Chained, p.1
Chained, page 1
This book is written in American English.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. The only exception is a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2023 by The Lehotzky Group LLC
First paperback edition August 2023
ISBN 979-8-9883620-1-2 (paperback)
ISBN 979-8-9883620-0-5 (e-book)
Book cover and formatting by Beholden Book Covers
Edited by Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips
Published by The Lehotzky Group LLC
www.laceylehotzky.com
CONTENTS
Content Warning
***
I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
***
II
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
***
III
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
***
IV
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To everyone who has been to hell and back and remains unbroken
CONTENT WARNING
Chained is suitable for audiences of 18+. It contains scenes that sensitive readers might find disturbing. Your mental health matters, and you should make the choice with which you feel most comfortable.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of trigger warnings, and you can check the author’s website for the most up to date list.
Trigger warnings: Torture, kidnapping, mentions of rape and sexual assault, nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, graphic violence, explicit sexual content, death, and mentions of physical, verbal, mental, emotional, and child abuse.
Survivors are the strongest ones of all, and I promise if you make it to the end, you’ll see just how strong a survivor can be.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Agrenak - AG-ren-ak
Béke - BE-k
Cazius - KAZ-ius
Endre - EN-dre
Északi - EE-sah-kee
Este - esh-te
Izidora - iz-i-dawr-uh
Kazimir - kaz-imir
Kirigin - ki-ri-gin
Kriztof - KRIS-tof
Liliana - lil-i-ana
Vaenor - VAE-nor
Viktor - vik-tor
Vadim - vaa-deem
Valynor - VAL-noor
Vasvain - vas-vain
Vaszoly - vaas-o-ly
Zalan - ZA-lan
Zekari - zek-AR-i
Zirok - ZIR-ok
***
Blood was everywhere. The sheets, the towels, and the arms of the healers were all soaked in the ruby liquid gushing from between the queen’s thighs. She screamed, her voice ripping with the effort of delivering her babe into the cruel world. Her voice died out, only to have the child pick up the end of the piercing note, wailing as the Royal Healer caught her.
“It’s a female!” she exclaimed, but Queen Liessa no longer had the strength to hold herself upright and had collapsed backward in a heap of sweat, blood, and tears. She was deathly pale, and the Royal Healer’s helpers rushed to her side, dabbing her salty face with cool cloths and wrapping her in a blanket as chills set her body trembling.
The Royal Healer quickly cleaned and swaddled the princess, returning to the queen’s side in an attempt to rouse the delirious female and hand her the babe.
Shouts rang out in the hall outside the chamber, followed by the clash of steel. The healers immediately jerked their attention toward the door. One took a tentative step forward as if she would fling herself to the lock and slam it down before the chaos outside could barge into the lavish room where the queen and the princess moaned and cried.
But she was too late.
The door broke from its hinges, splintering into pieces as males boasting thick armor shoved their way into the space, swords drawn. “Give us the babe,” the lead soldier growled.
“No!” The brave healer clutched the babe to her chest, bending over her in an attempt to shield the princess and sprinting to the adjoining bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
More screams filled the room as the soldiers began slaughtering the healers one by one, merciless in their attempt to reach the princess.
“No harm will befall you if you open the door,” the leader said to the Royal Healer.
The female only looked at the ceiling, offering a whispered prayer to the Goddess. Before she could finish her plea, the door at her back slammed into her, sending her and the babe flying into the stone floor. The wails of the newborn reached a crescendo just as the sword sliced through the Royal Healer’s neck, spraying blood over the princess.
With one large hand, the leader scooped up the babe, tucked her under his arm, and trudged through the sea of bodies. He returned to the frenzied halls where more of his soldiers battled against the Fae both young and old.
“Leave no one alive,” he threw over his shoulder, pushing into the cool night air through a side door. The full moon greeted him, along with his dark steed. He mounted the beast, spurring him into a gallop, and disappeared into the night.
I
1
Twenty years and three hundred and sixty four days had passed since I was first chained. The guards harassed me more when that once-yearly day was upon us, finding sadistic pleasure in telling me I would never get out, that I would spend the rest of my birthdays chained in this dark cave.
The wall that moored me in place was the only friend I’d known. The rough stone around the anchor centered on that wall was the map to my infinitesimally small world, and with only a touch, I knew exactly where I was. The point where my chains tautened and I could step no further was a well-worn semi circle, rock smooth from my years of endless pacing, like an animal kept in too small a cage. At that furthest border of my existence, the remnants of a once-fine feather mattress poked and prodded me no matter which way I turned, straining against the iron that bound me, denying me the sleep I so desperately craved.
Darkness had become a friend too, in its own way. In the eternal void that surrounded me, I was safe. The moment a flicker of flame graced the granite walls, my heart leaped into my throat, racing toward freedom in a way I could not.
The torches signaled food or pain – nothing in between. Most guards were cruel, chucking loaves of hard bread or too-dry meat at me, leaving a trail of bruises along my deathly pale skin. I hardly ever saw their faces, save for the wayward flicker illuminating a wicked grin or wetted lips.
Even the ones who wanted to take from my body knew better than to bring their light with them. My chains kept me from running far, but I fought with everything I had at my disposal until they beat me into submission, shortening my chains so the jagged stone cut into my arms as they ripped my tunic open and lashed me with metal-tipped whips. The whistle that cut the air before the whip landed haunted my nightmares. Once my spirit and body had been broken, another level of torment would begin, tearing me apart until my insides bled and joined the ruby river that poured from my back.
The only way to save myself was to lock the best parts of me away behind a wall sturdier than my constant companion. I learned to eat my words, bite my tongue, and swallow my pride because I wanted to survive. One day, I would make my escape. One day, I would see what was beyond these dark walls. One day, I would be strong enough to bleed these bastards dry.
But the next day marked the ending of another year in chains, the silent midnight air ringing in my birthday, though I didn’t know the date. I didn’t know what I looked like. I didn’t even know my own name.
2
For as long as I could remember, the story of the lost princess of the Night Realm was a dark whisper in the back of my mind – kidnapped the day she was born, torn from her dying mother’s arms, never to be seen again. I was ten years old the day she burst into the world, a day that fundamentally changed the course of my life, too.
King Zalan had beseeched my father, High Lord Cazius Vaszoly, to find his only daughter, to return her to Este Castle where she belonged. Having lost my mother not even a year prior, he had readily agreed. His grief drove him to drown himself in the search, and at the young age of fourteen, I joined him, dreaming of the day we would return to Vaenor with the lost princess in our arms. How we would be heralded as heroes and have ballads written about our deeds. Yet twenty years after her kidnapping, we still searched.
The king was old, surpassing the lifespan of most Fae. My father was surprised he had lived this long, and we all wondered if the hope of reuniting with his lost daughter kept one foot from the grave. With each day that passed, the king hung on by a fraying thread.
Over the years, we’d had dozens, if not hundreds, of leads that all ended in disappointment. Because of that, new leads stopped being passed to the king, staying in the circle of the Nighthounds, an elite group of warriors dedicated to finding the lost princess. We never stopped cultivating that seed of hope despite most of the realm believing she died long ago. Then, we received a new lead on her location that gave us hope that maybe this one would finally be real.
A tavern in the village of Zanin had been our home the past two nights as we planned our raid deep into the Agrenak Mountains. The mountains were a desolate, uninhabited place – the sharp, snow-covered peaks speared into the clouds above. The knife-like peaks were only accessible by confident fliers with strong wings, as one wrong gust of wind could slam a Fae into the mountain’s jagged rocks, leaving them flightless and plummeting thousands of feet to their death. Investigating leads in the mountains was always dangerous because scouts didn’t often return.
But finally one returned.
He had discovered a cave, hidden in the tallest peak of the treacherous mountain range, guarded by Iron Fae, who were long believed to be the lost princess’s kidnappers. Those bastards were the nastiest of the Fae Realms, and the only ones impervious to iron. Subduing them was challenging, as weapons of steel had no effect on them, unlike the rest of the Fae, where one cut slowly sapped our magic reserves. Thank the Goddess the Iron Fae had been blessed with less magic than the other realms, or we would all be dead.
My father looked out over the small gathering of males standing in a field just outside the city. Seven of the most skilled warriors in the whole of the Night Realm stared back, stone-faced. We knew the risks, we knew the danger, we knew our mission, we knew our enemies.
“Tonight, we have the best chance of finding the princess since the days after she was taken from us. This mission is fraught with danger and may turn out to be another false lead. However, on the eve of the princess’s twenty-first birthday, I believe the Goddess will favor us and deliver her to us on this night. You are all highly skilled warriors; you know what to do.”
He offered a quick prayer to the Goddess to watch over us on this mission and then hugged each of us individually. We’d been a unit so long that these males felt like my brothers, and to my father they felt like sons.
My black feathered wings snapped from my shoulder blades, and I launched into the air, leading the charge as we flew higher, higher, and higher. Checking under my arm, I spotted the Nighthounds flying in formation behind me, spread out evenly so as not to disturb the air beneath another’s wings while we traversed the steadily climbing ridge. An hour passed before we spotted the highest peak, Vasvain, where Kirigin spotted the cave.
We breached the clouds, rising into a sky filled with a million stars, imbuing each of us with the strength needed to fly in and fly out with the lost princess in tow. As Night Fae, we had an intimate relationship with the moon and stars, both fueling our Goddess-gifted magic.
A light tingle brushed against my skin with our proximity to the heavens. A deeper one shook my hands as Kirigin overtook me, guiding us to the left side of Vasvain, perilously close to the Iron Realm border and a maw of glacial rocks below. He pulled up suddenly, raising his right hand in a fist.
There.
You would miss the narrow opening behind a rocky outcropping on the side of the mountain if you didn’t know what you looked for. Two guards in armor that nearly blended in with their surroundings lazily held crossbows as they surveyed the landscape, wholly comfortable in their belief that they’d never be discovered.
Zekari and Kirigin, our two most agile fliers, were armed with longbows and a quiver of arrows tipped in poisoned steel. The Royal Healers infused the arrowheads with anything that might slow down the Iron Fae and provide us with an upper hand. Zekari and Kirigin would attack first, trying to draw as many guards as possible to the mouth of the cave, where we could rain arrows from a safe distance.
They dove quickly, bows drawn. We waited a beat, then followed. Shouts rang out from the cave as their otherwise peaceful night abruptly ended. Crossbows were drawn and aimed in our direction, but Zekari and Kirigin rapidly fired arrows into the necks of the guards at the mouth of the cave. One guard slipped past his fallen comrades and loosed an iron bolt from his crossbow, sinking the projectile into Kriztof’s thigh.
“Fuck!” His grunt echoed between the peaks, but it did not prevent him from nailing his attacker between the eyes.
Damn, that was a beautiful shot.
No one else appeared, so with a jerk of my head, I gave the order to proceed. On silent feet, we touched down at the mouth, careful to avoid the fallen bodies.
This cave was unlike anything I had ever seen. Its high, arched walls reminded me of the temples we built to worship the Goddess. But instead of clear glass ceilings, this one seemed to reach into the heavens themselves. Dark glittering ore lined the walls, mimicking the stars high above, as the torches lining the lower parts of the walls cast both light and shadow around the space.
Tucked close together, we crept deeper into the strange cave. There were two passages ahead of us, branching off in opposite directions. With two fingers, I pointed to the passage on the left, feeling a faint tether pulling me down the path. Not one of us breathed as we turned the corner, following the flickering lights down a carved hall, walking blindly into Goddess knew what.
This passage held several smaller rooms, branching off in multiple directions. Most were filled with small cots, which lay empty. It was quiet. Too quiet.
At the end of the hall, we spilled into a large room with a central fireplace, the snapping and crackling breaking up the unearthly quiet. Pots, pans, and plates were still strewn atop the surrounding stove and tables. Across the room, a heavy iron door loomed before us menacingly, daring us to enter.
I motioned for Zekari to check the door. Picking his way carefully among the haphazard tables, chairs, and couches, he managed to move silently until he stood before the great door. He pulled out gloves made by the Night Realm’s healers to withstand the touch of iron, flexing his fingers once they were snug. His hands glided over and around the intricate iron door, touching along every ridge and surface for an opening mechanism. After a few minutes, he turned back to us, shaking his head.
A dead end.
Once Zekari was tucked into formation again, we returned to the hewn passage. The torches became nonexistent twenty paces into the left-hand tunnel. A scuff of metal on stone was the only warning we received that more guards awaited us there.
Rounding a corner, twenty Iron Fae stood before us, whips, swords, and crossbows trained on my brothers and me. We were undoubtedly outnumbered, but we were the Nighthounds for a reason.
As if lighting struck that very moment, the twang of Zekari, Kirigin, and Kriztof’s bows thundered through the stone hall, dropping four Iron Fae as an arrow sailed through the neck of one male and out into that of another.
Sixteen.
I threw up a shield of shimmering silver magic just before the iron bolts would have struck their targets, dropping it the moment they clattered to the ground so another volley of our arrows could fly past my ears.
