Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar Book 2)

Thin rays of gold beamed over me, and I woke curled on the floor. I’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for days, I thought. If I ever made it out of here alive, I’d never take food or water for granted again. I’d be forever awed by modern miracles like supermarkets and showers.

At every moment—even while I dreamed—a single question flickered like a glowing neon sign: What is Torin doing now?

As I lay on the floor of my prison cell, my mind slid back to the night he’d shown me the view of Faerie from a snow-covered cliff. He’d given me sips of whisky from his flask, and we’d looked out over a breathtaking view of a frozen lake and the dark mountains that swept around it. Snow had frosted the black slopes, and dark castles jutted from the rocky horizons. Golden windows glittered in the distance, thousands of cozy homes. This memory was now my new fantasy. My new escape.

Maybe that’s where he sat now, sipping whisky. How amazing would it taste sliding down my throat? And the snow, too. I’d kneel and lick it from the earth.

I’d started to drift off again—just for a moment—when I heard the creak of iron against iron. My eyes snapped open, and my gaze flew to the door. I’d nearly tasted the snow, nearly felt it melting on my tongue, and now the illusion had been ripped away. I hoped it would be replaced with actual water.

When the door creaked open, a trickle of fear scratched at the recesses of my thoughts. Morgant stood in the doorway, dressed in deep green leather. A ray of daylight glinted off the gold of his scorpion crown.

He carried a stone cup, but his icy expression made my stomach curdle.

I tried to stand, but my muscles were too weak, so I leaned back against the tree bark.

“Water,” I rasped. Whatever scant ability I’d once possessed to charm or cajole a person had dissipated days ago.

If I were human, I’d be dead by now.

Morgant gave me a grim smile and knelt next to me. His amber eyes narrowed. “I’ll give you a sip if you give me the information I want.” He gripped me by the throat. “You smell horrible.”

As if my current disgusting state was a choice.

“How did you come to be in the company of the Seelie king?” He spoke in an accent with rolled Rs.

I didn’t yet know if they still held Torin captive, and I wasn’t about to confirm his identity to the man who might flay him alive. “The Seelie what?” I asked.

His fingers tightened on my throat. “If you want water to live, you will answer my questions. Our kind does not lie.”

My gaze lifted to the light piercing the tree branches above. It had to rain here occasionally, surely. It just hadn’t yet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With his hand around my throat, he held up the stone cup above my mouth. He let a single drop fall onto my lips, and I licked it, burning for more.

“The thing is, traitor, he is speaking to us. And he doesn’t seem to care for you at all.”

I stared up at Morgant, a dawning horror lacerating my thoughts. All this time, I’d been imagining he’d taken his portal out of here.

“My name is Ava, not traitor.” Was Torin really here in the dungeons—or was this a bluff? Because if they were torturing him…

My thoughts swam with darkness.

Morgant’s lip curled. “The Seelie king tells me that he loathes you. That he will return to his kingdom and marry a beautiful woman named Moria.” He cocked his head. “He has no loyalty to you. I believe he finds you repugnant, slovenly, and utterly lacking in discipline and sophistication.”

Ouch.

“He said,” Morgant continued, “that he chose you to compete in his trial for a queen only because he hates you. Because he did not want a real wife. He said he could never love you.”

I stared at the floor, and my vision went hazy. Ever since I’d come home to find Andrew entwined with Ashley, my heart had been slowly icing over. Now, the cold seeped right down into my veins and arteries, spreading its frozen mantle through my chest. With Morgant’s words, the final glistening sheen of ice crept over my heart.

“He’s not the king, though,” I said dully. “He’s lying to you.”

Morgant released his grip on my throat and smacked me hard across the face. The blow dizzied me, pain shooting through my temple. I fell to the cell’s floor of rough bark and laid there, not bothering to get up.

If I ever recovered my strength, I was going to rip this bastard’s spine out of his body.

“If you are trying to protect a man who loathes you,” he said from above me, “I must say I find it rather…what is the word in your tongue? Pathetic. It is also grotesque to me that you are so weak. No magic. No power. No honesty or honor. You are nothing like a true Unseelie. We do not lie. And we know who he is. The Queen knows who you are.”

I flicked my gaze to his. “That makes one of us, because I have no clue. Care to fill me in?”

“She has not yet told me.” His powerful hand clamped around the back of my neck in a crushing grip. He lifted me into the air, bruises forming beneath his powerful fingers. I kicked behind me, swinging my legs as hard as I could. It was like kicking a stone wall, one I could barely reach.

“Where is your magic?” he barked. “An Unseelie should not be so helpless.”

He dropped me, and I fell to the floor, curling up into a ball. Before I had time to answer, Morgant kicked me hard in the ribs, and pain shot through my side. The feel of bruised ribs was blinding, and my thoughts went dark for a moment.

I hugged my legs to my chest, trying to protect my body, my ribs. “I don’t have magic. I’m a common fae.”

“There are no common Unseelie.” His furious voice boomed throughout my cell. “We all have magic. But you? You are broken. You spent too much time among their kind.”

My mind felt hunted. If I was “broken” like this monster said, he certainly wasn’t helping the situation by dropping me on the floor and kicking me in the chest.

“If I had any magic,” I gasped, “I would use it.” It came out sounding like a plea.

“And in that case, I might respect you. But since you have nothing to fight back with, you must give me some answers to survive. Isn’t that right? Because the Seelie king hasn’t told me what he was doing here. And he tells me his army is strong, but he gives me no specifics.” He knelt next to me, brushing my hair off my face while I clutched my ribs. “You mean nothing to him whatsoever, Ava Jones. There is no reason for you to protect our enemy king. So tell me about his magic in Faerie. Tell me about his army. If you do, you get a meal and water. If you don’t, I may break your arms. Or I may rip open the holes where my darts pierced your shoulders. You can choose.”

“They have legions of soldiers. And powerful magic. They will come after their king here if you don’t release him. They will slaughter all of you.” I had no idea if any of this was true. If Torin was in the Court of Sorrows’ dungeon, his kingdom would be frozen, starving, half dead.

He bared his teeth, his canines sharp. “Are you trying to make threats? I’d advise you not to make your situation any worse,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “I’d advise you to do as you are told.”

“I really don’t know anything about magic. I grew up around humans. If the queen knows who I am, she should know that much.” The effort of speaking was exhausting me.

“How did you get here?”

I rolled flat on my back, staring up at the leaves. “Some kind of magic I didn’t understand.” This, at least, was true.

He held up the wooden cup. “Open your mouth if you want to drink.”

Hating myself for my pathetic state, I opened my mouth, sticking out my tongue. Morgant let one tiny drop of water drip onto my tongue at a time. I licked them up until Morgant pulled the cup away again.

“What did it look like? And feel like? The magic that brought you here.”

Water. “It was…flashing lights…and a spell…” The effort of making up a convincing lie was clearly beyond me, and Morgant smacked me hard again, a pain so sharp that a bright light burst behind my eyes.

“Do not touch me again,” I hissed with as much ferocity as I could muster.

Morgant stood, amber eyes boring into me. He held the stone cup above me and dumped it onto the oaky floor by my head. “You lived among the humans and may not know how resilient the fae are. Physically. Your mind may break. You may pray for death as you starve. As you go mad with thirst. But death will not come so easily.”

“You’re a fucking animal,” I muttered. The words tripped off my tongue before I could stop myself. As soon as they were out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.

Morgant whirled, and pain ripped through my shoulder where I’d been pierced by the arrow, but he wasn’t even touching me. I writhed on the floor as his excruciating magic rent the back of my shoulder.

“Do you know the gifts Briga blessed me with?” he snarled. “The ash goddess has chosen me as a healer. I can rebuild broken bones and torn skin and muscle. But the magic that heals can also rip a body apart.”

Sharp tendrils of magic pierced my muscles like talons. I couldn’t utter a word, just inhuman screams.

“And here I am,” he hissed, “with exquisite control over my magic, and you with none. You, howling like an animal. I know that is what the Seelie call us. Animals. Demons. But we respect animals here, the majestic creatures of the forest. In Faerie, they eat them. And do you know what I think? The Seelie should not use the word as an insult when they are more brutal than the animals themselves. When the Seelie spit at fae like you. Pathetic. Unable to summon a single strand of magic.”

When he pulled his agonizing magic from me, it was like a predatory beast releasing his claws from his prey.

My entire body was shaking, and nausea welled in my stomach.

“If you want to get out of here alive,” he said sharply, “perhaps learn to use your magic. That is the best advice I can give you.”

He moved out of my line of vision, and I heard the door creak open, then slam shut.

I pressed my face against the floor and shivered uncontrollably. That neon light kept blazing in the back of my mind, blinking with thoughts of Torin. I was sure now he was locked in here somewhere, battered worse than I was.

And clearly, I was delirious from dehydration, because I was starting to see things…seeing the vines and leaves rising around me, reaching for me—

A pounding sound interrupted the vision. A booming noise in my skull?

I lay back on the floor, head pounding. Heart like ice.

BOOM. BOOM.

But even as the noise hammered on, I let my eyes drift shut. First, I thought of winter—of a frost encasing the world in white. Ice that crept over a kingdom…

Then I dreamed of the tree coming to life, shifting away from the stone walls. It was creeping, moving across the forest, setting us free in a symphony of wooden creaks and groans. Red leaves fluttered through the world around us like blood drops, and Torin and I walked free.

Desperation and pain were fragmenting my mind.

And this was why they called it the Court of Sorrows…