Winter Fire [ Book 1 ] ✔

Chapter Forty-Two

The Hanging Gardens to which Claire was brought by order of Queen Elysia was hardly a garden at all. Perhaps at some point in its varied past it had been home to an variety of flowering plants and other fauna which hung from the rafters in ornate baskets. Now, however, it was little more than a stony husk, a mere shell of worn gray stone, cracked and crumbling in some places, entirely missing in others.

Not that it would do her any good.

Freed from the net, Claire was lead by her captures towards one of a dozen large. empty iron cages suspended a few feet off the floor.

"In," one of the fae instructed, motioning with a slender finger towards the round opening. Claire hesitated which earned her a sharp jab in the back. She stumbled forward and ducked down to crawl through the relatively small opening. Once inside, a grate was pulled down and secured in place with a large, ornate lock that looked out of place against the blackened iron.

The fae stepped back wordlessly, one of them moving to the far side of the 'garden' where he paused in front of a crank. With no small amount of effort, he began to turn the handle and Claire felt the cage beneath her jerk once, then twice, before beginning its smooth ascent upwards. The cage rose a few more feet before stopping again. Securing the chain on a hook embedded in the stone wall, the fae returned to his waiting comrades and the four of them left without so much as a backwards glance towards Claire.

The silence that followed was heavier than any Claire had experience before. She had never felt more alone in her life. Even her time spent being interrogated by Sevik didn't compare to the crushing despair that seemed to press down on her.

Alek hated her, that was the only reason she could think of that would have caused him to treat her and the situation with such obvious disregard. Even as she thought it, she couldn't believe it, she couldn't convince her heart that such a possibility even existed.

It had to be something else.

Feeling tears burn at the corners of her eyes, Claire quickly swiped at them with the back of her hand. She refused to cry. Pressing her back against the cold bars of her prison, Claire closed her eyes and did her best to ignore the chill seeping through her thin clothes to touch the skin beneath.

See where spontaneity gets you, Claire? She thought ruefully.

Despite her self deprecating thoughts, when Claire thought about all she had experienced, all the people she had met, and the friends she had made, she couldn't bring herself to regret her decision to get on that train, or her decision to stay even when Alek offered her a chance to go back.

She wasn't certain how much time had passed when she heard the approaching footsteps. Expecting to see one of her fae captors come to tell her that her execution had been moved up, she was surprised when she looked down and saw Alek staring up at her.

His upturned face was illuminated by the warmth of the late afternoon sun, but even that wasn't enough to make light of the grim expression resting there. The silence seemed to grow like a gulf between them and Claire struggled to find something to say to bridge it, something to bring him back to her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Alek asked at last, his voice quiet.

"I.. I wanted to, but I couldn't..."

"Couldn't what? Trust me?"

"Hurt you," Claire amended, her heart aching.

Alek fell silent again and looked way. Claire wanted to reach out and touch him, but she was afraid he might pull away and she didn't think she could bare that kind of rejection from him.