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AURELIA
I was numb. I sat in the cell with my back to the bars and stared into space.
“Aurelia,” Fiona said, patting my cheek. “You need to stop.”
I peered down at my hands with a frown. Shadows pooled there, writhing up my arms.
“Shit,” I panicked, and Nickolas’s sudden intake of breath made me pause.
Did he smell something?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I did my best to call the shadows back inside me as keys jingled on the other side of the door.
“Fiona, hide,” I whispered fiercely.
She buzzed up to the top of the bars and sat there and stopped the buzzing of her wings.
The same beady-eyed elder from before strutted like a damn peacock into the dungeon with three soldiers.
“Leave her,” Nickolas growled. “She won’t change until her birthday. You can’t force the magic to manifest.”
“Shut up, shifter king,” the elder sneered.
He said the title like it was an insult and maybe it was to him.
“It’s okay, Nickolas, I don’t have a choice. He knows nothing will happen. He just wants to punish me.” I shrugged and stood.
I stepped away from the bars as the elder jingled the keys. He was taunting me.
I kept my expression blank. I was starting to wonder if Malcolm was working for these psychos.
He had the same ideals as these idiots.
The door to the cell opened and the men stormed inside, placing cuffs on my wrists before dragging me out of the cell.
“Don’t do this, Ronaldo!” Nickolas yelled. “You have no idea what you are doing here.”
His name is Ronaldo? That just fits him perfectly.
I almost smirked at the name but held my expression.
Nickolas continued to yell at the guards and the elder but they ignored him.
I needed to focus. I couldn’t let my shadows out during the torture session, no matter what. Even if he broke my hand with that damn hammer again, I couldn’t let them see the shadows. It would spell the end for me.
They turned down a long hallway that I hadn’t seen before, and I frowned.
This wasn’t the way to the torture room. Where were they taking me? I struggled against the guards, who tightened their grip on me.
“Where are we going?” I asked and infused as much haughty attitude into my tone as I could.
“You will be tried for bringing that criminal into Faery.” Ronaldo sneered.
“You’re going to charge me with a crime that I had no knowledge of?” I asked indignantly.
I hadn’t even meant to bring Asher with me. I hadn’t meant to come here at all.
“You have broken our laws and must be punished accordingly.” Ronaldo grinned maliciously.
“Where is Asher?” I asked. “Will he be at this hoax?”
“The criminal will not be there.” Ronaldo waved a hand dismissively.
“You don’t have him anymore,” I said as realization struck.
They had fooled me into thinking he was there to guarantee my cooperation, but he wasn’t there at all.
What happened to him? Did Fenrick get him back home?
I hoped so. Even if they decided to execute me, I was glad that he was where he belonged, hopefully in one piece.
“That is preposterous. No one escapes the Council. We have him to ensure your cooperation,” he said.
“That’s a lie.” I grinned.
I didn’t have to cooperate anymore and as soon as I got the opportunity, I was going to bust out of their cell.
My shadows had proven they could bend the bars.
Ronaldo stopped in front of an ornate door. Whispers trickled through from the room on the other side.
How many people were there to see this sham of a trial?
Without Fenrick and Asher, there they had no proof that brought him here when it was against the law. But I had no delusions that anything about this was going to be fair.
Ronaldo opened the door with a flourish, and gasps rang out in the room.
My parents were there and they stood shouting angrily at the elders.
“You dare treat the princess of the shadow court with such disrespect?” my mother screamed.
“You mean to start a war by treating her as nothing but a common prisoner?” My father vibrated with rage and loathing.
Something dark flickered over his hand, and my eyes widened.
Did they get their shadow magic back when the elders tortured mine out? That did not bode well for me.
I shook my head at my parents and widened my eyes at my father’s hand.
My mother caught my expression and glanced down at my father before covering his hand with hers.
To anyone else, it would have been a gesture of comfort or solidarity, but I knew the truth. She was hiding his magic, for me.
She knew the stakes and what would happen if they found out I had the shadow magic.
They may just kill me anyway, though.
“Enough!” Ronaldo roared. “The princess has broken a law that has allowed us to live in prosperity for centuries and she will be treated like the criminal she is.”
Ronaldo shoved me into a chair facing the crowd and my father growled. My mother whispered something and his face paled as he glanced down at the hand that she held.
“My daughter will not be put to death for something that was not her fault.” The king squared his shoulders and held his head high.
“The punishment will be as we see fit.” Ronaldo grinned.
“You will release my daughter to me. She will not be treated so poorly. You want war with the shadow realm?” my father roared.
“You would wage war over a daughter who remembers nothing of you and has become associates with undesirables?” Ronaldo scoffed.
“I wasn’t given much choice when your puppet took me to a realm I didn’t know of and left me to fend for myself.” I shook my head.
“Malcolm left you to fend for yourself?” an elder with greasy, dishwater hair asked with a frown. “You were just a child.”
“The same child some of you wanted to kill because I was too dangerous.” I scowled.
“We didn’t do that, and we voted to simply watch you and not kill the threat to our way of life,” the greasy haired elder replied.
“The problem with all that is that you all thought you could decide my fate and you chose wrong for your precious way of life.” I chuckled.
“How were we wrong?” Ronaldo growled.
“If I had actually grown up here, I may have seen things your way but you let your fear rule you and now you’ve inadvertently caused all of this.” I shrugged.
The elders glanced between each other with trepidation.
Old fools. They were all old fools. They did this to themselves.
“You aren’t endearing yourself to us, Princess Aurelia.” The greasy haired elder who told me they should have killed me as a child narrowed his eyes on me.
“You’re going to find me guilty whether I am guilty or not.” I clanked the chains around my wrists as I held my hands up.
My parents’ eyes widened, and they shook their heads. They didn’t want me to antagonize the elders, but I was running out of fucks to give.
“You don’t believe that we are capable of treating you fairly?” sir greasy hair from before asked with a frown.
“Are you capable of treating me fairly? I mean not you specifically because of the way you have spoken to me so far, but do you think the others are capable of putting their prejudices aside and listening to the facts?” I asked with a raised brow.
The elder scanned the other faces in the room and grimaced. “You are probably correct.”
Ronaldo scoffed. “Richard, how dare you?”
“The child speaks the truth. You have all become corrupt with your power.” Richard shook his head in disgust.
The rest of the elders screamed at Richard, and the courtroom devolved into chaos of accusations and people screaming. I sat back in my seat and scanned the chaos.
They’d done this to themselves. I turned to my parents and my mother grinned behind her hand. She winked at me, and my chest warmed with pride.
She was proud of what I had done. Turning the elders against each other had been easier than I thought.
Three other elders stood with Richard, spitting insults at the other three elders.
What would happen if they were split down the middle when deciding my guilt? Would I be executed or would they set me free?
I could only hope for the latter, but I wasn’t optimistic.
“Enough!” Ronaldo roared. “Don’t you see what she’s doing here? She’s trying to divide the Council.”
I raised my brows at the elder. His face was turning an ugly shade of eggplant with his rage.
“Let’s just get on with this farce,” Richard, said waving his hand in the air.
“Farce?” one of the elders next to Ronaldo asked with a scoff. “She has broken our laws by bringing that criminal here.”
My father stepped forward. “That is untrue. She was brought here at our order and had no idea what was happening when she was dragged through the portal.”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like she knowingly brought a criminal here or that she even came here willingly.”
“I didn’t. I was running from Malcolm and stumbled on the portal, but I didn’t intend to come through or bring anyone with me.” I nodded at Richard.
“Can you really prosecute her for something outside her control?” Richard asked, glancing between each of his fellow elders.
The men closest to him frowned and stared at me.
What were they thinking? Were they going to let me go? There were seven of them. Would it come down to one elder?
“Let’s vote,” Ronaldo said smugly.
What did he know that the rest of us didn’t? Could he have one of the sympathizers in his pocket?
“I vote we release her to her parents.” Richard grinned in my direction.
My parents gasped, probably not expecting that. I held my breath, waiting for a verdict.
They could still vote to kill me. Richard was just one vote.
Ronaldo’s eyes bored into mine. “I vote execution.”
That wasn’t the slightest bit surprising. I raised an eyebrow at him, unconcerned as the others cast their votes.
Three voted to send me home and three voted for my execution. One man was left. He had a nasty gash on one side of his face, and he stood by Richard.
I held my breath as I waited for him to decide. I wasn’t optimistic, but my fate rested in the hands of seven old men.
Conflict and guilt twisted his features as he cast his vote for my execution.
My mother screamed and my father hurled insults at the elder as the man who decided my fate hung his head in shame.
Scar man was in Ronaldo’s pocket. He had to be. That was the only explanation for his outward sign of guilt.
Ronaldo grinned and called over the crowd, “The council has decided the princess of the shadow Fae will be executed at dawn.”
My father roared and my eyes widened as shadows crawled over his arms, writhing with menace.
Ronaldo gasped before glaring at me. “You are the girl of the prophecy, and for that you will die.”
Ronaldo raised his hand and lightning sizzling in his palm. The other elders rushed my father to stop whatever he’d planned to do with his shadows.
I yanked at my wrists in a desperate attempt to free myself from the magic-canceling cuffs they placed on me.
Ronaldo roared and threw the lightning at me. I closed my eyes and prayed to the gods that this wasn’t the day I died.