Time stops. There’s something behind me. Something terrible and evil. And if I turn around, I’ll shatter the numbness overtaking my body.
A crackle sounds and ice creeps along the floor. It’s beautiful, a glimmering white-blue with delicate fractals throughout. It creeps up the bars of the cage and Papa lets go, scrambling back.
Sucking in a breath, I turn around. But there are only shadows. “Who’s there?” I call, willing my voice not to break.
Movement shudders in the corner and I turn to face it. Two ice-blue eyes stare back at me from the murk, bright as if lit with blue fire. “I am the master of this castle. You are a trespasser.” The voice is deep and gravelly, like the cracking of a glacier into the sea.
Sickening bursts of adrenaline surge up my body, but I straighten my back. “My father is sick. Please, free him and I will take him far away from here. We won’t ever return.”
The shadow moves so quickly, I have to spin on my heel to keep him in sight. The one thing I can make out are those ice-fire eyes. “Your father is a thief. He stole from my castle and now he must pay the price. He is my prisoner and shall remain so for all eternity.”
“My father is no thief!” I cry. He’s a lot of things, but he would never steal.
Papa stands and slams his hands against the bars. “It was only a rose!”
The master of the castle lets out a growl. “Only a rose? You are a robber and a felon. Now you will remain as my prisoner. You wanted to stay with the fae? Then stay you shall, in this dungeon, until your brief life drains away.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I stare at my father. So many years I’ve held resentment for him. Every school achievement he missed because he was researching, all the debt he put us through with his travels, the shame I felt being daughter to the village weirdo. But he’s my dad. And that rose he stole… That was for me, I know it. For my little library that Lucas ran over.
“Oh, Papa.” I grab his hands through the bars and close my eyes.
There’s no choice to be made except this one. My whole life, I’ve sacrificed for him. What’s one more? I turn back to the shadows and meet the ice-fire gaze. “I’m the one who asked for the rose. Let me serve the sentence in his stead.”
“No, Rosalina!” Papa cries.
The eyes blink and the master seems to still. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, human.”
I lift my chin. “I do. Take me as your prisoner.”
Papa screams, “He’s a monster, Rose! A monster! Run while you can!”
But I can’t hear him. Because the eyes slowly blink, and then the master of the castle steps into the beam of sunlight.
He’s taller than any man I’ve ever seen. His long white hair falls over his shoulders, part of it pulled back to reveal dark brows and those terrifying eyes, like clear pools of moonlight. He wears a black jerkin that clings to his broad shoulders and huge arms. He’s beautiful in a sharp and deadly way, an icicle hanging above your head, about to break.
Like the imprisoned man in the cell, his ears are pointed. He is fae.
And I’m in danger.
The fae man steps forward, forcing me to look up at him. I suck in a breath, all thoughts vanishing from my mind.
He tilts his head slightly as if taking me in, his eyes unblinking. Time seems to take a deep inhale.
Finally, he says in that low, gravelly voice, “I am Keldarion, master of this castle and all who inhabit it. If you make the choice to be our prisoner, that means I am now your master. What say you, little human?”
I’m trapped in his gaze. A bursting feeling erupts inside my chest and the words come out in a single breath, “Yes. I choose to stay.”
He turns and yanks on the padlock with his bare hand. It rips off in an icy flash.
“No, Rosalina, no!” Papa screams.
The fae heaves Papa up by the scruff of his shirt and throws him out of the cell. I reach for him, but Keldarion grabs me by the back of my shirt. In a single instant, he rips open the door of another cell and tosses me in. The lock clicks.
Father rushes for me but Keldarion blocks him. “I will see to it your father is returned to the human realm unharmed,” the master growls. “That is more mercy than he deserves.”
“Wait!” I scream, clutching the bars. “Papa!”
“Rose!”