But the other person in the room wasn’t Lyari.
For the first time in weeks, I laid eyes on Collith Sylvyre, former King of the Unseelie Court, one of the most powerful faeries alive, and the male who’d broken my heart.
At this moment, he didn’t look very powerful.
Laurie had been telling the truth about Collith’s torture. Not that I’d doubted him, really, but I still hadn’t prepared for it.
Torches burned on either side of Collith’s prone form, sending a golden glow over the gruesome picture. He hung against the wall across from the door, his ankles and wrists bound in irons that were attached to chains. He wore the same dark pants he’d worn during that final battle in the throne room, but nothing else. Even the steel boots had been removed. The absence of Collith’s clothes allowed me to see that his body, usually strong and healthy and alluring, was emaciated. His face was swollen and discolored, which meant he’d been beaten recently, considering his accelerated healing. Those beautiful hazel eyes were closed.
Was he unconscious, or just sleeping? I lowered Thuridan’s sword and took another step into the room, then stiffened.
Collith’s mental walls had fallen.
Memories and thoughts came at me like a tsunami, all of them drenched in fear. The sword slipped from my grasp and I heard it hit the stones. Trying to stop myself from being swept away in the tide, I caught hold of a memory as if it were an anchor or a buoy, flattening my palm against the closest surface for balance. For a few seconds, my mind thrashed between the past and present. Then I opened my eyes—or Collith opened his eyes—and the dungeon was replaced by the throne room.
It was the night of the last Tithe, back when I was queen and I’d been ruling to buy Collith time. Laurie had just proposed to me in front of everyone, and Collith, wearing the enchanted goblin ring, was now whaling on him like they were fighters in the arena beneath the Seelie Court. They rolled across the flagstones and the crowd scattered like startled birds.
“To the Queen!” Lyari shouted. I remembered that moment; I had been so distracted by the fight that I’d missed what she said.
Collith barely heard her, either. At the same moment my Right Hand gave her order, Laurie’s eyes met his and the chaos around them dimmed. They both paused, just for an instant. Long enough for the Seelie King to whisper with a wicked grin, “There you are.”
A wealth of feeling swelled in Collith’s chest. Pain, fury, longing. It was the longing that made his control fall apart. How could he still want the person responsible for putting his mother in the ground? For her suffering? Collith snarled and drew his arm back to hit Laurie in the face.
Only I knew the truth—terror, not rage, had been the driving force behind that fist. An all-encompassing fear that Collith would give in to that desire.
The memory went on, but I pulled myself out of it, grimacing. It felt like yanking my limbs out of a pool of taffy. Once I was free, I immediately threw defenses up, erecting them how Collith himself had taught me. By that point, I’d figured out why his subconscious was so wide open. It’s happening again, I thought with a small stab of guilt. Collith didn’t know he was awake.
The trauma was a result of his time in Hell, where he never would’ve ended up if it hadn’t been for me.
I’d never known how much he was hiding behind that wall. What had he endured down here at Death Bringer’s hands? What could’ve driven him to retreat so deeply into a different reality?
Feel guilty later, Fortuna. Right now, the priority was getting Collith. His psyche kept slamming at me as I skirted around the wooden table in the middle of the room, its center laden with cruel-looking tools that winked in the firelight. Every single one was covered in a crusty, dark substance.
Blood. Collith’s blood.
Realizing this was the table I’d put my hand on, I shuddered, and I was about to look away when one of the tools caught my eye. It looked like a… chain breaker. My eyebrows shot up, and I glanced at the chains securing Collith to the wall. Could it really be that easy? Would the teeth of the chain breaker fit around those iron links? Yes, I decided. Besides the convenience of it, I liked the irony of setting Collith free with something that had been intended to keep him broken.
But the instant I touched the chain breaker, I jerked my hand back with a hiss. The tools had been soaked in holy water. Fuck, I thought. I didn’t see any gloves, and there was nothing else I could use to protect my skin. I could still pick the locks on Collith’s manacles, as we’d originally planned, but I’d spent too long in Thuridan’s head—I should’ve been onto phase two by now.
Chain breakers it is. I heaved a long, deep sigh. “This is going to hurt, you guys.”
Neither of them responded; Thuridan was still lusting after a nonexistent Lyari and Collith hadn’t stirred. I stood there and searched for other ways to stall, but as the real Lyari had once informed me, I didn’t have the luxury of weakness. So I gritted my teeth, focused on Collith, and picked up the chain breaker.
The feeling was comparable to what I imagined acid felt like. Agony shot up my throat and lodged between my teeth, turning the scream into a violent hiss. I rushed over to Collith and tried to keep every movement steady and efficient, knowing a mistake would mean another moment clutching these hellish handles. My skin smoked as if the metal were setting it on fire, and I was still trying to guard myself from Collith’s mental onslaught. In an effort to concentrate on what I was doing, instead of the pain, I counted the seconds. Thirteen—that’s how many it took to free Collith.
Both the tool and the chains fell to the dirt with a muffled clatter. I let out a sob, afraid to look at my shaking hands. At the same moment, Collith dropped to his knees, his head still bent. I swore for the umpteenth time and rushed to hold him upright. In that split second, I forgot to keep my mind protected. Collith’s pain and terror were everywhere again. I saw his father sitting on the throne. There was a flash of Naevys, only half of her body visible as the earth slowly consumed her. I saw my own face streaked with tears, my mouth forming the words of a spell that would banish Collith from my life.
Wincing, I fell to my knees beside him. The position made it easier to support his weight. “Collith!” I hissed, shaking the parts of him that looked uninjured. “Hey, it’s me, it’s Fortuna. I’m here now, okay? But you need to snap out of it.”
More thoughts. More images. More faces I knew and moments I recognized.
Like the one whispering through me now.
I don’t want to see this. The thought was mine, but… I wasn’t sure it was true. Because Laurie and Collith, especially naked Laurie and Collith, was a sight to behold. They were in a garden, from the looks of it, their bodies surrounded by trees and hedges. Collith knelt behind Laurie, grasping Laurie’s hips to shift his entire body backward while he thrust forward. Laurie moaned. He cried Collith’s name. He clutched the ground as if he were coming undone. Collith’s eyes closed in ecstasy.
Without warning, roses began to bloom all around them.
Neither Collith or Laurie noticed at first. But soon there were so many that the air seemed to turn pink. The flowers grew as if the laws of gravity had no meaning, sprouting in mid-air, floating over the lovers like dust motes. With every touch, every kiss, every plunge, more appeared. They were the most beautiful blooms I’d ever seen, red as human blood, the petals perfectly formed.