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“Who do you think?” she retorted.
It took a second, but recognition soon dawned on the dragon’s face. “You can’t be serious,” he spat.
“If anyone would know details about such magicks, it would be him,” Levian replied, her face twisted like she’d sucked on a wedge of lemon.
“And what?” the dragon huffed. “You’re just going to stroll into The Prison and have a quick chat with Daddy?”
Tarchár, as it was called among the fae, was referred to more commonly as “The Prison.” It was ancient. Its name meant “a place without light.” It described it well. It’d been built by the faeries so far back, no one knew exactly how old it was, except for perhaps some of the prisoners themselves. It was of magick all its own. Built to be beyond the control of fae or mage or any of the Folk. Hidden in the depths of a glacial ocean where no natural light would ever touch. Any creature deemed too dangerous to live who could not be killed would find themselves forever imprisoned in the purgatory of Tarchár.
“Yes,” Levian snapped. “That’s exactly what.” She stormed over, snatched the bottle of scotch from the table behind Barith, and raised it to her mouth. They all watched her take several hard pulls. She grimaced and brushed the remnants from her lips with the back of her hand. “Merlin is a bastard, but he knows more about Dökk magick and the Celestial Stars than anyone else alive.”
“You think they would allow you in?” Niah asked, her curiosity piqued.
“I went once,” Levian confessed. “A long time ago. I didn’t see him, but I found out I could visit whenever I pleased.”
Sirus could think of a dozen times when her access to Merlin might’ve helped them over the centuries, but he held no ill will over her choice to not seek him out. Merlin was a fiend beyond words who had chosen power over his own family. Over Levian. Her access to her father came as a surprise to Sirus, but it was nowhere near the shock it was to Barith, whose eyes looked like they were about to burst from his skull.
“Ye canny be feckin’ serious?” the dragon seethed, the lilt of his raw accent coating his words. He raked his hand through his hair and over his beard. “You can’t go.”
“I can damn well go anywhere I like,” Levian snarled, poking her purple-painted fingernail in the dragon’s chest.
Barith cursed. “This is insane,” he snapped. “That place is dangerous.”
Levian stared up at him, her eyes full of fire, and threw her braids over her shoulder. “You’re worried I’ll stub my toe?”
The dragon gritted his teeth as he loomed over her, smoke billowing from his flared nostrils. “I’m worried you’ll never come out.”
“Then you can come with me,” she chimed, her demeanor turning sickeningly sweet. Barith’s face grew pale. “To make sure I don’t trip over any large rocks or get lost in the dark.”
Barith looked as if he could gnash glass. It would be a test of his fortitude and his feelings for Levian to go to The Prison. So far from the sun and sky. It was the embodiment of the dragon’s hell on earth.
Levian looked up at Barith as if she expected him to back down. Instead, the dragon clenched his jaw and replied, “Half an hour. That’s it.”
“An hour,” she countered, though they both knew the argument was moot. She could take as long as she wanted once she was there. Barith wouldn’t leave her.
The dragon answered by yanking the bottle from her hand and tossing what remained of it down his own throat.
“I’ll go as well,” Niah offered, glancing at Sirus.
Sirus gave a slight nod of agreement. It could not hurt to have her there. “Will they be allowed entry as well?” he asked.
Levian shrugged a shoulder, her eyes shifting to the fire. “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “But I’m Merlin’s daughter, and as I’ve been told, getting what I want runs in my blood.”
There was truth to her words despite the acidic bite that came with them. Even trapped under that mountain, beneath the abyss of that dark ocean and removed from all power, Merlin still held influence.
Sirus had always questioned the Mages’ intentions in locking him away rather than severing his head from his shoulders. They’d said he couldn’t be killed. Sirus hadn’t believed it. Why kill what they could use? It was better to break him. But Sirus doubted five hundred years had been long enough. He doubted any amount of time would be long enough. More likely, Merlin would find his way free first.
After all these years of avoiding her father, Sirus assumed there was something else weighing on Levian’s mind beyond Gwendolyn or the Celestial Stars. Whatever the reason, he hoped she’d be able to find all the answers she sought.
“When?” Barith snapped after draining the bottle.
“Council can’t be the only ones who know what Nestra is up to, and they’ll all start looking for what she’s after, if they haven’t already,” Levian replied, fiddling with the end of one of her braids. “I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of much time. I need a few days to make arrangements.”
Barith’s face went slack, then tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he grumbled a prayer to the gods, along with a few curses. “Fine.”
Niah nodded her understanding.
Sirus’s eyes drifted to the fast-falling snow outside. Gwendolyn deserved to know these truths, and he knew he needed to be the one to deliver them. Even if the idea of her pain sent an ache coursing through his own chest. How could he begin to tell her any of it? That she might be a daughter of the Fates, whose father was not only probably dead but had likely burdened her with magick beyond what any mortal could contain?
