Chains of Moonlight Chapter Eighteen

Aesira didn’t let herself have hope. It was bad enough she’d let herself have Ulkos. If she had any hope she might get to keep him, or worse, one day even see the sky again, it was only going to destroy her when Lady Fate shattered that dream.

Yet, despite trying to force that cold rationality back down her throat, for as long as she felt no Death Knell, she couldn’t deny that spark of hope.

Maybe not hope of escape.

But hope for one more day with him.

At sunrise, however, she awoke from her sleep to see Ulkos had already gone back to his cell. His forehead was pressed against the bars and he cradled his stomach with one hand. Were his injuries worse than he’d let on the night before?

His face was screwed up, as if he was in more agony than he’d ever known before. His lips were pursed together, like he might retch. Sweat was beading at his temple.

She wanted nothing more than to go to him this time, but the wings that usually gave her more freedom than any other creature kept her stuck on the other side of the bars.

So she settled for calling out to him. “Ulkos? What is it? What’s wrong?”

He rasped. “Your Death Knell… How long in advance do you feel it?”

“The most in advance any valkyrie has felt it has been twenty-four hours. All of mine have been minutes to an hour or two.” She grabbed at the bars. “Why are you asking? You’re not dying. You’re fine. You promised me that you’d be fine!”

He nodded, but his eyes remained squeezed shut. “Looks like I’m a liar.”

Before she could press him on it, the doors flung open again. Aesira jerked back as Prince Emmerich stepped into the dungeons. If they were back so soon, surely they had to be coming for her. And if not, she had to make them take her. Ulkos wouldn’t be able to take any more in his state.

She shot to her feet and grabbed at the bars, doing her best to remember the differences between Iubian Elvish and Lunian Elvish. She rattled her wings against the bars as she called out, “Hey! You! Tired of me? Do I not bleed well enough for you?”

Prince Emmerich just turned his head and raised an eyebrow. “Eager for another turn, aren’t you, pigeon?”

But he walked right on by. She slammed her fists against the cell door. “What? No interest in tearing my feathers out?”

“Aesira, stop!” Ulkos snapped, standing only because he had one arm braced against the bars. He breathed out as Prince Emmerich reached the bars. He squeezed his eyes shut and whispered, “Please, stop.”

But she just rustled her wings again and said, “Leave him be! Take me!”

Prince Emmerich just swung the cell door open and laughed. Then he turned to Ulkos and said, “She wants us to take her. How about that? She must really like you.”

Ulkos looked up at her with wide, mournful eyes. He whispered in her tongue, “I’m sorry.”

Prince Emmerich grabbed him and started pulling him out of his cell as he stumbled. “Come on, enough of this ridiculous display. You’ll rot my teeth.”

Aesira stumbled, following beside them as far as her cell let her, calling out in Iubian Elvish, “You’re not dying! You’re not. You can’t! You’ll come back to me, do you hear me?”

She slammed into the bars at the edge of her cell as he slipped out of reach. He looked over his shoulder and whispered, “I will see you again.”

But when the doors closed, Aesira was struck deep in her chest that she wouldn’t. Not a Death Knell. No. This was worse. At least with a Death Knell there was certainty.

She had no idea what would happen to him next. Just how long would they make him suffer before he died?

Hours? Days?

Long enough for her never to know when he was taken from her.

She hit the ground and let out a wretched sob, tearing through the air and ricocheting off the stone. She curled her hands around the bars, and her dead weight dropping sent a sharp wave of pain through her wrists.

Aesira’s whole body shook with every desperate sob. Her knees crashed into the ground as she let go of the bars. There was no point in clawing at them. There wasn’t really any point in even her crying, but she couldn’t stop either.

She looked up, pressing her hand to her mouth and fighting to see past her tears. He wasn’t dead yet.

Dare she hope?

Did she have any choice but to?

As the minutes passed and the doors stayed closed, her heart fractured into more pieces. He wasn’t coming back. She knew he wasn’t, but still she watched the door as the hours turned.

Where was he? What were they doing to him?

Aesira didn’t move an inch. She just kept watching the door, waiting for them to open.

They finally returned at sunset with her rations for the day. She shot to her feet, swaying slightly even as she yelled out, “The Sun Elf, where is he?”

The guards exchanged a look, and the one carrying the tray rolled his eyes. Neither said anything.

She rattled the bars of her cell and opened her mouth, but the second guard moved his hand, and silver, blinding light sent her stumbling back as she clutched at her eyes.

She could hear the door open and she wrapped her wings tightly around her as she leaned against the wall, blinking furiously. The tray clattered against the ground, and by the time she cleared her vision the door was closed again. She still hurried to the bars of her cell as they walked away.

“Where is he?” She slammed her palm against the bars. “Tell me!”

But they were gone.

Aesira reluctantly ate her rations and tried not to look at the empty cell beside her. Instead, she ground the hard bread between her teeth and her blood boiled.

The next time they returned, she stayed quiet and hovered toward the middle of her cell. She had her arms wrapped around her stomach and was looking down at the ground, letting her matted hair fall in her face. She looked as small as a valkyrie ever could.

The guards eyed her warily as they opened the door and moved to set the tray down.

When he was leaning down, she launched into action. Her wing snapped out, coming between him and the cell door as she grabbed him. She wrapped her arm around his neck, bracing the other and pulling back, choking him. Even though she’d lost much of the muscle in her bicep, she had enough for this.

She hissed, “Tell me where he is!”

The elf just choked, reaching back to claw at her face, but she ignored his nail digging into her cheek as she kept cutting off his air supply.

But then a crack echoed through the air, and the sharp pain ripped through her wing. Aesira screamed, grip loosening instinctively as she turned to see the other guard had her wing beneath his foot. It gave the first guard just enough of an advantage to rip himself free and shove her to the ground.

She landed on her back, and then she was the one choking when his boot slammed into her abdomen. Then a boot collided with her temple. She screamed again when a hand dug into her wing, feathers ripped out when he pulled back.

Spit hit her face and he muttered, “Filthy mongrel.”

Next time they didn’t bother opening the cell door. They just threw the bread on the ground and the cup of water. The water spilled out completely, and they stayed around a few minutes after, she suspected to see if she would lick it off the ground.

Instead, she’d taken the cup and nailed one of the in the temple with it as she screamed, “Where is the Sun Elf?”

The next time, she sat on the ground, a half-formed plan around going for their ankles despite the fact her injuries from her previous acts of defiance were nowhere near healed. Her broken wing was tucked against her back, but if she got in trouble again, it wasn’t going to stay unscathed. Also, the cut she’d gotten on her arm wasn’t getting any better, and the way her skin was grew hotter and redder by the day around it didn’t bode well.

But she didn’t sense a Death Knell.

So the infection couldn’t really be all that bad.

The fever making her delirious was more annoying than anything else.

The doors opened, and she sluggishly turned her head. Could she move fast enough to grab their ankles?

But this time it wasn’t just the guards with her rations.

Prince Emmerich was storming down the walkway with a cold fury in his eyes. Were they coming for her again? Was this it?

How long would they torture her before her Death Knell finally caught up to warn her too little too late?

She staggered to her feet, huffing for breath by the time she was done, clutching the bars. Before he even reached her, she rasped out, “Sun Elf. Where?”

Prince Emmerich came to a stop in front of her cell, shaking his head with a sharp, evil smile. “For a winged creature, you are a dog with a bone, aren’t you?”

“Tell me.” Aesira’s legs were shaking, her infected arm was screaming at her in agony.

He crossed his arms and eyed her, staying silent for what felt like an eternity. “You know already, pigeon.”

She did.

But she didn’t want to.

“You’ve been attacking my guards for what? It’s been a week. I know even a creature like you can’t be that stupid.”

Aesira’s hands trembled against the metal. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Please.”

He rocked back on his heels, opening his mouth with a wide grin. But then he paused, eyes flicking up at the ceiling above them. Finally, he looked her in the eyes and said, “Fine. If you insist… The Sun Elf, Ulkos, is dead. Happy?”

Dead.

Aesira hit the ground, clutching her burning arm to her stomach as she fought the bile churning in it. She gritted her teeth as her eyes welled up with tears. Her breathing turned sharp and labored as her legs finally gave out.

Of course he was dead. She’d known, but she hadn’t wanted to.

“Well, looks like we’re done here. Now, be good. We’re not done with you yet.”

She looked up at him and let out a savage, mourning scream at him as he laughed while walking away. She slammed her fist against the bars, but it was weak and half-hearted.

That was all it could be when her heart was in tatters around her.

Aesira didn’t care anymore. She let her sobs fall from her lips as she curled around herself, filling the whole space with the most wretched noise she had ever made.

What was the point of a Death Knell if she could not feel it when it came to the people she let into her heart? What good did a warning do if it never came?

But she knew who was really to blame for this pain.

What a fool she’d been.

She’d done this to herself.

She’d known from the second she first laid eyes on him she could not let herself get attached.

But foolish thing she was, not even she had been strong enough to resist clinging to the only sunshine she’d had in the darkness.

He’d been thrown into the dungeon with his infuriating questions and handsome smile, and he’d kept digging until he found away around her defenses. She let him. How could she not?

He’d made her smile and laugh when they were just counting down the seconds until they would be beaten within an inch of their lives again. He’d cared about her when it got him nothing but sharp barbs and starvation to save her. He asked about her thoughts.

No one but Ragna and her brother had ever cared about what she thought before.

No one had ever made Aesira fall in love with them before.

Now there she was, completely severed from him forever.

She should have told him how she felt. Not telling him was supposed to save her. Not kissing him was supposed to make this hurt less. How could this possibly hurt worse?

What had not kissing him gotten her? It certainly hadn’t spared her the agony of losing him. Now she had to bear it without even the comfort of having him for that one brief moment.

Why him? Why couldn’t they have taken her first?

Why was she always the one left standing? Why couldn’t Lady Fate spare someone who actually deserved to live?

When was her Death Knell going to come and end her misery? How much more suffering did they want to wring out of her before there was nothing left?

Aesira slumped to the ground, broken wails muffled by the stone.

What was left of her now?

* * *

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