Rowen Fómhar
I clenched my jaw, trying to block out the sound of the repetitive steps softly sounding from the cell next door. I still had my back pressed against the wall I shared with it, but my head now hung between my stiff shoulders, the stretch travelling down my spine. My arms had grown numb where they rested on my knees, having been there for what must have been hours now, my fingers interlaced tightly as I remained unmoving. When I loosened them, moving my arms a few inches, pinpricks lit up the end of my arms. I felt them strongest at the ends, where my hands stiffly curled into fists. I watched the tendrils in my wrists tighten and shift.
I still wasn't powerful enough to free us. My magic was as useless as my hands. They couldn't tear through the bars holding me captive, separating me from my marked.
I had to get us out of here before they found the golden mark decorating her chest.
My eyes snapped shut as another one of Silas's grunts sounded to interrupt my attempts at coming up with a plan. Every attempt that wasn't derailed by him was derailed by another thought of her. Well, for the last hour, the lack of her previously active presence in my chest was throwing me off. Worrying about her would do nothing but drag the wait out, but... it was all I could do. The iron bars I could almost feel across the short distance thwarted every plan that made it past the distractions.
I didn't stand a chance against whatever spell Ezekiel had leashing our magic.
Neither of us did. Even though Silas and I both had royal blood in our veins, it was tainted. His wasn't. The magic that lashed out at my attempts to bypass it held Ezekiel's magical signature. Coupled with the effects of the iron bars that were so pure that they were probably poisoning the air we were breathing to weaken us further, we were useless. Well, I was. The only thing that I could do was release my wings, Ezekiel's defence not crafted to defend against the ancient magic in my veins that was foreign to its programming. They wouldn't do much with me locked behind bars.
The source was always the most powerful. But in this case, she didn't seem to be able to do much of anything. She hadn't used magic once, not even when looking death in the face. I couldn't pin my hopes on something I had yet to witness.
That left Silas and his gift to save us. The man who had spent the better part of the last few hours cursing his mother for lying to him about the circumstances surrounding his birth and his lineage, convinced that she knew the truth and had kept it from him.
Seeing his short fuse, I couldn't help but sympathize with the woman he called Ma. Even I could tell from my short time with him that he would have gone off and gotten himself killed in the name of vengeance for the woman who carried him inside her, disregarding the woman who raised him. She didn't want to see the life she nurtured end needlessly, so she did what was necessary.
But fae can't lie.
So, either she was telling the truth, her truth, or...
My ears twitched, picking up on a distant scrap followed by the sound of muffled voices. I was on my feet in seconds, my eyes burning from how close I moved to stand at the bars of my cell. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Silas in a similar position, his hands clenched at his side as his ears strained alongside mine to listen to the approaching voices.
"...doesn't look... blood addict...."
"...maybe... helped drain him? It...could... they became so-called friends."
"No... she's not like the kind of fae we typically drag in."
A sigh sounded. "Aster got to you, didn't she? All it took was a few hours for your loyalties to shift, huh?"
