Page 9 of Owned By the Fae
Lia
Time moves slowly at first. My hours are marked by others’ schedules, and not much else after I’ve painstakingly sewed the hated slave dress back together with a small bone needle, I found in my mostly empty drawer. I used thread taken from the blanket on my bed, which was a feat considering how thin and half-rotten it is.
In the mornings, a tray is brought around the time that the sun shines on the far wall. I hear guards walking by my room when the rays are on the floor by the old red rug. No one else comes until they hit the chair, and then, like clockwork, Grith always enters.
I make sure I’m up, on my feet, and away from the bed after the second time he came. He caught me asleep, and I woke to his fingers creeping up my thigh, his piercing eyes waiting for me to realize his hands were already on me.
Remembering his laugh when I felt him, the way he dug his fingers into my skin hard enough to pierce it with his jagged nails, makes me shiver as I wait for him. As each day passes, I feel more and more like a trapped animal.
The door opens on schedule, but it isn’t Grith this time. It’s a lone guard that I don’t remember from before.
‘Varrik calls for you,’ he says.
He takes stock of my appearance, and his lip curls, clearly finding my mending skills wanting.
I walk forward, wondering if Varrik has forgotten how I escaped before and if he really thinks one guard will be enough to keep his sneaky Harbinger here. I get ready to take my chance in case I don’t get another, but when I finally leave my room, I see that things have changed outside my door.
As I follow the guard down the hall, I notice that there are many more soldiers in this part of the keep than there were before I escaped. They’re armed to the teeth, and their eyes follow me closely as I walk. They’ve been warned about me. I won’t be slinking through the keep and setting fires to get away this time.
I’ll need another plan.
The guard turns back with a frown, and I give him a bright smile that he ignores but I hope disconcerts him.
I take stock of my surroundings, noting the blackened stones as we get closer to Varrik’s favored rooms, the only reminder I’ve seen that the keep burned at all. I take heart in the reminders that I once bested him and tell myself that I will again.
The guard opens the door and jerks his head at the threshold.
I take a breath, wondering what awaits me because I know Varrik, and he hasn’t asked to see me until today. The comeuppance for my crimes against him hasn’t yet begun, but it will soon.
Conscious of multiple pairs of eyes following my progress, I enter the room slowly, my eyes taking in the new drapes over the long windows that face the west, the scorched stone of the hearth, and the chairs before it, high-backed and black to match.
Varrik sits at a small desk in his adjacent office, writing with a quill. His personal ring stands in the middle of the main room,the stone of it looking as if it wasn’t even charred during my escape.
‘That’s how I did it,’ he says, making me jump. ‘The Gate. It’s how I escaped the fire.’ He looks up at me, his eyes assessing.
Always assessing.
He gestures to the ring. ‘I assume you’re speculating. Did you wonder when you saw me the other day for the first time, or did you think I was a ghost, my little human?’
I regard him in stony silence and watch him as he gets up and walks over the threshold into the main room toward me. His steps are unhurried. He’s wearing black, tailored clothing made of some rich material. His tunic is form-fitting and collared with golden threads woven through. His long white hair is tied back immaculately, as always, not a piece out of place. Unlike Grith, he hasn’t changed.
‘Well?’ he asks.
He wants an answer.
‘I thought you were dead, yes. I did wonder how you’d survived. I started the fire in here, after all, and you were passed out drunk at your desk. You should have been dead in minutes.’
He gives me a genuine smile. ‘You don’t know the half of my skills, child. Perhaps you’d have done things differently, eh?’
He cups my face in a gentle hand. The touch fills me with revulsion, but it’s not the same as Grith’s. Varrik’s interest in me was only ever for the Harbinger, and that’s still true. I don’t need to worry about ... other things with him.
‘I waited for reports of deaths, you know,’ Varrik says, his fingers stroking my cheek. ‘I was sure you’d give yourself away, and I’d be able to locate you. Tell me, how did you keep control of the darkness inside you, my little human?’
‘I paid to be bound twice a year,’ I lie.
He’s kept his true gifts secret, so I will as well. It’s better if he doesn’t know that the control I have over my skill is more absolute than he’d ever expect from a lowlynon-fae.
‘Not to worry. For your own protection, I’ll ensure you’reneverunbound again.’
