Page 109 of The Bound Mage
Loren’s head snapped toward the male that had sat on his father’s Small Council, dispensing justice long in his name long before Loren had even been born. The shadows shifted, a hundred voices whispering furiously, but Maelor didn’t flinch.
“Commander Cormac’s words were abhorrent,” he said evenly, “but he was correct. Our policy has long been that those lost to the New Dominion are regrettably out of our reach. This is doubly true now, with Eryn and his entire network in the New Dominion lost to us?—”
“Eryn betrayed her,” Loren growled. “He handed her over to them like a bargaining chip—he would have given them yourchildren. If it wasn’t for her we would have lost them all?—”
Maelor bowed his head slightly. “And for that, Your Majesty, she has our eternal gratitude.” His gray eyes rose again, his expression full of sorrow as he met Loren’s fury. “But there’s nothing we can do. You know what the Arcanum will do to her—better than any of us here. Even if you succeeded in rescuing her, you would not get her back.”
Around the table, other councilors shifted uncomfortably. But no one dissented, their silence damning in its own right.
“And what do you think they did to me?” Loren demanded. The shadows slid over the walls, the aetherlamps flickering wildly. “You still callmeking. How can you expect me to donothingwhilemy queenis dragged back to the very hell she escaped? To be tortured andbredlike an animal?”
Maelor only sighed, folding his hands. “I’m sorry, Loren,” he said quietly. “We cannot lose this war over one female. Not even your mate. The burden of the crown is heavy.”
“Theburden—” Loren snarled, losing his voice.
The temperature plummeted, frost blooming across the windows and crawling over the scarred tabletop. Several councilors flinched back in their seat, their eyes wide with fear. Others looked at him with pity, their own grief shining in their faces. He was not the only one to lose someone he loved to the New Dominion.
“Enough.” Eloria’s voice snapped across the room. “All of you, get out. Now. Before my brother’s temper leaves us with more than one seat to fill on this council.”
Chairs scraped, the councilors all but fleeing the room as shadows rose around him, their whispers calling for death and vengeance and blood. Loren didn’t even attempt to call them back. Anyone who would leavehisqueen to that fate deserved exactly what they got?—
“Loren—” Eloria’s hand touched his arm, gentle. “They’re gone. It’s just us, now.”
“And do you agree with them?” Loren asked bitterly. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, El. But if you stand here and tell me that she’s already lost—that I’m not fit to rule if I’d risk our future for one person?—”
“You’d be unfit to rule if youweren’t,” Eloria snapped, the fire in her words so unexpected that even the shadows fell silent. “Araya is yourmate, Loren. You aren’t choosing between her and your people. Sheisyour people. If someone took Galen from me—” she cut off, shuddering as Galen wrapped his arm around her. “I’d burn every bridge, destroy every alliance, killanyonethat stood between us.”
Loren stared at her, suddenly uncertain. “But the Small Council?—”
“Is full of cowards.” She shook her head, her lip curling. “But they don’t matter, Loren.Youare the king. You don’t need their blessing to do anything.”
“They’re going to hurt her, El. Shaw—” he broke off, the words choking him.
Eloria’s hand tightened on his arm. “Then go make him pay,” she said.
Chapter
Forty-Six
Araya blinked slowly,the world swimming in and out of focus around her. Stone walls slick with moisture. A ceiling hemmed in shadows. And the cold, leaching press of iron around her wrists and neck.
They’d collared her.
She tried to shift, but the movement sent a bright flare of agony through her chest. Araya breathed deeply, cataloguing the injuries. A dislocated shoulder, broken ribs—at least one, probably more—courtesy of Caylin. Countless scrapes and bruises. Her magic sputtered, a shadow of what it should have been. And she still couldn’t feel the bond.
Araya sagged against the wall, every breath labored. They must have dosed her when she was unconscious—the bitter aftertaste of the herbs mingling with the sour tang of bile on her tongue. She could feel the place where their bond should have been, the fragile thread that linked them guttering like a flame on the verge of going out, but there was no sense ofhimor any hint that he could still feel her.
Good. That was good. She didn’t want him to feel the things they’d do her.
Araya closed her eyes, straining her ears for any sign of life. But there was nothing but silence. No footsteps. No scrape of keys or distant rattle of chains. Nothing but the sound of her own labored breathing.
She drifted, lost between shallow rest and raw awareness, chasing fleeting fragments of memories that dissolved the moment she tried to hold them in her mind. Loren’s eyes, smiling down at her. The warm weight of Selan in her arms. The grind of her bones against each other as Jaxon twisted her arm behind her back?—
“Miss Starwind?” someone spoke, hesitant. “Are you…are you awake?”
Araya blinked, lifting her head to stare at the fae female standing in the open cell door. Clipped ears, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her neck—but it was the spotless gray dress Araya recognized first. Garrick Shaw’s household livery.
“Belanis.” Araya’s voice cracked, hoarse from disuse. The name came with a ghost of memory—this same female, her face flushed and frightened as Jaxon berated her for entering without knocking.
