Chained Soul by Eva Chase
8
Talia
Atingle passes over my skin and into my flesh with each soft true name August murmurs. He seems to be casting his magic over every part of my body, starting from my head and working his way down. I hold still, fighting the urge to fidget.
What are we going to do if he does find something wrong? I might be the cure for the fae’s curse, but Madoc indicated that there is no cure for the one Orion planted in me.
My stomach twists, but August finishes his examination with a smile and a squeeze of my shoulder. “I still can’t see anything out of the ordinary. I’d say you’re stronger than that rat king bargained for, Sweetness.”
I smile back at him, only partly relieved. It’s easier for him to say that when he never had to deal with Orion face to face or stand in the unnerving glow of the Murk’s Heart.
All’s well?Corwin asks through our bond in a hopeful tone. He’s been checking in on me even more than usual during the times when his duties take him from my side.
As far as August can tell, and bodily magic is his specialty, I reply. Maybe we’ll be able to find out more about what I need to watch out for after I talk to Madoc again.
My mention of the Murk man provokes a ripple of uneasiness from my soul-twined mate, but he doesn’t argue against it. He already knew that was the plan. I’m supposed to go to Madoc and try to negotiate some kind of deal, his help in exchange for his freedom. I don’t think it’s exactly the kind of negotiation he wanted to be having, but I can’t blame the fae of the Mists for being even warier of the Murk after the attack a few days ago and now this news of a fatal curse in me.
“Ready to go downstairs?” August asks. “If you need more time, they’ll wait, arch-lords or no.”
I square my shoulders and turn toward my bedroom mirror, taking in my reflection. August has touched up the pink and purple in my hair again since I returned from the Refuge. The turquoise dress I’ve picked, formally long but not particularly ornate, brings out both those vivid hues and the green in my eyes.
I’m Lady Talia. My opinion matters too. I will not let myself be bullied into saying anything I don’t agree with.
At least I’m less worried about that from the Seelie arch-lords than I would be if it was someone like Laoni who’d captured Madoc. I’m not sure he’d even have stayed alive long enough to deliver his message if her warriors had come across him.
The thought of him slaughtered makes my stomach twist tighter. I shake off my discomfort and nod to August. “I’m fine. As good as I’m going to be.” My broken sleep has left my mind a little bleary, even with catching up on some in Sylas’s carriage this morning, but I’ve been equally tired in the past week just from being pregnant. If I’ve got eight more months of this ahead of me, I’d better get used to working around it.
It’ll be worth it. As August walks with me into the hall, my hand drifts to my belly. It’ll be worth it for him… or her… I wonder if some fae magic will tell me whether I’m expecting a son or a daughter before the birth.
Those warmer thoughts fall away as we step into the border castle’s main meeting room. Sylas and Whitt are already there, Astrid having stayed behind with Madoc to keep an eye on how he’s treated. Donovan and Celia are waiting for me as well, standing by one end of the long table, each with a cadre member of their own. Donovan’s eyes glint, bright with what looks like excitement at the possibilities we’re going to discuss, but Celia is much more solemn. The oldest of the Seelie arch-lords is always the most pessimistic of the trio.
“All right,” I say. “I’m here. I think this is going to be pretty straightforward, though, isn’t it? I’ll explain to Madoc that if he’ll agree to pass on more news to us about Orion’s plans, we’ll let him go. I think he’ll agree to that.” It isn’t as if he wants to stay locked up here.
Celia looks at Sylas instead of me. “Does she have no sense of the necessary precautions?”
Sylas gazes steadily back at her. “That’s why we’re having this discussion, is it not? To come to an agreement on what precautions are necessary?”
I frown at Celia. “What are you talking about? Obviously I’m not going to put myself in harm’s way or say anything that could hurt anyone here in the Mists. I’m not an idiot.”
She finally turns to me. “Offering this vermin his freedom could hurt us greatly in itself. We’ll have no guarantee of him giving us any aid at all. And who knows what he might have discovered before my guards caught him that he’d run off to report to his ‘king’?”
I bristle automatically at her disdainful tone. “He’s already proven that he isn’t totally loyal to Orion by coming here in the first place, hasn’t he? If you treat him like he’s attacked us instead of helped us, which is all he’s done so far, you’ll just be encouraging him not to trust the fae of the Mists.”
Her eyes narrow. “It isn’t our fault if the rats want to blame us for a natural wariness founded on their own horrible actions for centuries upon centuries past.”
Before I can point out the horrible actions the other fae have taken against the Murk as well, Sylas breaks in. “This Madoc has helped us, or at least attempted to, and he’s helped Talia in the past at great risk to himself. I don’t fully trust him either, not only because of his divided loyalties but also because we can’t know what greater sway his king may force on him later on. But I agree with Talia that we have to appeal to his better nature at least as much as the aspects we fear.”
“It’s not a matter of fear,” Celia mutters, and then sighs. “We do need to have some kind of failsafe in place. I won’t order my people to free him otherwise.”
“Of course,” Donovan says, his eagerness brightening his voice as well. “But it is an excellent opportunity we’re getting. We’ve never had a rat on our side, a way of finding out what’s going on within the Murk community. No matter how much magic they have, we couldn’t ask for a better advantage than that.”
Celia gives him a cool glance. “Assuming we don’t end up double-crossed. And an even better advantage would be if he’d point the way straight to his king so we can cut off this rebellion at the root.”
Sylas clears his throat. “He’s already made it quite clear he won’t betray his people to that extent. Pushing him will only make him more resistant to offering us anything at all.”
“Fine. But we still need some guarantee of his loyalty, however little of it he’s going to offer.”
I wasn’t feeling queasy before, but all this tense back-and-forth has brought out a twinge of nausea. I sink into one of the chairs. “What do you even mean by a failsafe? We can’t enforce a vow or anything like that, can we, when the Murk aren’t tied to the Heart out there anymore?” I motion toward the Heart of the Mists, its resonant energy humming through the air even with the walls hiding it from view.
“I’ve been thinking on that,” Celia says. “You’ve mentioned that the Murk king lashes out against any of his subjects if provoked, haven’t you? Does that mean this one would face severe punishment for a misstep despite his high status in their false court?”
I can only imagine what Orion would do to Madoc if he found out how his knight had betrayed him, and I don’t want to. “Yes. His position wouldn’t guarantee any protection. He’d probably face worse punishment so Orion could make an example of him to discourage anyone else from turning traitor.”
Sylas is nodding, apparently having picked up on the direction Celia is heading in. “Then we have some leverage over him in the fact that he’s come to us at all.”
Her eyes gleam. “Exactly. All we need is some basic proof of his complicity. Perhaps we could ask him to mark an object in a clearly identifiable way or cast magic into it—something he wouldn’t have done as part of his regular missions and that we couldn’t have obtained without his cooperation. If he makes any move to harm us after we release him, then we can reveal the proof to the rest of the Murk. It sounds as though that should give him plenty of motivation to keep his word.”
I can see her logic, but the idea doesn’t sit totally right with me anyway. Maybe because it’s essentially threatening the man who’s looked out for me more than once—and relying on that threat rather than trust to ensure his continuing help.
But how can I blame the fae around me for not being willing to fully trust one of their long-time enemies, one who clearly still doesn’t like them particularly? I’m not sure I even trust him to come back after they’ve held him captive once, no matter what he hears from Orion next.
“He wouldn’t have to come back, right?” I say slowly. “If he hears nothing he feels we need to know, he’d have no reason to. I wouldn’t want us to destroy his life just because we got antsy about a long period of silence.”
“That’s a fair point,” Sylas says. “We’d strike against him only if he actively struck against us.”
Celia looks as if she’s going to argue, but Donovan jumps in first. “And we could test that pretty easily. Let him see one thing that he’d think was damaging before he goes, something that would suggest an obvious target or tactic to the Murk. Then we wait and see if they make use of that opportunity. If they don’t, then we know he didn’t pass the information on to his king.”
I don’t love the idea of setting Madoc up for a fall either, but… if he would use his time here to help Orion attack us, then he isn’t any kind of ally or friend to me, not really.
“I’d agree with that,” I say.
Celia purses her lips. I don’t think she considers my opinion on the same level as her own and her colleagues’, but at least she doesn’t make that as obvious as some of the winter arch-lords have. “All right. We can work out the exact details while Talia speaks to the man. If we’re going to make use of him, we should do it quickly. The longer he’s here, the more suspicious his king might become of his absence.”
Whitt rests his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take you to speak with him, mite. I’ll hang back so I’m not obviously part of the conversation, but I’d like to listen in so I can judge his answers for myself.”
I drag in a breath, suddenly not sure I’m ready for this conversation after all. “Okay.”
Whitt leads me out to a small carriage. “No wolf-back riding today?” I tease.
The spymaster arches an eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t have thought that much jostling would be ideal in your current state.”
My hand drifts to my belly again. It’s true that I have been getting queasy in general much more easily than usual. “I never had a problem with it before, but maybe it’s better to be careful.”
As he guides the carriage toward the woods where Madoc is being held, Whitt lowers his voice. “Celia has agreed that the guards will draw back out of hearing while still monitoring the holding cell magically. We want Madoc to feel he’s speaking just to you, since you’re the only one he seems to trust at all. But I’d like you to use my true name to ask me to hear what you hear, so I can follow the conversation completely without being close myself. It won’t be as smooth as your conversations with your soul-twined mate, but the outcome is similar.”
“Of course.” I reach for his hand and squeeze it, abruptly needing that contact. I haven’t used Whitt’s true name since the second time I tried to reach out to him from the Refuge. It still sends a flare of happiness through me that he shared something so intimate with me to begin with.
Now I have to see whether I can convince Madoc to trust me even a fraction that much.
As before, we get out of the carriage farther up the hill where the forest starts to thicken and walk the rest of the short distance to the clearing on foot. As we come into view of the holding cell, Whitt motions to the leader of the guards. They all fade back into the trees as if they were never there.
I pause, and bob up on my toes to whisper Whitt’s true name right into his ear. “Wye-con-ell. Hear what I hear.” A giddy shiver travels through my chest, and he smiles before pressing a kiss to the top of my head. Then he escorts me the rest of the way to the shimmering wall before turning and walking away to give us our space.
Madoc sits up on the mat he’s been given to rest on. Someone’s brought him a small pillow and a blanket too. The cut on his face has been healed, only a faint pink mark showing where the skin was broken before. His expression doesn’t exactly brighten at the sight of me, but the shadows darkening it draw back a little.
I sit down on the other side of the shimmering barrier so I’m not looming over him, which would feel uncomfortable. “Sorry it’s taken so long for me to come back. I’m glad to see they’ve made you more comfortable at least.”
“It hasn’t been that long as far as I can tell,” Madoc says with a hint of wryness. “Am I right in assuming I can thank you for this incredible generosity?”
I did insist to Sylas that he needed to get Celia to show a little consideration to our prisoner. I shrug awkwardly, not wanting to make a big deal of it, and have to ask, “Have they brought you any food?”
“Oh, yes, I’m not going to starve.” He chuckles darkly.
But no doubt being locked up in this holding cell is only confirming his beliefs about how the fae of the Mists see the Murk. I swallow thickly. I know I need to be cautious of him still, that my mates all feel he could still have some ulterior motive up his sleeve, but I can’t help wishing this could be a proper conversation across a table in a regular room, like the one I just had with the Seelie arch-lords.
“I’m sorry about all of this,” I say. “I don’t like seeing you locked up like a criminal.”
Madoc shrugs. “I know it wouldn’t have been your doing. And I know it’d be asking a lot for the fae of the Mists to see me as anything other than a criminal.”
“Still… I know what it’s like being in a cage, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
We look at each other for a moment, and I can tell he’s remembering the night he opened up Orion’s cage for me too. His tone softens. “At least this one is more spacious than the ones you’ve had to suffer. And it is a little relief to see they haven’t decided to kill me just yet.”
There’s more truth than teasing in that statement. I meet his cloud-gray gaze, my stomach knotting all over again. I need him to listen to me, for both our benefits.
“They don’t want to kill you at all,” I say. “They’re hoping we can come to a deal, which would mean not just keeping you alive but releasing you.”
Madoc blinks at me, genuinely startled. “What could they possibly think was worth letting one of the dreaded vermin run free after they’ve caught him?”
I gather my words and my resolve. “You want to see the Murk get a better life without war if you can, don’t you?”
“You know I do,” he says, his voice roughening with the passionate determination I have to admire. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Well then… The Seelie—and the Unseelie too, I’d imagine—would find it easier to trust the Murk, and you as their representative, if they see that you’re willing to work with us. They’d let you go back to Orion under the condition that if you heard about any plans he’s making that would hurt us—something like the curse you say he’s tried to spark in me, or an attack or an ambush—you’d warn us ahead of time.”
Madoc doesn’t look unwilling, only skeptical. “I won’t tell them anything that would harm my people.”
“Of course not. And if there wasn’t any news to pass on at all, that would be fine too, although I guess then we’d be at a standstill.” I pause. “I think this could be a solid step in the right direction. You’d have a chance to talk more with the other Murk who might be willing to negotiate and let us know about any progress there as well.”
“And that’s it? No catch?”
I grimace. “They do want a show of faith to give us some security that you wouldn’t turn against us.” I explain about Celia’s suggestion as quickly as I can. “But if you don’t instigate anything, none of the Murk will ever know. I’ll—I’ll make the arch-lords all take a vow to that effect before you agree to anything if I have to.”
Madoc is silent for a long moment. He studies me, his expression unreadable. “What do you think?” he asks abruptly. “Do you honestly believe that going through with this deal would be better for all of us—not just the fae of the Mists?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I wouldn’t be here talking to you about it if I didn’t. I argued with them about what was reasonable to propose before I even got here.”
The corner of his mouth twitches upward. His expression may be shadowed and his cheek bruised, but that hint of a smile shows how handsome that face can be in unexpected ways.
“I can imagine you doing that,” he says. He leans back on his hands, the hint of a smile falling into a pensive frown. “I’ll need to think about it. I won’t take too long, but—it’s a lot to decide on.”
“I’ll tell them that. Thank you for at least considering it.”
His smile doesn’t come back, but a glint that’s almost playful comes into his eyes. “It’s a good thing for them they’ve got you on their side.”
I get up, and he lies down on his back to gaze up at the sky as he does his thinking. How often has he gotten such a clear view of that sunlit expanse while living in the Refuge?
Can he even enjoy it while he’s trapped in that cell?
A deeper urge grips me, to offer him even a fraction of what he’s offered me by coming here. I wet my lips. “I have to report to the arch-lords, but I’ll come back. I could bring a book if the guards will let me give that to you, or we could just talk. If you’d want.”
Madoc pauses, tipping his head to the side to consider me. For a second, he looks so uncertain I want to reach right through the magical barrier and squeeze his hand. He really isn’t sure what to make of my kindness either, is he?
The sudden vulnerability fades away behind an impassive front, but I know he means it when he says, “I’d like that.”
As he leans his head back again, I limp toward the trees, watching for Whitt to come to meet me. The guards draw forward first. They must have been tracking my movements well enough to realize the conversation is over.
I’ve nearly reached the edge of the clearing when an odd prickling sensation races through my chest. I keep walking, not paying it too much mind after all the other twinges I’ve experienced with the pregnancy, but as my foot hits the ground with my next step, the prickle explodes into a lance of pain.
I gasp, my lungs seizing as if they’ve been stabbed through with a spear. My legs wobble. I grope for something to catch my balance, but the rush of agony has stiffened my arms and blurred my vision.
“Talia?” Madoc calls in alarm from behind me with the thump of him leaping to his feet.
I can’t form words to answer him, to cry out to Whitt, anything. Two of Celia’s guards rush to my side, but I crumple before they can reach me.
