My lashes lifted, blurry and confused, to see the cold, hard ground under me. My vision took in the bars, the watchtower, the backdrop of thousands of cages filled with prisoners.
Sitting up, the beat of my heart picked up in wild flutters.
Věrhăza.
“Welcome home, Brexley. To your final one.” The voice made me want to throw up. Istvan stepped into view, his arms behind his back, strolling at a leisurely pace outside my cell. His face was bruised and cut, still showing signs of what I did to him in the lab, only clarifying what I already knew. He was still human. Istvan was waiting to take the formula, using everyone else as guinea pigs. He would not risk his own life until it was perfected. “I can say, of all the things I imagined your life would lead you to, what you would grow up to be? This was not it.” He lifted one arm to me.
Automatically, I peered down, a narrow trail of air squeezing down my esophagus. Around my neck was an electric collar. The uniform they had put me in was no longer gray.
I wore black.
The color of nothing.
To Istvan, the color was a stain on me, my scarlet letter. Even if he was wrong about what I actually was, it didn’t matter. This turned me into even more of a traitor to HDF soldiers. They would go out of their way to target me because they would feel tricked, as if I knowingly duped them with my evil glamour, pushing aside the fact that they’d known me since I was a baby and watched me grow up.
“Do you like it?” He nodded as I touched the collar. “It is very rare and hard to get, but I only wanted the best goblin metal for you.”
Fuck. Not only could he electrocute me at any time, but goblin metal was almost impossible to break through and could be used the same as poison to all fae if it got into your bloodstream. It even affected humans, causing them to be lethargic and sick. They put goblin metal in fae bullets as well as iron. He wanted to contain my magic, keep me from doing what I did in the lab and the arena again. Because I was different. Like the faux-fae, my powers worked down here.
“All I have done for you.” Istvan shook his head. “Raised you, fed and clothed you, gave you the top education and training, treated you as one of my own.”
“You mean like property to sell to the highest bidder.” I snapped, rising to my feet, the drug in my system making me wobbly. “To use as an experiment. You used your wife and your own son as test subjects!”
Istvan’s boots stopped as he faced me, his mouth pinching in anger.
“Do not bring Caden into this. I only wanted the best for him. To be the greatest,” he replied evenly, trying to control his anger. “But the same as you, he seems to be another huge disappointment. I realized I can no longer save him.”
“What did you do to him?” Fear coated my throat. “Where is he?”
Istvan didn’t answer, his blank expression giving nothing away.
“Tell me!” I demanded, my veins filling with ice.
“Caden is no longer your concern.”
My molars crunched together, trying to hold back the emotion burning my throat and eyes and tearing into my heart.
“Is he dead?”
“If you had cared so much about him and not your fae lover, you wouldn’t have left him, would you?” I could feel the buzz between Warwick and me, knowing he was not only alive, but close by. “The boy you had declared only months ago you loved so deeply. How easily you turned away from him. But why should I be surprised? Fae are so fickle and cruel.”
My chin wobbled. “Andris was right. You have no capacity for love.”
Istvan jolted forward, grabbing the bars, his movement making me step back.
“Everything I did was for my family, my people.”
“Really?” I scoffed. “Locking Rebeka in a cage while you moved on to a young, vapid bitch for a political move was for her? Killing hundreds of fae and humans was in their best interest?”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Because what I am doing is for millions, not just a few. We are taking back our world. Fae need to be exterminated permanently.”
“Do the fae who work for you know that?”
“Sometimes you have to make alliances with the enemy to get where you need to.”
They probably felt the same about him, but when did it get to the point Istvan’s power became absolute?
“You are no longer one of those. Your life would have been safe if you did what I wanted, but since your blood has been proven useless for what I want... you have to be removed.” He pulled his arms behind his back once again, regaining his control. “The nectar is within my grasp. Everything is going exactly as I hoped.”
Not a muscle moved, not a twitch. I deflected his proclamation like a shield, trying to show no reaction.
Was he lying? Probably. I felt an inkling of terror, knowing Istvan so well. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get it.
“Kalaraja.” He said his name with admiration. “He is exceptional at his job. He can track down anyone or anything.”
I kept still, giving nothing away, but my pulse pounded in my eardrums.
“It wasn’t a coincidence my men were waiting for you at the border. You were being followed and watched from not long after you escaped. For a few coins, someone tipped us off you were spotted at a seedy opium den. Kalaraja took it from there.” He tapped at his mouth, his lips curling, his feet moving again. “You know a few soldiers escaped from High Castle the night we found you, telling stories of a box and seven necromancers guarding it with their life.” He let out a chuckle. “I admit I didn’t believe them—until we got reports of exactly seven necromancers being seen traveling through the night, disappearing suddenly in the Gerecse Mountains to a particular area which was spelled to keep out intruders. Land owned by the last fae lord, which Killian would inherit. What was even more peculiar is you went to the same spot.”
Don’t react. Don’t react.
His demeanor suddenly shifted, yanking himself up to the bars. “I know what is there, Brexley. What you are hiding.” He hissed between his lips. “It will only be a matter of time until I break through the spells and retrieve the nectar. And be sure I will; it will be mine.”
Flinching at his crazed voice, I took in shuddered breaths.
“Thank you for making this so easy. Even if you have been nothing but a thorn in my side, you ended up giving me the best gift ever.”
He cleared his throat, standing up straight and tugging at his jacket, heavy with awards. He twisted his head, flicking it as if calling someone.
Footsteps pinged the metal, my stomach knotting when Boyd stepped behind him. His eyes glinted with revenge and hate, smugness on his lips.
“Make sure the prisoner is ready for the Games tomorrow night,” Istvan spoke in his formal tone.
“What condition does it need to be in, sir?” Boyd stared at me with glee. “I mean, if she steps out of line?”
“She needs to at least be standing and able to put on a good show. I have guests to entertain and persuade tomorrow.”
Boyd’s lips twisted. “Of course.”
Bile flared in the back of my throat. Istvan had left a substantial gray area. Permission to push the boundaries for the guards. Istvan was waiting to punish me, to teach me a brutal lesson for what I did. He used to do that a lot with Caden and me, to the point we caused ourselves more torture waiting for it to happen.
I had no doubt I’d pay for what I did to his lab, for the experiments he lost, and most of all for the disappointment of not giving him the results he wanted. Because of the embarrassment I caused him with the other leaders, he would make me feel every wrong I did to him.
“Same with her fae lover,” Istvan snarled. “He turned out ineffective as well. I care even less about his well-being.”
That meant Caden hadn’t become the legendary warrior Istvan was hoping for.
“Even better, sir.” Boyd’s grin widened.
Istvan dipped his head, signaling an end to their conversation, starting to walk away.
“Oh, and Brexley, your companions with you earlier?” His upper half twisted toward me. “They were severely wounded before they crossed the border. Be assured, they are now dead.”
When Boyd and Markos were out of sight, my vertebrae hit the wall, and I slid down, my head pressing into my knees. The stabbing pain from imagining Zander and Eliza dead was a rope around my heart, but I couldn’t feel more. Death happened so much now it made me numb. Another thing to brush under the rug and deal with later.