Page 26 of Royal Hunt
Cassus tapped his chin, considering. “You are likely to try harder if there’s something in it for you, aren’t you?” The doomed nobles nodded emphatically, but Cassus snorted. “Idiots. Your prize is that you get to live.”
Wary glances rippled through the nobles as they started to size each other up. Gregory stepped in front of me. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you through this. I promise.”
It didn’t make me feel better. It enraged me.
“You helped make this possible!” I ripped away from him, not even feeling guilty as a hurt expression flitted across his face. He’d gone behind my back and helped arrange the deaths of dozens, then negotiated for me like I was a cow. His cow.
The hurt transformed into anger in seconds. “I’ve kept secrets?” he sputtered. “You’re the one who was out cavorting with Ellis in your underwear!” His lips twisted into an ugly sneer, but I refused to blush. I wouldn’t feel embarrassed for something he’d likely done far more times than I, and with dozens of girls!
“Shut it. You’ll make us miss it.” Ellis snapped at both of us. Gregory looked even angrier at the prince’s interruption, but Cassus was speaking again to the crowd.
“You’re all welcome to attend the first game, which will take place tomorrow morning. You may stay anywhere you like in the castle. It’s not like there is anyone stopping you. Raid the kitchens if you’re hungry.” He waved a careless hand in the air. “The prisoners will be kept outside in the prisoner’s pen.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
The doors to the hall opened and everyone fled, including my father. No doubt they would race to send word home about the hunt or immediately loot the castle of anything of value. I viciously hoped the servants ran off with it all first. Would more people come to help us once word got out, or would they simply gawk at the spectacle? I cringed, already sure of the answer.
As the crowd piled out, Cassus and Ferar turned on us with matching smirks. I backed up on instinct, tripping again on my dress. Ferar caught me, and it was on the tip of my tongue to thank him. I stopped myself, then blanched as he raised his fist over my head. Then there was pressure on the back of my neck, then nothing. Everything went black.
Ten
Fuckit was cold.
That was the only thought I had, and it kept playing on repeat in my head. Over and over again. My body shivered uncontrollably, and I turned to grasp my blankets and pull them over my head. My fingers clutched at empty air.
I reached down by my side, and touched cold dirt instead.
My eyes shot open, and everything came hurtling back to me with horrifying clarity. The Royal Hunt, the fae, Ellis and Gregory. I sat up stiffly, hugging myself for warmth. I was still wearing the gaudy gown of a dead girl, sprinkled with dots of dried blood.
Large, high wooden walls surrounded me, and everyone else here: all of us were in a large pen of some kind.
The prisoner pen.
One of the walls was only a few feet away to my left, looking flimsy. Had they just been built when the fae arrived? They stretched upward, easily as high as about four of me. I reached out a hand to push on it.
“Don’t.”
I flinched at the rough voice, whipping around to see Viana’s lithe form bent over next to me, sharpening a knife without bothering to glance up. Taking in my surroundings, I saw the nobles and other heirs in varying states of unconsciousness.
“It looks weak, but it’s reinforced by magick. That’s how hedied.” Viana gestured nonchalantly down the length of the wall, to a large noble lying spread-eagled on the ground next to it. I took a moment to process what she’d said.
“Wait. He’s dead?” I asked, my brain unable to keep up with what she was saying. If only it wasn’t so cold! My teeth chattered, and I looked left and right for Ellis and Gregory.
Viana rolled her eyes. “Yes. Dead. That’s the point of the hunt, isn’t it?”
As she spoke, the body erupted into white flames. I yelped, my mouth hanging open. There were more shouts as the others in the pen noticed the combustion as well, pointing and swearing. In moments, the body burned down to ashes, and the flames extinguished themselves. I swallowed heavily, but Viana barely batted an eye.
“Your beau is with his father.” She gestured. Her eyes went back to her knife, and I narrowed my gaze at her. As a daughter of the Northern Realm, I should be more accustomed to the cold than she was. Yet here she was, seemingly comfortable in nothing more than the leathers she wore. Had she been wearing them under her dress? She must have. Her movements paused, and she shot me a smirk when she noticed I was watching her. I huffed and went to find Gregory or Ellis.
Others were waking us in small groups: some confused, some terrified, and some angry. One of Trenton’s guards was certainly the latter, stomping around and gathering other men to his cause. “We will force our way out! Join me!”
Viana snickered, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from them. A warning shout grew in my throat but never made it out. Nothing I said would stop them. A group of ten men rushed one of the walls, lowering their shoulders and ramming into it with all their strength. They all dropped to the ground, twitching and convulsing before going still.
“That wasn’t enough to kill them, just make them reconsider. Our friend over there refused to back down.” Viana’s dagger gestured vaguely at the pile of ashes. How could she be so calm? So collected? My own temper was on the edge, my nerves frayed after the trauma of the past day and a half.
Gregory was easy to find, mostly because he was shouting. The pen we were in was about the length of the horse pens back home, so about an acre, bordered by the magickally charged fence. There was nothing in here with us: no food, no clothes, no shelter. Nothing to save us from the elements. The sky was white and open above us. Gregory’s voice boomed out a short distance away, and I went toward it like a moth drawn to a bright flame.
“You’re a coward!” he yelled in his father’s face.
