Page 9 of The Fae Queen's Captive
“Come, mortal girl,” he says shortly. “We don’t have much time.”
* * *
The castle is most definitelymadeand not formed—the floors are flat, the corners squared, and the spaces as lofty as any medieval hall—some maybe more so, although with ceilings that often vanish into darkness, it is impossible to tell. That said, the layout of the castle resists a feeling of architecture, or if it is architecture, it is meant to be an intricate tangle of it, a knot of passages, galleries, halls, and stairs. It feels more like the warren of a cave system than a palace, and I feel the hopeless crush of getting lost stealing over me, like I can’t make sense of this place’s shape or size or relationship with itself. And having cut my archaeological teeth on the cramped clutter of three medieval monasteries built on top of each other, that is saying something.
Morven, either oblivious to my disorientation, or more likely not giving a shit about it, walks quickly in front of me, his black cloak fluttering around his thighs as he does. Despite our so-fast-I-almost-need-to-jog pace, I’m able to study his features more closely than before and observe something that makes Morven’s barely there deference to the queen make more sense. He also has a long nose, slightly bumped in the middle, and a sharp jaw, and even though he has moon-white hair instead of black, he has the same coal-dark eyes as the queen. Judging from his similarly unlined face, they must be around the same age: older than me but young enough to make that a guess rather than a certainty.
If they aren’t brother and sister, then they’re the kind of cousins who look like it.
“Here,” Morven says as we come to a stop before another ornately carved door. This one is carved with stags instead of ivy and, in the middle, the carved shape of a naked man with antlers twining from his head. “This is where you will sleep, if you sleep at all.”
He opens the door and leads the way inside.
Though the walls are made from stone, there’s something almost airy about the room. The ceiling is high and elaborately corbelled, the walls curve generously—perhaps even fondly—around the bed and furniture inside, and a window of leaded glass opens into the night. Outside, the moon hangs, red and ripe looking.
I walk over to the window and look out—and then down. I’m high up in a tower. A real castle tower, like for a damsel in a fairy tale.
This has to be a dream.
“You’ll find clothes in the wardrobe,” Morven says, still standing at the door. “Anything in there will be an improvement on what you’re wearing now.”
I look down at my clothes. Stained leather boots, ripstop pants, and a waterproof coat. Dig clothes, because I hadn’t yet changed for going to the fair with the others. A little rough and ready maybe, but that’s excavation life. Normally, I prefer to look very tweedy and academic, but I can’t afford to dry-clean myMona Lisa Smilecosplay every day on a dig, not on a grad student’s income.
“I was working today,” I say in my defense, but Morven doesn’t seem to care.
“When you are ready to come down to the hall, follow the leaves on the floor.” He turns to leave, and I’m suddenly gripped with a kind of panic.
“Do I have to go to this feast?” I plead. “Can’t I just stay here?”
“You cannot stay in your room,” he replies. “You—as am I—are bound to the queen’s whims.”
“She said I was a guest,” I say. “That I was permitted freedoms. Any freedoms.”
He steps forward, his eyes flashing. “Oh, did she tell you that? Did she tell you that you could do anything you liked except leave? You are her doll to pick up and throw down at will. You are a toy to be broken and then traded away when the time comes.”
Those are very scary and very pretty words. Dream words. “Butwhy?” I press.
He comes even closer, his strides long and graceful, and stops only a few paces away. His voice is quiet and silky when he speaks. “Are you asking why someone might want to have a toy, Janneth Carter? You who so like to be one?”
There’s no way he can know that about me, no possible way. It’s a wild guess—or he knows it because this is a dream and he is an extension of myself inside it.
“Why does she need anewtoy, then?” I ask, refusing to let him intimidate me. “We’re in a castle, and she’s a queen. Surely she has an entire court of people to play with already.”
He takes a step closer, and then another. The fire crackling in the stone fireplace limns his features in scarlet and turns his eyes the color of the sunrise. He reaches toward me, fingers long and elegant, and despite his hostility, despite his contempt, he is too beautiful to resist. I let him trace along my jaw and then drop his hand to the zipper of my coat.
Over the waterproof material, I feel his fingertips find the zipper tab, and then I feel as he slowly, deliberately, pulls it down. One plastic tooth, and then another, and then another, monstrously slow.
His mouth is a little fuller even than the queen’s, and his eyes burn, and he is so gorgeous, so tall, and being tall shouldn’t matter, but sometimes it does, especially if the tall person has their hand on your zipper, and I’m breathing harder than I should, my lips already parted, as if ready for a kiss.
He drops his hand abruptly, moving back, and I realize I’ve been leaning forward enough to nearly lose my balance. I step forward to catch myself, and he gives me a smile nearly dazzling in its cruelty.
“Because mortal toys are more fun,” he says. “And more beloved. And when beloved things bleed, the land sings.”
And with that final cryptic remark, he leaves me alone.
Chapter5
Ishould wake up.
