see the way her hands were shaking.
“By all means, help yourself.” The queen chuckled. “I’m curious to see where you’re going with your assumptions.”
Alona took a sip of wine to strengthen her resolve. “With Brea and Griffin’s union you get a firmer hold on Gelsi and a foothold in Eldur. But we’re forgetting Iskalt.” She turned to the king and a cold sense of dread swept through her. This wasn’t about Gelsi and Eldur. “You have an alliance with Callum, who has no heir.” If she was right, they had a deal to make Griffin Callum’s heir, and by default Griffin and Brea’s child would be the future ruler of Iskalt as well as Fargelsi and Eldur.
“No wonder my mother went to such lengths to hide Brea Robinson from you. What an ingenious web you’ve spun for the future of our world. Your grand-niece or nephew will inherit half the fae realm. But what does that give the mighty Queen Regan?”
“Your speculations are quite impressive.” Regan smiled, giving nothing away. “I called you here to make a bargain with you. You are a human without magic, caught up in the fae world where you can’t hope to come out on top.”
“What do you think you can offer me that I would accept?” Alona crossed her arms over her chest.
“I will set you free, and in exchange for your freedom, you will bring me Brea Robinson.”
“Why would I ever do that?”
“Bring my niece home and I will allow you to return to the human world where you belong.”
Alona shook her head with a grimace, her heart hammering in her chest. “I visited the human world once and I didn’t care for it too much. I did meet a nice girl there though. She was good to me. It would be a shame for me to betray her now.”
Alona chanced a glance at Griffin. He stood silently behind his queen, looking quite grave and uncertain. He might not be a lost cause just yet.
“If Brea escaped your clutches, you can bet Lochlan has taken her to Eldur by now. She is beyond your reach, and I’ve grown weary of this discussion that doesn’t interest me.”
Without magic, Alona couldn’t help her people fight against Regan’s plans, but she could do one thing. She could be a prisoner. A prisoner who refused to be used as a pawn in Regan’s schemes.
“Take me back to my cell.” Alona turned to leave the throne room.
“Very well, show our guest to her new quarters,” Regan called to Alona’s escort. “We’ll see how well she’s ready to cooperate after she’s grown accustomed to life in the bowels of Fargelsi.”
The trip back to the dungeon was another silent one. But they continued down the stairs, far past the cell she’d spent her first week in. It was darker and colder. The smell of mold and rot made her gag as she slipped on the slimy stones beneath her feet. The walls closed in around her, and Alona began to panic. This would be far worse than the musty room with the constant drip, drip, drip.
The roar of the falls and the rush of the river sounded overhead. They were deep under the palace when her escort reached for his keys to unlock an iron grated door.
“I must follow my orders, you understand?” the man finally spoke, shoving the iron bars open.
“I hold no ill will for you, sir.” She stepped into the larger hall on the other side of the door, and the stench of unwashed bodies assaulted her nose. Row upon row of filthy cells lined the corridor. Pitiful looking prisoners huddled in their tattered blankets and turned their dead eyes on her.
The queen’s servant opened a cell door, and Alona stepped inside. The room was hardly bigger than a closet. More of a cage than a cell. A bucket sat in one corner, and moldy straw covered the muddy floor. There was barely enough room to sit, much less lay down.
Alona flinched as the iron bars clanged shut behind her. She sank to the floor, clutching her hand over her mouth to still her sobs. In one fell swoop, she’d discovered she was never fae born, and her mothers weren’t her mothers after all. She would likely spend years, if not the rest of her life in this cell, paying the price for Faolan’s attempt to save her true-born daughter from Regan’s grasp. She was nothing more than a human stand-in daughter. But Regan couldn’t take everything