“Again,” said the goddess.
I couldn’t refuse, and I slammed my head into the rock once more.
Delirium started to cloud my mind, my vision blurring a bit. This was all wrong. “Please,” I said. I actually had no idea what I was asking for. I just knew something wasn’t right.
“Aw, she’s begging,” she cooed. “Should I make things really fun?”
At that moment, something ripped her attention from me, and she pulled her gaze away. All at once, pain shot into my skull, so intense I thought I might throw up again. Wincing, I tried to reach for my head, but I realized my arms were still bound.
The three knights were standing at attention, watching something further down the prison passage.
Gwydion smoothed his green cape. “We were just paying a visit to our captive.”
Howling laughter filled the hall, and it took me a moment to recognize it as the other captive’s. “Oh she gotcha good, Tennessee! She gotcha really good.”
Shut up, Debbie.
Silence fell, followed by slow, deliberate footfalls that echoed off the stone.
The three knights stepped away from the cell, moving further into the hall.
Then, the Ankou appeared, peering at me through the cell bars. He looked once more like the angelic fae I’d seen by the riverside. His tattoos no longer snaked and moved around his body. But he still had a black hole in his heart where I’d shot him. It looked like the iron had started to poison his flesh, turning it dark.
He folded his arms, staring at me. His face betrayed no emotion.
“What happened to her head?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Did she do that to herself?”
The sudden stillness of the other knights unnerved me.
Then, Melisande sidled up to him. She draped her elegant arms around his neck and gazed into his eyes. “I wanted to demonstrate my skills of enchantment,” she purred, “to our new little plaything.”
The Ankou stared at her impassively and pulled her arms from his neck. He didn’t look thrilled with her, but I had no doubt at this point they were lovers. Of course they were—they were both beautiful and vile.
“I think you’ve done enough,” he said. Shadows climbed around the Ankou. “I need the fallen princess to be mentally functioning for her mission. Otherwise there is no point in all of this.”
The Ankou glanced at the other knights. “Leave her now. She needs to be conscious for her trial.”
The pain in my skull was mitigated only by a vivid image of my hands ripping Melisande’s wings from her back.
I blocked out the rest of their conversation, mentally retreating into a hazy world of memory. I saw my mother sitting at the head of a table before me. She looked resplendent in the afternoon light, even though her white gown had yellowed over time, and deep brown stains darkened the front. She picked up a silver chalice and smiled at me. “The world is full of wolves, Aenor. If you show weakness, they’ll tear out your belly. Don’t let them get that close. Keep your distance. Show no mercy.”
The swinging of the iron gate knocked the vision right out of my head, and the sharp pain in the back of my skull came rushing back. Suddenly I missed Mama so much it was like an ache in my chest. I missed her like a four-year-old misses her mother, not like someone over a century old.
The Ankou looked blurry as he stood above me, only his eyes clear. The other knights had left.
“What am I doing here?” I asked. When the time came, I would show him no mercy.
He crouched down before me, blue eyes burning like heavenly fire.
He reached through the bars and touched the side of my temple. My muscles went limp. A deep, heavy sleep washed over me.
Chapter 8
When I woke, I found myself lying on my side on the slimy dungeon floor, with my arms still wrenched behind my back. My shoulders ached. A bug scuttled up my back, under my shirt.
With no windows, I had no idea what time it was.
It took me a moment or two to realize that I could no longer feel the deep cut on the back of my head, and the headache was gone. Had I lost all feeling in the back of my head?
“Hey! You awake yet?” The American woman’s voice boomed through the hall.
My mouth tasted like cotton—dry, sandy cotton. “It seems I am.”
“Hey, how do you like your pillow?”
Only at that moment did I realize my head was resting on something soft. I shifted to sit up and look at it. A black cloak lay beneath my head. Where did that come from?
The torchlight dimly illuminated a symbol stitched into the cloak with gold thread. It looked like a triangle with a seashell embroidered in the center. If my hands hadn’t been bound behind my back, I would have touched it.
“How did you get this in here?” I asked.
“I thought you’d like it.”
“Wait, how did you get it in here? This is important. How did you get out of your cell?”
Silence followed, then footfalls down the hallway. When the Ankou appeared outside my cell, a fresh wave of hatred practically blinded me.
“You were right, Tennessee!” Debbie shouted. “He does have meaty hands. Good for holding on to your ass, like you said.”
My cheeks flamed hot. “I never said that.”
Given my current situation, I wasn’t sure why denying the “meaty hands” claim was the most important thing. It was just that even when covered in baggy piss-stained underwear and bugs, you had to maintain some dignity.
He whispered a spell, low under his breath, and the door unlocked.
It swung open. The Ankou stepped inside and put his hands around my waist to help me up.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarled. “I can stand up on my own.”
He took a step back, watching me closely. He’d come for me unarmed, except for a leather arm sheath around his enormous bicep that held a dagger.
I no longer felt my head injury at all, even though I was starving and dehydrated and smelled like a moldy flower vase.
I took a tentative step, slightly dizzy. Then another, through the threshold of the cell door. I’d just be walking at my own, slow place.
“Hey Ankou!” Debbie shouted. “I’ll tell you what, Ankou, you could grind me into a fine dust and I’d die happy!”
When I shuffled past her cell, I glanced over at her. I was shocked to see she was a delicate little thing with wide, green eyes and pale pink hair that looked like cotton candy. Her body glowed with a silver light, and she smiled at me. Gorgeous. Then, her gaze flicked back to the Ankou.
“Seriously, I will mount you and ride you like a drunk centaur!” she called out, her voice echoing.
The Ankou ignored her completely.
It definitely concerned me a little that I couldn’t feel the wound in the back of my head. I’d been certain that I’d cracked my skull. Was it gaping open, but I had brain damage and couldn’t feel it?
“You put me to sleep last night,” I said. “Or whatever time that was.”
“You and the other prisoner were making too much noise. I could hear it through the fortress.”
“Name’s Debbie!” she called out from behind us.
“And you healed my head, too? After your girlfriend forced me to crack my skull open for her own amusement.”