The Drowned Woods (7)
A second soldier reached down, pushing Mer’s hair back. He let out a hiss.
“She’s got the prince’s mark on her. We’ve got an escaped prisoner here, lads.”
“No.” Mer barely managed to speak the word. It hurt; her jaw ached and her skull throbbed. But then another soldier was hauling her upright, taking her pack and pulling Mer’s arms tight behind her.
It was every nightmare she’d woken from in a cold sweat. The sense of entrapment, of helplessness, was galling and terrifying and made her want to spit like an angry cat. She couldn’t be taken back to the prince, she couldn’t. She tugged at the water in the air, tried to pull it around herself. If she could just call up a mist, it might startle them long enough for her to escape.
Iron closed around her wrists—and her connection to the magic snapped.
Mer staggered, twisting to look over her shoulder. Iron. The man holding her had iron worked into the knuckles of his gloves. Cold iron pulled the magic from her like leeches drained blood. She could not use her magic so long as he held her.
“Come on,” snapped one of the soldiers. It was the woman, the one Mer had smiled at when she had served drinks. It had been such a friendly interaction, and yet here they were.
Mer looked about desperately. She half expected to see Renfrew coming to save her, but there was no sign of the spymaster. He would have slipped out the moment he heard the commotion; he had as much to lose as Mer.
All the faces staring back at her were mixtures of astonishment, disgust, and confusion. Rhys just looked irritated, like he knew he wouldn’t be getting another drink any time soon.
The only kind face belonged to Elgar. “Mer?” he said.
There was no time to apologize to him or Carys. To tell them she was grateful for even this short time when she’d had something close to a home.
“Take care of the dog at Hedd’s farm!” She threw the words at Elgar over her shoulder. Before she could utter more, she was dragged from the tavern into the cold night.
CHAPTER 2
MER WAS EIGHT years old when she was given into Renfrew’s care.
She’d been a slip of a child, with unruly gold-brown hair and muddied feet. Her nights were sleepless, filled with memories of a hunter chasing her through the woods and of her father’s face when he gazed at her one last time. It had been an eight-day ride to the prince’s castell in Caer Wyddno, and Mer remembered those days of hoofbeats and the blur of green countryside. Her journey ended when the bare soles of her feet touched cold, clean stone and she found herself gazing into the face of a prince.
She had heard of princes. Her mam and da told stories when they weren’t too tired by the end of the day. Mer had always thought princes were a little like the otherfolk—something not quite real, not quite touchable, caged within the boundaries of word and myth.
But Prince Garanhir looked like any other man. He had dark hair and his features were sleek as a ferret. He was surprisingly young, come into his power when his father took ill. Garanhir had given Mer a cursory examination, discovered she was little more than a child, and instructed the servants to take her. The prince had no room in his life for children—he filled up his days in a war room, a heavy oaken table laden with tiny carved figures and maps. Once Mer was old enough to be made into one of those figurines, powerful enough to be a piece on the board, then he would take notice of her.
The servants dressed her in stiff, uncomfortable clothing and shoes that felt wrong on her feet, and gave her a room that was only hers. Solitude was a luxury she’d once craved, but now she longed for the presence of her siblings, for her mother and father, for anything warm and familiar.
Mer did not sleep well in the castell. The rumble of the nearby ocean kept her awake and she flinched every time a servant passed her door. She took to wandering at night, when there were neither servants to force her into shoes nor nobles to ask her awkward questions. Mer slipped through the corridors like a tiny wraith, wearing nightdresses stained at the hem with courtyard dirt.
One night, she found herself standing before the door to the prince’s war room.
It was forbidden, locked, far beyond her reach.
Something had awoken inside her that day in the woods—a fury so potent that she had left a man dead upon the ground. And now, that same anger sparked to life. All these people at the castell weren’t her family and they could not tell her where and where not to go.
So Mer had placed her hand upon the door and let her power sink into the wood.
All wood had water in it. And in this castell—built into a sea cliff, full of mists and spray and salt—Mer had no lack of water to work with.
She called to the small droplets clinging to the floor, to the walls, even to her own bare feet. The water sank into the wood, expanding it. Water did that—she knew because at home, her front door had always stuck in the rainy seasons. But now, she could use that to her advantage. She listened to the creak and whine as the fine grains of oak were forced apart. Mer then called all the water out from the door, straining the wood even further. Something cracked.
Mer grabbed the knob and pushed as hard as she could. The door sagged, scraping over the floor, but it opened.
She stepped inside. The room smelled of candle wax and parchment, and her footsteps were muffled by a soft rug. It was a beautiful room—draped with tapestries embroidered with the lineage of royal families and artwork depicting heroes slaying dragons. Mer gaped at the study; no wonder the prince spent so much time in here. She would, too, if she had such a room. She walked farther inside, transfixed by the wealth and beauty.