Ryleigh was no longer sure whether it was a good thing that Paige had nursed her back to health. On the plus-side, it meant she would survive more silver. On the downside, it meant she would survive more silver.
She had about two seconds to decide whether or not to use her magic. If she did, she could confuse the guards standing around her long enough to get away, but she had little doubt that she would have been apprehended by others before she'd even turned the corner. By her estimation, there were at least three dozen werewolves near, all ready to catch her. She wouldn't be able to influence all of them at once, which meant that using her magic would ultimately result in a big failure, and when it did the guards would beat her senseless for her troubles.
The guards who had caught her wasted no time. She had hardly decided against using her magic, when they jerked her up and slapped her in silver-lined cuffs. She hissed when her skin burned, but pulled her face back into neutrality as fast as she could, until she realised that the cuffs weren't just silver-infused, but magic-repellent. Her powers rushed to silence inside of her and she cursed under her breath. Now even if she wanted to use her magic, she couldn't.
"Walk." A guard roughly pushed against her back so that she stumbled forwards and nearly fell face-first on the muddy cobblestones. She wished she still had her eggs so she could throw them at his head, though that was arguably as stupid an idea as using her magic had been. Something pricked in her lower back and she snapped her head to the side to see another guard press a long-bladed dagger to her ribs.
"One wrong move, and I will stab you. Mind you, the blade's silvered."
"I'll come peacefully," she said. "No need for weapons." Truth was, if they had only cuffed her hands in front of her instead of behind her back, she might have fought them, even though, again, that would have been a terrible idea. Alas, with her hands bound behind her, there was little she could do but resign to her fate.
They led her down some streets, but Ryleigh didn't pay close attention. All the houses looked the same anyway, and she was too busy trying not to make any wrong moves. She pungently remembered how much Royal Wolf soldiers liked their blades.
"Park, they got me," she linked.
"You have to figure out where you are, Ry. I can get you out of there, but you need to tell me where you are." He talked fast, his voice a higher pitch than its usual depth. He was panicking. He probably should be.
"I just don't know, Park. It all looks the same, and I can't see any street names either. I think we're close to the harbour, but I can't narrow it down more than that. Nor should you come. There's too many of them. I don't want you to get hurt."
"Get hurt? Ry, do you have any idea what they'll do to you? They'll torture and kill you."
"I'll be fine. I know too much for them to kill me."
"But they'll silver you."
She grimaced at the prospect. "I can take it."
They stopped and she staggered to a halt, feeling the knife prick dangerously into her side. The metal had little issue pricking through the thin fabric of her shirt, and she could already feel the stinging of silver.
"Take us to the designated holding cell," one of the guards who had apprehended her said to someone who smelt like a human. She guessed he was a teleporter. The man nodded and approached. Before she knew it, the world was exploding and rearranging around her, and when the fog cleared, they were deep in the woods.
"Parker?"
There was no answer and she knew she was out of reach. Wherever they'd taken her, it was far away from Hightower. She guessed it was Royal Wolf territory, but they weren't anywhere near the prison.
"Walk." There was the dagger again. She gritted her teeth and spurred into motion. The trees parted to reveal a small, stone building.
"Where are we?" she asked, which earned her a stomp with the dagger's hilt, right between her shoulder blades. She staggered forwards, nearly toppling over. She growled at the man, but in her human form it did little to intimidate him.
"You didn't think they were going to keep you at the Royal Prison, did you?" the guard said, chuckling. "Or Midnight Moon? Your people will never find you here."
The other guard returned his knife to her ribs, leaning in, his breath fanning over her cheek. "No one can help you now."
She had to give Alder credit for his intelligence. If he had kept her at the prison or the castle, or, Goddess forbid, at Midnight Moon, her kin would have found and freed her before the day was over.
There were more guards swarming the building. One of them opened the entrance and Ryleigh was forced inside. The structure reminded her of the modest holding cells at Midnight Moon. There were only six cells, three on either side of the aisle.
"Get in there."
They opened and forced her into the last cell on the left side from the entrance. There was nothing in there apart from a wooden bed screwed into the wall, a thin blanket, and a bucket in a corner. Not exactly comfortable, but she'd seen worse.
"Turn around."
She obeyed in silence. The guard undid one of her cuffs, replacing it with an almost identical cuff, though this one had no chain attached to it. She drew her hand up and inspected it more closely. It was like a bracelet – an ugly one, to be fair – apart from the fact she wouldn't be able to take it off. It was silver-infused and magic-repellent, like the cuffs. Clever.
The guard undid the other half of her shackles as well then, grinning at her. "Don't like that you can't read our memories, do you? Get used to it. You have no power here." He back-tracked out of the cell and locked the door. He turned to his colleagues. "Contact the king."
*****
It was several hours before anything else happened. There was always a guard in the building with her, sitting on a high stool in front of her cell, gazing at her as though they suspected her to be able to walk through the bars like a ghost, which, admittedly, would have been an awesome gift to have.
It was odd not to be able to read anyone's memories. It made her more paranoid than she already was. She was used to dissecting people by their memories. That was how she got to know people, how she learned to understand them, how she knew what made them tick, and how she knew what they were going to do to her. Now she had to wait and see, and she didn't like that at all.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed. Her backside felt as hard as the wood it was perching on, but she still didn't move. The last thing she wanted was to wiggle around too much and let the guard know she was uncomfortable. He might interpret it as fear, and she refused to show fear.
At last the front door creaked open again. From her cell she couldn't see who entered. She didn't have a direct line of sight to the entrance. Usually that wasn't a problem, because she'd be able to discern from someone's memories who was coming, but not then. It could be anyone.
It was King Alder.
She'd expected he'd come at some point, but not this quickly. Her first instinct was to crane her neck to see if Jade accompanied him, but she forced herself to sit still, her gaze calmly flitting up to meet Alder's.
"Leave us," he said, and without complaint or words, all the guards trickled out of the building.
"You look like you've had better days," Ryleigh said. Alder's skin was pale, and his eyes were sunken and tired, yet sparkled in triumph.
"Yet I am not the one behind bars."
Ryleigh pursed her lips, inclining her head. "True. How did you find me? Courtesy of Jade?"
"She has been assisting, yes. She suspected you were hauled up in Hightower, so we have been walking the markets for almost a week now. We were starting to lose hope, but then there you were."
Getting caught was one thing, but getting caught because she had been so incredibly stupid was harder to accept. Perhaps this would teach her not to be so damn cocky. It wasn't likely, but stranger things had happened.
"So," she said. "What happens now?"
Alder linked his hands behind his back. He was an imposing figure, and if she didn't hate him so much to leave no room to fear him, she might have been intimidated. "There are few options. Ultimately, what we want from you is information. How we are going to extract that information from you is up to you. You can either work with us, and then we will have no need to hurt you, or you can refuse to cooperate, in which case we might need to resort to more radical measures."
"Like silver."
He inched his head down just enough to confirm it.
She nodded and leant her back against the wall behind her. "Does Jade know I'm here?"
"Yes. I informed her the minute I heard."
"She must have been glad. Or perhaps she was disappointed that she didn't get to be the one to arrest me this time."
"She is not glad. She cares about you far more than she should."
Ryleigh exhaled a chuckle through her nose. "If she cared about me, she wouldn't have betrayed me."
"It is not that simple."
"Not to you, I am sure. In any case, Your Highness, if those are my options – to cooperate or not to cooperate – then you may get the silver ready. I am not as easy to turn as my sister. I will die before I tell you anything."
"Why?" Alder glanced around him, spotted the stool and sat down. "Your father is not a good man. You ran from him once – to Midnight Moon. Clearly, your relationship with him is not healthy. He is the one I want. Give me him, and I will let the rest of your people go."
"My father saved me from execution. I will not repay the favour by ratting him out."
"I am sorry to hear it. I really do not wish to resort to silver. Perhaps you might be more inclined to talk to one of your friends at Midnight Moon. I imagine you might not wish to see Austin, but I could get Sky here, or Julie, or Ellis."
She blinked, slowly. The names were familiar, and she even had a face to put to them, but she did not recall any of them being her friends. In fact, she didn't recall anything at all about them, other than Julie having been Austin's chosen mate, and Ellis having insisted on keeping her prisoner. Sky was nothing but a vague recollection. Considering Ryleigh had erased all her good memories, she imagined that yes, Sky had been a friend, once upon a time.
"I have no friends," she said. "And I will not talk to anyone."
"Not even to Jade?"
"My treacherous sister? You had better keep her out of my way. If she gets too close, I will kill her with my bare hands."
Alder rose from his seat again. "You really will not cooperate, then? Silver is the only thing that might move you to talk?"
"And perhaps not even then. After all, I didn't break last time either. You may execute me and make an example out of me, but that is all the use I will ever be to you. You have hurt my people enough."
_____
A/N: Do you think Alder can make her talk?
Thank you for reading <3