“I don’t see why I should waste my words on you,” Wren uttered, hating how difficult it was to get the words out. They were cracked and hoarse and barely audible. By the tides, she needed some water. She licked her lips.
The prince moved his hand from his dagger to a waterskin hanging from his hip, and deftly opened the lid with a thumb. He knelt to place it against Wren’s lips. She was tempted to turn her face and refuse the precious liquid that began pouring out, but that would have been stupid. She was too weak and too thirsty to resist. Her tongue lapped at the water, her throat gulping it down as if she might never taste such sweetness ever again.
Far too soon, he pulled the waterskin away and stoppered it. Wren could not prevent the flash of disappointment that crossed her face as he did so, which only caused him to smirk. He waved the receptacle in front of her. “Answer my questions, and maybe you’ll get more.”
“What do you want from me?” What more could he take?
“Many things.”
How delightfully vague.
“Looks like we’re off to an excellent start. Where is your sister?”
Wren blinked slowly. She was under the impression that the prince thought there was only one princess. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come now,” he rumbled softly. “Let’s not lie to each other. Our spy revealed that there was only one princess but no monarch would only have one child.”
“My father was faithful to my mother,” she replied honestly.
The prince laughed. “King Oswin was much too clever for that. The Dragon Isles needed a secure line. One child is too much of a risk. So I’ll ask you again, where is your sister?”
Lie.
She glared at him, wishing every ill fate upon him that she could think of. Clearly, he’d received more information after she’d been knocked unconscious.
“Dead,” she whispered. The enemy had to believe that Britta was not alive. It was the only way to protect her people and her sister. Still, the lie stung Wren’s tongue. After witnessing everyone else she had ever loved die in front of her eyes, the mere idea of her little sister being dead was like an arrow to the heart.
Use the emotion. Make him believe you.
The man set his clear-as-glass eyes upon hers. “How did she die?”
“We were escaping the castle,” Wren replied, finding the lie easier to tell now that her head was full of the ghosts of her loved ones. “There’s a network of tunnels hidden beneath the castle which leads out into the town and to the beaches. I’d suggest you check them out if we hadn’t already clearly left the Dragon Isles.”
He did not respond to her suggestion of incompetence on his part; he merely waited for her to elaborate on her story.
Wren looked away, not needing to feign the stinging in her eyes. “I tried to carry her through the darkness—she was so afraid—but the journey was long and the passageway narrow. I grew tired. She had to walk the final few turns toward the shore. But then she…” Wren let out a sob, and it wasn’t false even though her story was. Her grief wasn’t far from the surface. “The st-stairs to the beach cut into the cliffside,” she continued between tears, “they’re so steep. I can barely manage them. And my sister—she—she couldn’t. By the time I knew what was happening, it was too late.”
A silence spread between the two of them. If Wren wasn’t so distraught, she’d have been impressed with her tale; even to her ears, it rang true.
For the sake of my sister, this is what happened to her.
Unable to wipe the tears that fell from her eyes, Wren cried unabashedly in front of the elf.
Eventually, through the dull light of the hanging lantern, the man shifted slightly. “And her body? Where is it?”
“Beneath the waves with my dragon,” Wren fired back immediately; grief turned to rage in an instant. “Where you intended me to be. I hate you.”
“This is war. Lives are lost on either side.”
“This wasn’t war—this was a massacre.”
“Yet lives are lost all the same,” the callous prince said, standing up as he did so.
She jerked against the chains, her fingers itching to claw at his handsome face. He deserved to feel all the pain he’d wrought on her.
He watched her seethe at him for several long moments, and she almost imagined he was searching for something in her face. A hint that she’d been lying, perhaps, or something else entirely.
“You better get that under control, Princess, or you’ll find your stay in Verlanti very uncomfortable. As I told you before, life can be easy or difficult. It’s your right to choose which path you walk, but you and your people will suffer if you choose the wrong way.”
“I hope you burn in hell.”
He chuckled darkly. “I already am. Any other venomous words for me?”
She snapped her mouth shut and turned her face away from him. She would not speak another word to the savage, heartless man.
“So, it’s going to be that way. So be it. I love a good challenge.”
The prince gave her a sharp nod, and swiftly left the dank cell, his steps thundering up the wooden stairs to her right. For a while, she did nothing but look at the staircase. What would become of her now? Was she going to be left to rot in here? Would she be thrown mercilessly overboard to die by the hand of the sea? Or was she to be brought back to Verlanti, where she would be tortured within an inch of her life to give up all of Lorne’s secrets?
Stop. Think. What did the prince offer you?
Wren rubbed her temples and tried to remember her hazy conversation she’d had with him in the great hall. He’d offered her marriage to his father.
You’re going to be another bride to the man with a hundred wives.
She bent over and retched again. Wren panted and wrapped her arms around her middle, hugging herself. Her mum had told her stories of what the highborn elves were like. They treated their wives as expendable trophies.
“I have to get out of here,” she murmured, moving her gaze from the stairs to the wooden planks on her left, imagining a circular window there overlooking the horizon. There was clearly going to be no opportunity for her to escape while still aboard the ship. And if that was the case…
Wren had to prepare to fight for her life and run the moment she set foot in Verlanti.
14
Wren
She marked the time by how often she received meals. The men who brought her sustenance also brought her a bucket in which to relieve herself; if she couldn’t wait between meals, she guessed she’d be forced to piss in the very clothes she wore and then sit in a pile of filth. She was determined not to reduce herself to such a humiliation, though the time between meals often varied wildly, she resolutely held in all of her bodily functions until the next guard opened her door.
Even when they gave her food, Wren was not let out of her shackles. They fed her morsels by hand and fully expected her to eat in such a way. If Wren had not been so intent on building her strength back up to be ready to fight, then she would have refused any and all such undignified meals.
Her wounds healed on the outside.
Inside, she bled and mourned.
Days blurred together.
Nightmares plagued her.
The Verlantian prince with the haughty face and searching eyes had not once returned. Though Wren had never cared to listen to the many rumors brought to the Lorne Court about its neighboring nations, she did know that the Verlantian king was not shy about having shared his bed throughout the years.
A bard had passed through Lorne once, equipped with a lute and a jaunty little song about how the number of the king’s bastards was in the double digits. Wren had dismissed the song back when she’d heard it; now, it was the closest thing to truth she had to cling to. The illegitimate prince who served as the king’s war dog was only spoken about in whispers. He was rumored to be cold and merciless. His name was Erik, or possibly Aron, Wren had never cared enough to know for sure. She’d never imagined that he’d enter her life. The beast from the horror stories had captured her.