Crown of Blood and Ruin: A dark fairy tale romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 3)

Stripped of my tunic, the Ravens worked on tethering my wrists to the posts, so my arms stretched at my sides. Bound away from my fury, weaponless, surrounded by half a dozen guards, there was little I could do but allow it.

Calder stood two paces from me, grinning. “This could stop, Night Prince. Tell me what you know of the tomb, and it ends. Was yesterday not enough?”

The open wounds on my back still boiled in pain. Sol was pale beside me as they forced him to lie back on a board, arms splayed to his sides, burns across his chest.

“I know nothing of this tomb,” I lied. “If I did do you really think I’d tell you?”

“Have another go, you bleeding bastards,” Sol snapped, as if to drive the point home. “We’ve only just begun.”

“If that is your wish.” Calder flicked one finger and five Ravens jumped into action.

Sol lifted his head. My body went numb. For the whole of the torture yesterday, the false king took a great deal of pride forcing Gunnar to watch Sol and me be brutalized. They taunted the boy, laughed when he winced, shoved him around, but never drew blood.

A tactic, no doubt, to make Gunnar break. They thought him weak, and he proved them wrong.

But now they hoisted him away from the narrow bench where he’d been chained and dragged him to the podium in the center of the courtyard.

“What are you doing?” Sol spat, unable to keep quiet.

Calder went around Sol’s table, leaning on the edge with one elbow. Relaxed, enjoying every twisted moment. “Oh, I don’t think it is fair to keep leaving the boy out of all the fun.”

The Ravens shoved Gunnar to his knees. His jaw tightened, but if I looked close enough the slightest quiver took hold of his chin. With more force than was needed, two guards extended his arms, tying his wrists across a board, as if he were reaching over a tabletop. The snap of leather woke my senses to a Raven approaching my nephew, and to the braided ribbons of tanned pig skin hanging from one hand.

“Gunnar, look at me.” I waited until his golden eyes landed on me. “We are with you. You have the bravery of both your parents. Both of them.”

I didn’t know his father, but the boy valued him, and he’d risked captivity to save his family. He was brave, and words mattered. Gunnar’s chin stopped quivering. He nodded and narrowed his eyes at Calder. “W-We’re not giving you anything.”

“Such a brave little Ferus.” Calder laughed, drifted to my side, and patted my face.

My cheek twitched. “I will not hand over my wife. This tomb you want remains closed. We will not stop our fight. And you will not kill me because you do not believe your own threats and fear the consequences if we die. So, stop stalling. Get on with it.”

Calder’s sharp features shadowed in hate. “Very well.” The false king nodded at a place behind me. “Let us try again and see if we can draw out that bloodlust, Night Prince. I rather like the idea of having a mindless beast at my disposal.”

I’d say nothing more. I wouldn’t make a bleeding sound.

The same threats were made yesterday. The hope of Castle Ravenspire was to enrage the simmering violence in my blood until I became lost in my own mind once again. In truth, watching Sol and now Gunnar suffer added a dismal fog to my brain. A desire to tear the limbs from each raven slowly. Thoughts too dim and violent to ever share out loud belonged to Calder. To Runa. To Jarl Magnus.

As if my mind drew him from the air, the captain of the Ravens approached. I’d memorized his sound. Heavy steps, with a slight drag of his toes. The table to my left was lined in weapons of all kinds. Carving knives, shivs, iron spikes, chains.

“Valen,” Sol said. “You are king here. The land chose you. Fury will see you through.”

My brother closed his eyes as Jarl fingered the weapons.

He fisted a handful of my hair, yanking my head back, so I met his eyes. “I wanted to be the one to deliver your punishment for your crimes against Timoran. It is an honor to do this for you, Night Prince.” He leaned his mouth against my ear. “When this war ends, when your folk are obliterated, the law will recognize Elise as my wife. Should she live, I swear to you, Night Prince, I will take very good care of her.”

Axes to his heart.

Dagger to his throat.

Perhaps I’d take each finger one by one.

I closed my eyes, imagining each deliciously bloody sight.

Then, came the pain.

Jarl was methodical in his torture. It thrilled him. The way bodies clenched and tightened against the agony only added to his brutality.

I closed my eyes, fists clenched. Each dig of his knife opened the faded scars of my life as the Blood Wraith. A hot, tang of blood burned my nose, filled my lungs. Bile teased the back of my throat.

Endless jabs, cuts, slices of different blades carved down my back, my arms, my legs. He carved out a piece of my ear. Burned the palms of my hands.

When the knife eased back, my muscles convulsed. I gasped, spitting blood on the wood laths. Through it all crowds gathered to watch, but it had been sickeningly silent. They craved sobs, the cries of the tortured.

I would not give them the satisfaction.

Jarl moved to the front; his hands soaked in my blood. With careful movements he dragged the tip of a bloody shiv down the length of my fingers. “You are accustomed to pain. But your armor breaks when those you love hurt, isn’t that true? It makes your mind spin with madness, with bloodlust.”

Hair stuck to the sweat on my face, but I glared at him through the gaps. Knives. Broken teeth. Fire.

So many ways to end him.

My dreams of slaughter were dashed at Sol’s groan. My brother flinched, gritted his teeth as Jarl pressed burning stokers against his bruised chest, branding his skin with symbols of Ravenspire.

“Sol,” I rasped.

I couldn’t be sure if it was a reaction to the pain, or a response to me, but my brother shook his head, silencing me.

A cry broke. The first, and it muffled quickly. When the second crack of the braids fell, I watched as Gunnar opened his mouth and curled forward. A Raven lashed his forearms again, and again, and again. Welts raised. The boy clenched his eyes. He tried to stay silent.

Sol and I knew what to expect from Castle Ravenspire. Maybe Gunnar did on some level, but he’d never been tortured with Stor Magnus. Isolated, locked away from his mother and father, yes. But physical pain, this was his first experience.

More than my brother and me, I ached for the boy. I raged for him. My body pulled against my restraints like a reflex to try to stand between him and the endless lashing.

He could stop this with his magic. He could twist the Raven’s desire. But Gunnar had vowed not to reveal his magic. Doubtless life would be worse should the boy reveal he was no fae, but something else entirely.

Until a stink filled the air when Gunnar’s skin at last split.

No.

That damn rank Alver blood. Even without using his power, he’d be found out. Blood dripped over his wrists, down the table, a steady stream to the boards of the podium. Sickly-sweet, a sort of fetid cloying smell surrounded him.

The Raven covered his nose with the back of his arm, sniffed, then lifted the whip again.

He wasn’t the only one to notice. All around folk wrinkled their noses. Even the false king. “Is that from his blood?”

“Valen,” Sol said through a gasp. No one paid us attention, they’d taken curious glances at the potent boy. “Mask him. Do it. Please.”

Frenzy tightened in my chest. My vision blurred from loss of blood, but I followed Sol’s gaze. All around the courtyard were weak blooms of moonvane.

“The land chose you,” Sol whispered. His skin was so raw, so broken, but he wouldn’t break. Until the last threads of his life, the Sun Prince would not break.

The land chose its king. Fury strong enough to break the curse of my family brought us here.

I was bound against fury.

There was nothing I could do.

The truth did not stop me from begging. In my mind, my heart, I pleaded with whatever fury the gods placed in this soil long ago to answer my calls. Sol could kill the earth, but I could make it bloom.

My body clenched. Fury trapped in my veins burned. I let out a cry of frustration as I battled the bindings, as I begged for a glimmer of power. Torture, I could survive. But this, this pain of digging through fierce magic, searching for a thread to hold to despite the bands on my wrists drained me of energy, of my will to keep awake, faster than anything.

How many moments passed before my body could give no more, I didn’t know.

My chin fell to my chest when the gasps came, and my heart thudded against my ribs, too fast, too wild. Through the haze, a woman’s shrill voice lifted over the crowds.

“All gods, look!”

“By the hells.”

More voices hummed, but I heard them as through a wall of water.

Whatever had begun didn’t matter nearly as much as sleep. Or death. I’d take either. My legs couldn’t hold me any longer. I slumped, and the ropes around my wrists wrenched against my joints as the weight of my body fell forward.

“See your true king!” Sol’s voice roared. “Bow to your gods-chosen king!”

“Shut him up,” Jarl hissed.

I cracked one eye.

The podium was not the same. Tables of weapons, the ropes around our bodies, the entire expanse of the bloody floorboards was covered in moving, growing, blooming vines of silver moonvane.

Like spindly fingers, the branches had stretched and overtaken the rack. Moonvane coiled around every piece of wood, every table, every post. Thorny branches had cocooned the weapon tables and covered all the knives and blades, rendering them untouchable.

Each blossom opened to the fullest, casting the sweet milky scent into the air, masking Gunnar’s blood, and pointing their blooms to where I struggled to stay conscious.

A Raven went to Sol and stuffed his mouth with a dirty linen, gagging him.

Calder and Runa stood at the head of the podium, glaring at the show of fury. Their people stared in a bit of disbelief, in doubt.

I grinned, or at least tried.

“Kill it,” Calder’s dark command flowed over the rack. “Leave them out here tonight. Heal no wounds.”

The next moments were a blur. Ravens poured inky black onto the branches, a bit of the manipulated poison they’d gained through Sol’s torture.

At once the moonvane shriveled away, the blooms died. More guards ushered folk out of the square, demanded they return to their lives. Jarl broke his weapons free of the dead brambles. Before he left, he whispered, “Until tomorrow, Night Prince.” He struck my face, so my teeth cut into my cheek, adding more blood dripping down my chin.

But when it was done, when we were left there, bleeding and aching, I found a bit of peace. I could finally rest.

My body jolted, and when I blinked my eyes open it was dark. The frosty winds from the north peaks roared. A shiver danced down my spine.

“Sol.” My voice cracked.

He groaned. Alive. Gunnar twitched and turned his haggard eyes to mine. Alive. We were alive.

I tried to leverage off my knees, but the shredded skin on my shoulders and back protested. With a wince, I tried to give a bit more pressure to my knees instead of my bound arms. Dried blood coated my lips and my mouth tasted foul. Hells, I craved a drop of water.

“Get back, boy.” A Raven stepped away from the podium, hand out. “Get on home.”

“I just want to see him. Hate him so much. So much.”

Did the Ravens laugh? Or was it more they snarled at whoever approached.

“Our sympathies, but it changes nothing.” The glide of steel from its sheath tightened my focus. “I said get back.”

Three children stood around the guard. In truth, I might’ve been seeing things. No, they were there, and they were bold. From what I gathered, they had plans to throw spoiled fruit pits at our heads.

“Lemme have one shot, please Herr? Just the one,” one boy said again.

The Ravens around the podium laughed and waved the young ones away. They didn’t budge.

“You have ears?” With a touch of frustration, the guard nearest the children took a quick lunge at the young ones, then let out a shrill cry of pain.

He crumbled to the ground, clutching his leg. The other three Ravens rushed to him.

“Herr, you should be more careful. Tricky steps are enough to snap bones around here.” A boy said with a wicked grin. He was paler than the moon with hair like a raven’s wing.

Guards surrounded their fellow Raven, leaving a window of distraction for one of the trio to rush onto the podium. I braced for whatever rotten sludge they planned to stuff us with, but the mouthy boy kneeled in front of me.

“Short on time, My King—”

I knew that voice. “Ellis?”

The boy’s eyes locked with mine. His grin lifted with a heap of mischief as he forced a rolled piece of parchment into my hand and what looked like a roasted tree nut. “No time to explain, eat this.” Before I had a chance to protest the boy pressed the nut against my lips, forcing me to open my mouth. “Eat it.”

I coughed, and tried to swallow the lump as a bitter, rotted taste soaked into my throat and tongue.

“Good,” Ellis said briskly. “Make sure when it hits, they put you back into your tower room.”

“When what hits? Ellis, what’s—”

A whistle from the pale boy drew Ellis back to his feet. “You will not have a good night, King Valen. But the queen comes, something good to think about I s’pose.”

“Come on.” The new boy tugged at Ellis’s arm. I didn’t know him, but he took a moment to meet my eye. “I hope you live. I want to see your mesmer crack the ground.”

Mesmer? An Alver. Had Elise gathered Alver folk?

They were gone before I could ask. A few Ravens shouted after them, but at the groans of the broken guard they let the children go.

My skin prickled in a feverish heat. I shook away the unease and leveraged the parchment in my fingers enough I could read the few words. A smile curved over my lips.

Meet me on the battlefield, my love.

—E

“Valen,” Sol’s weak voice broke the night. “What is it?”

“Blood called,” I said, voice hoarse. “Our people have answered.”