Rhapsodic (The Bargainer Book 1)

I’m dying, my body rotting from the inside out.

I think a day or two has gone by since my last visit with Karnon, but I can’t be sure. All I know is that my life consists of shivering, sickening, and sleeping.

The guard I’ve dubbed Lion Tail walks by my cell every so often, banging on the iron bars with his gloved hands, taunting me. I weakly manage to flip him off, but I have no idea whether flashing someone the bird is even offensive in the Otherworld. All I know is that Lion Tail didn’t freak out at the sight like I hoped he might.

“Hey, Callypso—” Aetherial calls out.

My head rolls weakly towards her voice.

“Siren!”

“Yeah?” I croak weakly.

“Drag your bed over here,” she says.

“I don’t know if I can,” I mumble.

“You can, I know it.” She doesn’t even sound sorry, her voice commanding. Weak, but commanding.

Ugh, fae warriors are way too tough.

It takes an embarrassingly long time to move my pallet, but eventually I do just that.

“How are you holding up, siren? Still have enough movement in your limbs?”

“You had me drag my bed over here and now you ask me that?”

She gives a wheezy laugh. “I’m making polite talk. Don’t question it.”

My lips curve up slightly.

The two of us fall silent again, and my mind drifts.

“The shackles …” I finally say. “I didn’t realize how painful they must be.”

“I’ve endured worse.”

Geez.

After a moment, she adds, “We wrap cloth around the cuffs—the barrier stops most of the pain.”

But not all of it.

As I listen to her, I realize her voice is slurred, her speech much slower, like she picks her words carefully.

Losing the ability to move her mouth.

“Are you alright, Aetherial?”

She doesn’t speak for a long time.

Finally, she says, “Everything’s going. Even my mind feels foggy.”

From the little I know of her, I can tell Aetherial is too proud a creature to say that she’s not all right.

She sighs. “You know, the worst thing about this is that my wife’s going to have to see me like this.”

I don’t bother to comment. What would Des do when—if—I came back to him in a coffin?

“She’s going to take in that creepy little monster I’ll inevitably birth. I know she will, that sweet, foolish woman.”

“You’ve also seen them?” I ask.

“I was bit by one of those creatures.”

I cringe, remembering that Des had told me those children had been close to biting me as well.

Des. Just the thought of him guts me.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see him again, hold him again, talk to him again.

“You’re married?” I ask, changing the subject and forcing my mind from the one thing that will make me go soft. Because there is no softness in this place. And if I want to hold out for as long as possible, I have to be the hardass I’ve learned to become in Des’s absence.

I hear Aetherial exhale wearily. “Yeah,” she says. After a moment, she adds, “We got married in the Night Kingdom. Technically, our marriage isn’t recognized in the Day Kingdom—relations with humans aren’t the only thing taboo here. But technically, I don’t really give a shit.”

I smile at that.

“By the way, Callypso—” she says.

“Callie,” I correct.

“Callie,” she repeats, “Just an update: I haven’t seen a human in the prison—other than you, of course.”

My heart plummets. I’ve been here days, and I’m getting weaker with each one. I’m losing my window of opportunity.

I stare down at my bracelet, twisting it around my wrist. Not all hope is lost. If I understood Karnon correctly, Des might be able to track my magic.

But if he could, wouldn’t he have shown up already?

“Callie?” Aetherial interrupts my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“No one gets magically impregnated here.”

Her meaning doesn’t register at first, but when it does …

My eyes close at that. At what she’s not saying. Strong Aetherial immobilized, powerless to stop what happened to her.

“It was Karnon?”

“The devil himself,” she affirms.

I don’t have words. It’s happened to me before, it might very well happen to me again, and somewhere between it all, you’d think I’d have something to say, but I don’t. Not for brave Aetherial.

She clears her throat the best she can. “Just thought you should know.”

I swallow. “Thank you for warning me,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.

But I’m not sure I’m better off knowing what happened to her, what awaits me.

Sometimes knowing is just another kind of hell.

It’s not working.

Whatever venom Karnon’s trying to feed me isn’t taking.

I huddle in the corner of my cage, my body covered with a sheen of sweat. My entire body shakes violently. From my best guess, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived. I’ve gone through two more of the Fauna King’s ministrations, and each time my body rejects his poisoned magic, he gets more and more frustrated.

He hasn’t touched me yet. Perhaps the monster doesn’t like victims who fight back. Though I doubt at this point I’d present much of a challenge to Karnon; I’m too weak to do much on my own. Despite my sorry state, I’m not being dragged under by his magic, not like the other women here.

A horrible sort of malaise is settling into my bones. It feels like the magic will either do Karnon’s bidding, or I will cease to exist. And so far, it’s not doing Karnon’s bidding.

I’d assumed that all fae magic worked on humans. After all, the Bargainer could use his magic on me. But perhaps my assumptions were wrong. Perhaps there are some limits to fae magic. Perhaps being a human right about now is a good thing.

Although, it’s hard to call the state I’m in a good thing. I lay listlessly on the pallet, my dress hanging loosely on me. Now the guards simply carry me to Karnon’s chambers without a fight. There’s no more small talk.

If I’m greeted with the evil version of Karnon, he gets right to work. If I’m met with the kinder, crazier version of Karnon, he rocks me against him, murmuring nonsense about wings and gills, claws and scales.

“Aetherial?” I call out.

Silence. It’s been like that for the last several days.

I begin talking to her anyway, just in case she can still hear me, telling her anything that crosses my mind. But not once do I mention the one thing that weighs most heavily on my mind—

I’m going to die here.