Page 9 of The Blood Queen

He looks like a kind old man. Feathery white hair floats around his skull like a cloud. His skin is weathered and wrinkled. He’s short, barely coming to Elizabeth’s shoulders, and one of the guards kicks him in the back of his knee, causing him to crumple.

The bodachan sabhaill casts one look behind him, meeting my eyes, and I see the dread twisting his face. A hot tear tracks down his face, getting lost in his gray whiskers. “Lass,” he says to me, a note of pleading in his voice.

But there’s nothing I can do behind iron bars.

Bile rises in my throat. I force myself to lift my face, to look into Elizabeth’s eyes.

But the High Blade is no longer staring at me. Instead, she’s focused on the old man at her feet. She bends at the waist, cupping the bodachan sabhaill’s face with a gentle touch. Her pale hand slides along his whiskers over his cheek, then curls just under his jaw.

Elizabeth meets my gaze.

And she smiles.

There’s a challenge here. A test.

I know what she’s going to do.

There is no magic I can do to enable my own escape, much less his. I am frozen in terror and rage, still behind iron bars, and the one thing—the one thing—I could do right now is look away. I don’t have to watch. I don’t have to listen.

I could hide from all this.

But she watches me.

So I watch him.

Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away. Acid roils in my gut, but I ignore it.

I watch it all.

It is the only thing I can do. Witness.

Elizabeth’s lips are curved up still, her smile widening into a grin, her eyes alight with joy. Around her, the onyx aura streaks through with brilliant, glowing red as she consumes the magical violence of her actions, draining the bodachan sabhaill’s lifeless body dry before she lets it drop to the floor with a dull thud.

My pulse is hammering, wild blood quickening with such horror that it feels as if my heart is trying to flee the confines of my body just as I want to escape this iron-enforced cell.

The High Blade takes a step forward, her foot squarely on the dead fae’s chest. Vomit rises in me, burning my own throat, and I fall to my knees, heaving.

“Oh, don’t break now, little half blood,” Elizabeth croons. Oak rushes to open my cell door for her, and she steps gracefully into my prison. “We’re going to play with you all day long.”

3 Samson

The High Blade isn’t in the dining hall at breakfast.

Cecil is. Along with half a dozen of his Red Caps, hunkered over a long, beaten wooden table, gobbling up porridge as fast as a servant can ladle it.

Last night, the soldiers regaled one another with tales of how the High Blade took the castle yesterday. Marched up with her English army, murdered the Scottish lord here, and moved right on in.

These servants, they’re remnants of that lord’s household. They’ve all got that terrified glint in their eye, hoping they’re no more noticed than the furniture, but I doubt any amount of meekness will save them. I heard enough gruesome stories last night in the barracks to know the High Blade’s started a blaze with this invasion; the Red Caps are tired of living in exile. They’re tired of living off the violence of meager humans; they want the powerful surge that comes with feeding off fae violence. They’re tired and hungry and bored, a toxic combination for people with unfettered strength who feed on gore.

The moment Elizabeth gives the order to move on from this castle, all these servants are going to die.

I tossed and turned all bloody night, getting only the faintest snatches of sleep before bolting awake, running all manner of plans through my head.

Maybe I can get the servants to help me. Rise up, push back enough to free Alyth, and we can all run. They’re not fighters though. Hell, the one ladling porridge looks well into her seventies.

Maybe I can sneak through the castle, get to the dungeon on my own. But there’re guards everywhere—Red Caps, soldiers who might be Leth, might be human. I got up once claiming to need some water and passed no less than eight people walking patrols just ’round the barracks.

Maybe this castle’s got brownies like the other, and I can get them to help me. But I’m a Red Cap as far as they know. How could I convince one to show itself to me?