Yuen looked down at the prisoner, lips pressed into a hard line.
She was from the Eastern Courts and it'd been difficult to capture her. She was slippery, hard to find, and it'd taken whispers and promises of loads of coins to get her into his palace.
Most of their kind were skilled in the arts of trickery, but the Eastern Court specialized in making it violent. Assassins, mercenaries, spies, and cut throats who wielded blades, honeyed words, and enjoyed bloodshed. Their war torn past breeding some of the most ruthless fae in their modern history.
"Arise." He commanded the woman beneath him.
"Yes, your highness." She stood now facing the young prince.
Yuen reached out grabbing her by the chin and raising her head towards the light.
As with most eastern fae, her skin was green, of a pale sage variety swimming in inky currents. Long messy hair fell over her shoulders in a matching color. Forest eyes so dark they nearly ate up her purple glared at him. Paired with pointed ears flexed back, her hostility was evident.
He tilted her head to the right.
Thick black lines, fresh and raw, permanently marked down the center of her face, while two more streaked parallel down her cheeks.
He tipped her head to the left with a smug smile just short of sneer. Distaste dancing in silver eyes.
The tattoos were the work of Delta and would serve as his security blanket. If she were to betray him, with a flick of his finger Delta could detonate the tattoos, instantly killing her. It was a rather gruesome power amongst the night faes arsenal of torture techniques.
"Tomorrow I will stage your escape." Yuen said in a hushed voice, being sure the echo of the dungeon did not carry his words.
Her eyes widened.
He continued, "You will heed my command and hold absolute secrecy over the mission I am about to task you with. Do well by my orders and I shall arrange your freedom. Fail me and I'm sure Delta has already warned you of what will happen to this pretty little head of yours." He caressed her cheek, fingers trailing down the black tattoo.
Her eyes narrowed, knowing well what would happen should she betray him. She bit back curses, only nodded.
"Good."
.
Blood, mold, and excrement permeated the air of the musty and rank dungeon. For the first day any deep breath made her gag and her head pound. She'd bitched about at some point and earned herself a beating from an irate guard.
After a week of captivity Nimara still hadn't grown accustomed to the smells.
Today she would escape its nastiness and had half a mind to pay the guard back for his poor hospitality. Surely his 'imperial highness' wouldn't be too sad about one dead guard. The sardonic nature of her thoughts dripped with poison.
She readjusted her weight, pulling some of the tension away from her chained hands.
The shackles were what truly kept her imprisoned. Another one of that asshole, Delta's, little nifty inventions.
No mere prison cell or pair of regular shackles was enough to confine a powerful highfae. There were many types of suppressant cuffs out there. Their magical abilities, locked in iron and steel, were moot in the face of Nimara's abilities.
These, on the other hand, were unlike any she'd seen before. A white cool substance she could neither distinguish as metal or glass. Old glyphs of the night court carved in the same black on her cheeks lined their edges. Multiple thin chains connected them in short length, pulsating and made of an energy emitted from the runes. When she'd first been shackled in them they sapped at her energy with such force that her knees had given out.
The door to the dungeon opened with a screech and light flooded in giving view to the poor living conditions of its prisoners. Months old straw sprinkled the floor, a bucket of overflowing feces and urine could be seen a few cells down, a man– filthy and perhaps dead–lay in a pile shadowed by the stripes of bars.
His highness' instructions echoed in Nimaras' mind.
"…a guard will come in midday for his patrol and his keys will 'accidentally' slip from his belt."
The midday guard entered, lantern in hand, and made his way to the end of the block looking from one cell to the next, ensuring all captives were where they should be.
As he made his way back he swiftly kicked at the bars where Nimara sat. "Away from the bars, prisoner!" He barked, his keys falling to the stone with a light tink. The sound swallowed by the ringing of the bars and the echo of his words.
The door creaked shut behind him. The dungeon shrouded in darkness again.
"You'll have, maybe ten minutes to free yourself and exit the dungeon. I would not count on it, so leave as quickly as possible."
Nimara stuck a foot through the bars, silently pressing her thin soled slipper around until she felt the keys beneath her toes. She dragged them into her cell.
Hands behind her back she took the keys and guided each one into the lock before the perfect fit slid into place.
A twist and she felt immediate relief. The crushing fatigue of the cuffs lifted. She stood up, her knees popping and rubbed her sore wrists.
The prisoner across from her perked and in a hushed whisper called to her. "Care to help out a fellow inmate." He kept his voice low, not wanting to alert the other prisoners or any guards.
Nimara smirked.
It took only a moment for her power to begin circulating through her body. She was weak and malnourished, not as strong as she could be, but enough to escape the current shithole she found herself in.
She summoned her power and let it seep from her fingers. Slim gnarled green roots spread from her skin, snaking their way around the bars of her cell.
The prisoner across from her had eyes built for the dark and he watched on in horror and fascination as the roots secreted an acid so foul the metal began to drip and melt away.
The fae were creatures of nature and their powers often correlated to the flora they were incarnations of. Nimara was born of pale night kudzu. A rather beautiful vining plant whose milky flowers grew from branching racemes in tapering cylinders. Beautiful blooms that only appeared with bright moons.
Above the surface of the soil it had thick vibrant green foliage that grew prolifically. Often covering every last area of surface it vined up. Under the soil its roots spread out, their toxic nature strangling and killing the root systems of other plants. Left unchecked, the vines would quickly overtake a whole forest and the soil would become uninhabitable for other plants.
Nimara stepped through a hole in the bars, her noxious roots making quick work of the iron and steel. Her feet crunched through metal drippings as she approached the other cell. Inside she could see the huge shadow of a man, two glowing pink rings staring up at her. Only the vypnyr were so large in stature.
She wore a viscous smile as she swung the keys in his face.
"I'll help you on one condition." Her voice was a cruel promise, smooth and melodic.
The vypnyr swallowed hard, knowing exactly what it was the fae wanted. "Yes?"
"Give me your name."
.
A young boy falling into a nearby lagoon had served as a 'distraction' to the guards and she had slipped out of the dungeon unnoticed.
Smoothly she traveled in the shadows. Quickly made her way across the city, blending with crowds and diving into alleyways at the sight of guards.
In the easternmost section of Kisiian was the prince's personal stable. An ornate building with all the amenities a horse belonging to the imperial court would require. Nimara rolled her eyes at its opulence and thought out how if she were a horse she'd tear up the place. Destroy her stall, shit all over, nip and kick at anyone who got too close.
Empty of servants, away for lunch, a saddled steed awaited her. A dusty coated stallion with wavy pepper hair and gentle eyes.
She took an old trail from the sandy dunes of the city, then cut into the forest that edged it, horse steadily galloping along forgotten roads.
Fifteen minutes out an escort joined her, just as the prince had instructed one would. He guided her deeper into the imperial lands where the paths became less evident and the trees grew thick.
The hooded man handed her a sealed envelope then instructed her to remain to the right, enter the oak grove, and ride to its end. A few more paces and he split away from her, disappearing into the trees and grass.
The grove came into view. A small trail lined perfectly between cranky oaks with the thickest trunks she had ever seen. The ancient overgrown lane led to a dead end and she rode towards it as instructed.
Hesitantly she lightly pulled on the reins. The end of the trail neared, a thick wall of trunk from the largest of the oaks marking the end of the old lane.
But the horse rode on, as if it could see something she could not.
She took a deep breath, galloping steady and only a couple meters from the tree.
A creak and a snap abruptly sounded out and had the horse letting loose a whinny. Then a blast of golden light lit her vision and a mass of swirling energy created a wall between the oaks. It was soaking in bittersweet forgotten magic. She flinched as her steed powered ahead.
They hit the old portal in a blinding flare.
It swallowed them, shivering before collapsing with another flash.
The forest was once again empty and silent. The only trace of her passage were the hoof prints left in the soft grass of the grove.