Page 15 of The Blood Queen

And now there’s nothing but silence.

My stomach heaves, but there’s nothing in it to lose. My vision blurs, and I blink away tears. I catch a spot of red and force myself to focus on the tree line, to find something real to tether me.

Three robins perch on a low branch of an evergreen.

Robins. Danger, I think, recalling the code system Samson invented.

I don’t need birds to tell me that.

Someone slaps my horse’s rump, and we start ambling forward. The more the Red Caps kill, the stronger the Red Caps will become. Violence feeds them, strengthens their magic. It’s greater, of course, if they kill fae, but human blood is an adequate snack to them.

I count my blood drops as the horse sways my bound body, crimson spattering on the slushy road. Occasionally, I’m forced to look around, give directions. The wee lochan I’m taking us to is close but obscure, practically a pond, known only by locals.

They won’t let me die like this, I know that much. It’s a small comfort. They won’t let me bleed out, because they will want to feast upon the violence of my death. I close my eyes, knowing that I won’t die on the road, knowing that whatever they have planned will be much worse.

* * *

When the horse stops abruptly, my eyes startle open. It had been a tiny mercy to lose consciousness, a cruel misery to regain it.

I see Samson, my eyes going to him like iron pulled to a magnet. He has no ropes binding him, but he stands unnaturally stiff, trapped in a binding spell, his back to me as he faces a small loch.

I don’t blame you, I want to say, but now is not the time. It wasn’t his fault the High Blade forced him to carve into my flesh. I know that. But just as my body aches, his soul does, and no words will help either of us. Not now.

The High Blade’s armor gleams where she stands next to him, the silver almost white in the midday light, her red hair a vivid slash of brightness that reminds me so closely of Samson’s hair that I want to vomit.

She leans closer to him as if she were his mother, casual, intimate. She whispers something in his ear, and he doesn’t move because he can’t move, but even from here, I see the malicious twist of her painted lips.

Red wing, I think, another of Samson’s code of bird whistles. I purse my lips, ready to whistle, loud and clear, the only way I have to communicate to him, but then someone grabs me, hands on my waist, and all I can see are dark trousers and a Red Cap amulet hanging down as he cuts some of my ties before I’m flipped off the horse, my shoulders wrenching horribly, my backside landing on the muddy, cold ground, my hair in my face, strands tangling over the sticky wounds that haven’t yet fully closed.

The clouds hang heavy and low, the biting chill in the air reminding me that I am not entirely alone right now. I have allies…or at least the High Blade has enemies who will aid me if I call.

We made it to the loch, I think, trying to sort through my thoughts, through the pain. I cannot break now.

So when Oak wrenches me up, purposefully digging his fingers into a long gash and then licking my blood as if it were delicious, I just glare at him. When he starts to pull me closer to the lochan, I let him, stumbling after.

I’m thrown so that I land at Elizabeth’s feet.

She doesn’t deign to look down at me.

“In the lake…” she says, repeating my words from the dungeon. “Clever. We had thought that all the lowlands would have purged their portals, but yes, yes, we can see why keeping this remote one open is…strategic.” She says that last word like it’s the highest compliment she could ever muster. “Red Caps!” she bellows.

Cecil, Samson’s father, strides forward, sword out, directing the men and women with amulets at their waists to advance. While Cecil stays back, a Romanesque formation of soldiers marches into an orderly unit at the edge of the small loch.

Including Samson.

Shite. I have to think. I have to—

Cry.

I have to cry.

I let the sobs I’ve held down rise to the surface, and I start to whimper. I want to shout, I want to draw attention to myself, but I know that won’t work. “No,” I sniffle, so soft I don’t know if anyone can hear me. “Please, no. Don’t make Samson be the one to keep me prisoner. Please, no, please don’t make him hold me back when the portal falls, please, please…” I dare not look up, dare not ensure the High Blade has noticed. I force my voice to crack, force my sobs to flounder as I try to rub my face against my shoulder, sticky blood cut by salty tears. The guard before cut most of the ropes, and the remaining ones at my wrist are loose enough that I can pull free. Not that I can run, even if no longer bound.

My stomach churns, but I keep my eyes on the muddy ground, on the armored boot of the High Blade, on the specks of red—my blood or someone else’s?—that mar the shiny surface.

I do not let myself whimper again, mutter anything at all, not even when the boots around me march forward, the ground shaking as the Red Caps approach the loch’s edge.

“A portal in the water,” the High Blade muses aloud. She sounds almost pleased. “Make her stand.”