Page 54 of The Fae Kings' Bargain

Unbalanced

Ria had been too nervous to grab the tiny mage light left by her captor. Its magic was failing, and there was a chance it could be tracked. But as she stumbled her way down the darkened corridor, she almost wished she’d risked it. This was clearly some kind of neglected side hallway, for the only glow to be found was at the far end where it met the main corridor. Did the kings truly have so little family that they could forget part of an entire floor?

She stepped as carefully as she could, her hand on the wall for balance. Why was it so dark? Maybe more time had passed than she’d thought. It would make sense to dim the lights to save magic if most were sleeping, and that was doubly true if the area wasn’t being used. It was rather inconvenient for her, though. Her vision was already blurry, and—

Pain seared through her left toes as they connected with something hard. Hissing out a curse, Ria squinted down into the darkness and managed to make out a small table. She ran her hand carefully across the top, hoping for a discarded mage globe, but nothing was there. Drat. It would have been nice to get something out of the mistake besides an aching foot and an increased risk of being recaptured.

Gods help her if Tes had heard the slight commotion.

Ria braved a quick but unenlightening look over her shoulder—it was far too dark to discern detail. But it was best not to tarry, regardless. She eased around the small table and kept going. Each step sent more pain and dizziness through her poor head, and her limbs were growing heavy with exhaustion. She needed a healer—sooner rather than later.

By the time she neared the end of the hallway, the floor had a slight tilt she felt confident didn’t exist outside of her own spinning head. Even the faint glow filling the main corridor speared into her eyes and through her pained skull until she had to lean against the corner with her eyes closed for a moment. Her skin crawled as though anticipating phantom hands taking hold at any moment, and her heartbeat pounded in her ears, the only sound in the eerie place.

Then a slight clink and theshooshof fabric echoed from somewhere around her. But which direction? Ria pressed her fist against her breastbone and lifted her eyelids a fraction. A mistake, for the light sent another dart of pain through her. Why did it keep getting worse? She couldn’t account for it, because shehad tosee if someone was there.

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Ria turned her head slowly and squinted into the darkness behind her. No difference that she could tell, though that didn’t mean much in her current condition. She tried to peer left, then right down the main corridor, but between her blurred vision and the poorly spaced and barely lit mage lights, she couldn’t make out a great deal more detail.

She spotted another of those little tables to her left. Directly across from her, Ria saw a massive vase with a decorative plant spearing from the top, and the pattern of table-vase-table seemed to repeat down that side. She leaned farther around the corner to see better and nearly groaned. Vases on this side, too. Since she needed the wall to maintain her balance, she would just have to do her best not to knock one of the things over.

Ria took a chance on turning left, where the light glowed slightly brighter and the corridor looked like it stretched for longer. If she could reach a more populated area of the palace, there would surely be guards around. For that matter, if this was still the family wing, shouldn’t there be someone preventing entry as there was on the kings’ level? She tried to peer into the shadows at the far end but didn’t have much luck. For all she knew, the guard had hidden himself behind a plant for a quick nap.

Of course, details like that might have been more evident if the world wasn’t growing hazier and more tilted with each moment. The dull glow here bothered her worse than the deep shadows of the previous hallway. With her hand against the wall for balance, the sconces were directly in front of her face. Each time she neared one that held a mage globe, blurry light clouded her vision in shimmering rings, and those rings eventually refused to fade.

Ria lifted her free hand to shade her eyes, but she still couldn’t bear to do more than squint through the hazy kaleidoscope. A dark, distorted something loomed along her path. Was that another vase? Perhaps a different table was…no. Tables didn’t move. And the blob was too tall.Whycouldn’t she get her vision to cooperate? Her world was nothing but dull shadows and badly refracted light.

She longed to let out a curse in frustration.

“Stop right there!” a deep, stern voice commanded, and she froze out of instinct.

Should she run? It clearly wasn’t Tes, but that didn’t mean Tes was working alone. Did it even matter? At this point, Ria had little hope of escape. Her head was one giant mass of pain, and the figure emerging from the deeper shadows curved and bowed like fabric twisting in the breeze. The more she tried to focus on it, the more it spun—along with her stomach. What she needed was to sit and close her eyes until the world went steady.

Abruptly, her mind and body agreed, and everything spun and lurched as her legs lost their strength. With her hand on the wall, she was barely able to manage a controlled slide. Or something resembling. Pain radiated through her backside from her abrupt landing on the hard floor.

If someone else intended to capture her, they could have at it.

So long as they let her rest.

* * *

Toren had sentout an immediate command to have this floor searched, but it didn’t seem like enough. For the first time in ages, he wanted to throw caution aside and leap into danger as surely as Mehl would. But what good would it do to rush through every room connecting to this section of the passages in hopes of being the one to find the spy?

Thinking logically was paramount.

It was impossible to know for certain when or why the spy had abandoned the dress. Ria’s magic indicated her involvement, and the mangled state of it implied why it had been left behind. But where could they have gone afterward? He hated the thought of Ria waiting for rescue in one of the nearby rooms while he and Mehl simply left, but if there was a chance that her captor had hauled her through the tunnels, Toren and Mehl were among the few who could pursue.

“Back down?”Mehl sent, a frown creasing his brow.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Too bad he didn’t dare connect fully with the shielding. Had his hold on his power not been so shaky, he could have altered the key attached to the pendants, making everyone in the family wing immediately evident, but that was a major working. Far too risky. Toren cursed his own weakness as he and Mehl hurried back the way they’d come.

Mehl touched his shoulder.“I know that look on your face. This isn’t your fault.”

“Oh, but it is,”Toren argued. “I decided to make that announcement tonight without watching the Centoi more closely. I prevented you from following the spy, causing the argument that saw Ria left alone. Now, I can’t even use my magic to find her.”

His husband’s frustrated sigh echoed down the staircase as Toren stepped back to follow Mehl down.“You aren’t a god, Tor. Self-recrimination is useless.”

So it was, but he seemed unable to stop.

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