Chapter 3

He left me stewing outside, vacillating between murderous rage and a fake peaceful, meditative state. I paced the front of the tavern while he drank and played cards inside, the cuffs alternating between biting deeper into me and releasing their grip in relation to my mood toward him.

What insane fae had designed these? They were awful, but also slightly genius and I wanted to bring a pair back to my realm so that we could recreate them. They would come in handy with arrests.

He arrested me!

The anger was back. How dare he arrest me for simply saying I had intel on an assassination toward his lord. Things were so different here. I hated it.

After about an hour had passed, I had resigned myself to being his captor. If this was what it took to get me in front of Lord Roan, then so be it.

When the tavern door finally opened and Zander emerged, he didn’t look at all surprised to see me. He knew I wouldn’t run off. I needed him, and that was what angered me the most.

He took one look at the dried blood on my wrists and shook his head. “Tsk tsk, little bird. You carry too much anger.”

I wanted to blind him with sunlight then, and show him just how angry I could be, but I swallowed it down and held up the loose cuffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wish you no harm and pray that you have many years of health ahead of you,” I said in a syrupy sweet voice, and gave him an overly enthusiastic grin.

The corner of his lips twitched, like he was trying to suppress a smile, but he just inclined his head to the stables. “My horse, Omen, is in there.”

I snorted. Omen. That felt like an appropriate name for the predicament I was in.

“My men are expecting me, and we have several days’ ride to reach them,” Zander went on. “If we ride hard, we can reach Houndstooth Village by nightfall.”

Houndstooth? That sounded lovely. I hadn’t memorized every small village in the Northern Kingdom to know exactly where that was. “Lead the way, good sir.” I kept my voice chipper and walked with my hands bound in front of me. These damn things better fall off soon or I was going to be in real trouble.

The commander retrieved a beautiful black stallion out of the stall and paid an attendant. He then walked the horse over to me and looked me up and down. “Do they teach you to ride horses in the Midlands?”

I seethed and the cuffs tightened slightly. “Not with these on.” I held them up and glared at him. I learned to ride a horse bareback when I was three. How dare he speak to a royal princess like this.

He nodded and then placed one foot in the stirrup, swinging his leg over. He inclined his head for me to get on the horse.

One horse.

Riding behind a man for days on one horse. My mother would drop dead if she were here to see it. But my people were counting on me, so I needed to press on.

I placed my left foot into the stirrup and then fumbled with my interlocked hands, finally glancing up at him. “A little help?”

He reached down, hooked his hand under my armpit, and hauled me up as if I were made of feathers.

Whoa. He was strong. Really strong. I swallowed hard as I swung my leg over the stallion and my butt slammed on the horse behind the saddle, my chest pressing against his back.

How was I supposed to hold on? I could hook these cuffed hands around his neck and choke him to death for even getting me in this position—

I hissed as the cuffs tightened, the serrated teeth biting into my flesh, causing a few drops of blood to flow.

Zander rumbled in laughter, his back vibrating against my chest. “So much anger, little bird. We need to work on that.”

“I hate you,” I spat, and resigned myself to grasping a handful of fabric at the back of his cloak as he kicked his horse lightly and we were off.

I not only hated him, but I also hated everything about this predicament. The only thing that had gone my way since being dumped out in this strange world was that Zander hadn’t tried to disarm me. Probably because with these cuffs on he felt I wouldn’t be able to use my blade against him. Little did he know that I would do anything to keep my dagger safe. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to save my people, and if he tried to take it from me, these cuffs would have to chew clean through my wrists to keep me from burying it deep in his chest. Or his eye socket. Or his groin. I wasn’t picky.

I hissed when the cuffs squeezed as I imagined what parts of Zander’s flesh to bury my blade into, so I let go of the images to ease my discomfort. I felt, rather than saw, Zander shake with lightly concealed laughter in front of me and had to grit my teeth in frustration to keep myself from lashing out at him.

About two hours into the ride, I was grateful he was in front of me and couldn’t see my face. Ethereum was everything Faerie was not, something I had prepared myself for but was still a struggle when coming face-to-face with the differences. Where we had only seelie fae, Ethereum was teeming with unseelie: pixies, sprites, orcs, harpies. I watched in fascination as a mer-woman beached on the shoreline as we passed, using her water magic to send streams of liquid into the air.

Any fae with horns, wings, or tails were considered an unseelie: the less refined, more animalistic of our kind that were even called part-monster by my people. Zander, myself, and the other fae who walked on two feet, with pointed ears and no extra appendages like horns, wings or tails, were seelie.

There were many seelie in this realm. The village I first appeared in seemed to be entirely made up of them, but I’d hardly seen any since we started riding. The farther away we rode, the more unseelie began to show themselves. As far as I could tell, the unseelie definitely outnumbered seelie in this realm, and this was news to me. The last time a Faerie champion had been through here a hundred years ago, she had reported that only twenty percent of the citizens were unseelie. Now their numbers had to be more than sixty percent.

It took great effort to keep my jaw from unhinging as we passed a man with horns and a tail as he sold muffins from a cart by the side of the road.

“I’ve never been this far north. Has it always had so many unseelie?” I asked Zander. He wasn’t very chatty. He rode his horse with his hood up and nodded to the people who waved at him. I noticed his horse did not carry the crest of the Northern Army, so I wondered if he wanted to keep a low profile.

He glanced over his shoulder at me with a furrowed brow, and I was again taken aback by his handsomeness. We had some pretty good-looking fae back home, but he was … something else.

“The Midlands are teeming with unseelie. I’m surprised you’re a product of that place,” he said, and I bristled.

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I’m a rarity there for sure,” I agreed, hoping it was the right thing to say.

He turned back and faced the road. “The unseelie seem to reproduce more quickly and have more offspring. A harpy can lay twenty eggs in one sitting,” he offered by way of explanation.

Twenty eggs! They laid eggs? I shivered against him just thinking about it. Little babies with black bat-like wings and serrated teeth.

“My nana said a hundred years ago there were more seelie,” I said, using a false nana to explain the journal entry.

He nodded. “There were, but our world’s magic is constantly trying to keep the balance.”

I froze, trying not to allow my body to react to that. Keep the balance. With what? Against what? What did that mean? We had a balance to keep in Faerie, but this was the first time I’d heard of a balance in Ethereum.

I tried to think of a way to ask him more about what he’d just said that wouldn’t make me sound like an outsider, but I couldn’t find one, so I just mumbled my agreement.

We rode another few hours, until the sun was setting just as we reached Houndstooth Village. It was a smaller village than the one we’d just left, and I realized pretty quickly how it got its name.

Bloodhounds.

The village was teeming with unseelie that had the body of a man and the head of a dog. With horns. They were creatures who spoke like a man but could also rip your throat out like a beast. I must have leaned into Zander because he looked back at me. “Don’t worry, little bird, I’ll protect you.”

I pushed back from him and scoffed. “I don’t need protection. Take these cuffs off my wrists and I’ll prove it to you,” I threatened, and the cuffs squeezed in response. I gritted my teeth against the small bite of pain.

“Typical Midlander temper,” he tsked.

I envisioned strangling him again, but that only made the cuffs tighten, so I dropped the thought.

When we reached the stables in town, I stared in amazement at the bloodhound that walked up to us and reached for the reins. “Staying the night?” he asked, his voice deep and growly, a cross between man and beast. It was so repulsive and unnatural to me I had to work to keep the disgust and fear off my face.

I wasn’t used to seeing the unseelie races. We had pictures of them drawn in journals, but this was something else entirely. And it wasn’t that I was against them simply because they weren’t like me, it was that they were all tainted by the Ethereum lord’s evil magic.

“Yes, we’ll need a room at the inn,” Zander told him as he jumped off the horse. Without a word, he hooked me under the armpits and pulled me down too.

I yelped a little at the sudden movement, then he planted me back on my feet right beside him.

“Two rooms,” I amended to the houndsman.

Zander clicked his tongue. “You are my prisoner, little bird. That means I have to keep an eye on you. One room.”

I scoffed. Turning from the hound, I glared Zander down. “I will have you know that I am a proper lady who has never shared a room with a man in my life. I will have two rooms or you will—” I hissed as the cuffs bit into my wrists. I wanted these things off so I could kill this man. He was infuriating.

Zander’s gaze sharpened. “Calm down. I wasn’t going to bed you.”

“I wouldn’t bed you either!” I spat.

The houndsman was grinning, watching us argue like an old married couple, and I could feel my cheeks heating at the mere mention of bedding a man. How had this conversation taken such a turn? It was improper. My mother would be horrified.

“I have two rooms with an adjoining door. Does that work?” the houndsman asked.

“Fine!” we both snarled at the beast.

We were led across the street and then through the inn’s small entryway. I wouldn’t call it an inn, it was more like a large house with a desk in the front. A sleepy-looking houndswoman waved to us as we passed and then we were shown our adjoining rooms.

I nearly wept in relief when I saw the comfortable-looking single bed and night table with oil lamp lit. It was way below the standards of a princess and yet better than I had hoped when I realized I was stuck here until I completed my mission.

We stepped inside and then we were alone.

Zander crossed the space to the open door that adjoined our rooms and pointed to it. “This stays open. The hounds are known for their mistreatment of women. I need to be able to get to you quickly if there’s a problem.”

I frowned. He thought I would get hurt? How … chivalrous. “I can take care of myself, I assure you. So long as you remove these.” I held the cuffs up to him and walked closer so that he could unlatch them.

His eyes narrowed. “I assure you, they will fall off as soon as you stop wishing me ill.”

“And I can assure you that will never happen,” I growled.

His jaw ticced again, as if he were suppressing a smile, and I hated that he seemed to like how angry he made me.

“Okay, so how does this work? After I relieve myself I call you in to wipe for me?” I asked.

His cheeks went beet red, and he swallowed hard.

“And surely I will need help washing my hair and my back when I bathe,” I added, hoping to embarrass him further.

That caused his eyes to go half-lidded. “If you insist on me helping you bathe, I won’t deny a pretty lady’s request.”

Now it was me blushing. I screamed in frustration, and it turned into a growl as the cuffs bit into my wrists. “I swear on every coin in my purse, if you do not remove these now, I will light you on fire in your sleep!”

That caused him to grin fully. It was undeniable that he enjoyed ruffling my feathers.

Stepping forward, he grasped my wrists and yanked me closer to him. I stumbled over my feet, tripping as I stopped just short of smashing into his chest.

He looked into my eyes with a serious gaze. “You have made it known that you have intel that puts my lord’s life in danger. I don’t care how pretty you are, I do not take that lightly. I will reconnect these after you bathe,” he warned.

I was so flustered by the fact that he’d just called me pretty that I barely processed his words. There was a click as my hands separated. The cuffs still circled my wrists, but they weren’t attached to each other anymore. I caught Zander pocketing a small key. That’s what he must have just used to detach the horrid torture devices, so I took note of where he stored it. Perhaps the key would also release the cuffs.

I rolled my shoulders, getting blood flowing again after being in the same position for so many hours. I wanted to argue about him reconnecting them after I cleaned up, but I also wanted to be grateful for the reprieve.

“Just because I overheard some bandits talking about offing the Northern lord, I have to be treated like a criminal?” I asked with one hand on my hip.

His gaze narrowed. “Bandits? Where were they? What were they dressed like? What did they say exactly?”

I shrugged. “All things I will relay to Lord Roan in person and retrieve a nice reward for my efforts, I’m sure.”

He looked at me distrustfully, his gaze going to my coin purse hanging off my belt. “Your coin purse is fuller than my own. You don’t need the money.”

I swallowed hard. I never trained for a sustained lie and cover story that would need to last several days.

“How does a Midlander lady dressed like a boy get that much coin anyway?” he added.

I scoffed. “Dressed like a boy!” If only he knew the amount of beautiful dresses I had in my wardrobe back home.

But I needed him to buy my story, so I just waved him off. “I’m a trader. I obtain rare things people need and then walk several villages over to sell them, taking a hefty cut for my efforts.”

His eyebrows shot up. “A lady trader. That is rare and explains the blade.”

Were women not traders in the Midlands? Things seemed to have gone backward from a hundred years ago.

“You can wait in your room. I’ll let you know when I desire to be locked up again,” I said.

He gave me a halfcocked grin and then patted the pocket he’d stored the key to taunt me. “Oh, I think I’m good to wait right here while they bring up the hot bathwater.”

Oh, that insufferable fae!