony ripping through her mind and soul, splintering her apart from the inside.
They were torturing him. Blood bloomed across his once spotless coat and she recognized the net as they threw it over his body and pressed him to the ground. It was the same net they’d used the first time she saw him, and the same asshole wielding the whip.
Iona took a step without realizing it and before she knew it, Julius’ arms were wrapped around her middle, hauling her back and into the secrets of the shadows and hidden alleyways where they wouldn’t be seen, and where she couldn’t see.
But just because she didn’t have eyes on her familiar didn’t mean she couldn’t feel it. That pain, the hopelessness.
Tears broke from her eyes and froze on her cheeks. Her nails dug into Julius’ hands as she struggled against his hold.
“Let me go,” she gritted out in gasping breaths. “Let me go.”
“Iona…” His lips pressed to her ear, but not even the steady scent of him could keep her from reaching him, could keep her calm. “Don’t, please.”
“Let go of me. I have to get to him. I have to.”
“Think about this, Iona. If you go out there like this, they’ll kill youandhim.”
She couldn’t listen to reason, not when her emotions were running too high, too demanding and aggressive. She had to get to him, if it was the last thing she did. Her magic shot from her body, ice freezing Julius from the bottom and making its way up in painful increments. He grunted against the freezing bite of her power, but he still held her tightly.
He gasped in her ear. “Freeze us both if you must, my love, but I am not fucking letting you go.”
