She returned with her arms full, setting the supplies down on the low table beside him before meeting his gaze again.

  “Sit.”

  He cursed. Low and vicious, in an ancient dialect older than most living fae could understand. And then dropped into the nearest chair with the grace of a thundercloud.

  Isara arched a brow, entirely unfazed. “Most people try not to swear at the person treating their wounds.”

  “You couldn’t have possibly understood that.”

  “I can tell when someone’s cursing at me, even if I don’t speak the language.”

  Ashterion let out a quiet, humourless sound. “Then you’re more perceptive than most of my court. I’ve been cursing at them for centuries. No one’s caught on.”

  Isara didn’t dignify that with a response, just shot him a flat look as she folded the warm, damp cloth. “This is going to sting.”

  “I don’t need to be coddled,” he said, shadows winding around his feet. “Do whatever you need to do.”

  She gave him a tight-lipped nod, then muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like gods, males before refocusing.

  Ashterion let his head tip back slightly, eyes slipping closed, shoulders held in forced stillness. He heard the rustle of her movements, the wet slide of cloth against water, and then⁠—

  The pain was white-hot and biting as she pressed the cloth to the wound. It flared down his side like a blade had kissed him all over again, but he didn’t flinch.

  Instead, he drifted.

  Let himself slip out of his body in the way he’d learned long ago, when the only other choice had been screaming. He rode the pain like a wave, distant and dull, just pressure and burn and the occasional, sharper pull when her fingers worked too close to torn muscle.

  He could feel her there, though. The warmth of her hands. And without thinking, he glanced down at her. The firelight caught in her copper-red hair, turning it to living flame as she focused on her self-appointed task with single-minded determination.

  She was quiet. Steady.

  And Ashterion, for all his centuries, could not fathom why.

  Her fingers were gentle as they pressed a cloth soaked in healing salve against the wound. The sting of it barely registered, he’d endured far worse. What registered was the care in her movements, the clinical efficiency that spoke of experience. Someone who had tended wounds before. Someone who knew what they were doing.

  “Where did you learn this?” he found himself asking.

  She didn’t look up, focused on cleaning the inflamed edges of the gash. “You pick up some things fighting in a rebellion.”

  “Fighting in a rebellion,” Ashterion repeated.

  Something in his mind clicked into place. The way she moved. The confidence. The authority that clung to her like a second skin even here, in captivity. He’d heard whispers. Rumours. A woman, a general, leading forces against the king who seized control of the human lands.

  Ashterion’s breath caught. His eyes widened fractionally as he stared down at her bent head, her fingers working methodically at his wound.

  “Fighting,” he echoed again. “Or leading?”

  He caught it, the twitch in her fingers, the fractional pause in her cleaning.

  Then she scoffed. “Who said anything about leading?”

  She hadn’t denied it. But Ashterion didn’t press.

  Her fingers brushed against his skin again, applying a cooling salve to the wound. The relief was immediate, the burning sensation ebbing away beneath her touch.

  Her touch lingered a moment too long at the edge of the wound, and Ashterion’s muscles tensed involuntarily beneath her fingers. Her eyes flitted briefly to his face before returning to her work.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, so quiet he almost missed it.

  Ashterion said nothing, watching as she applied a thin layer of the salve along the entirety of the wound. The shadows at his feet stirred again, curious, drawn to the careful movements of her hands, to the concentration etched in the line between her brows.

  He wondered, distantly, when the last time was that someone had done anything for him without expecting a piece of his soul in return.

  Isara’s fingers paused briefly. “How did it happen?”

  Ashterion blinked, surprised by the question. Not because it was unexpected, but because of how ordinary she made it sound. As though she weren’t kneeling beside the carved-up flesh of someone she should, by every right, despise.

  He considered lying. Brushing it off with something flippant or cruel. That would’ve been easier, more familiar. But the peace in the room, the way her fingers didn’t tremble, the absence of malice in her tone—it disarmed him.

  “I don’t remember.”

  Isara’s head tilted slightly. “How do you not remember this?”

  Ashterion let out a hollow breath that was almost a laugh. “Because I ran out of room to remember them all. It’s not noteworthy.”

  “Not noteworthy.” Her eyes narrowed, studying him with an intensity that made his chest tighten uncomfortably. “The fact that you can say that with such casualness is perhaps the most disturbing thing about you.”

  Her hands wrapped a clean bandage around his torso, the pressure firm but not painful.

  “More disturbing than being the Shadow Drask?” he asked, deliberately light, even as the words were foul in his mouth.

  She didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes. Because this—” She gestured to his torso, to the map of violence etched into his flesh. “Suggests something worse than whatever darkness you wear on the surface.”

  That shouldn’t have mattered. Shouldn’t have meant anything.

  But it did.

  And he didn’t know what to do with that.

  “Why? Why do you even care?”

  “Because you’re hurt.”

  His breath stuttered. That’s it?

  That was her answer?

  As if it was that simple?

  As if anyone had ever looked at him and seen anything other than power to use, a threat to fear, or a monster to survive?

  His fists clenched. “That’s not reason enough.”

  “Maybe not to you.” Isara glanced up at him. “But it is to me.”

  He looked away, shadows stirring faintly at his feet as they sensed the unravelling in his chest.

  “Be careful with that,” he said after a long moment, his voice a low murmur.

  “With what?” She tied off the bandage with efficient fingers.

  “Mercy.”

  Isara watched him for a beat. “I think you’ve been careful with it long enough.”

  Ashterion stood abruptly, jarred by the weight of her stare. Those jade eyes had somehow found their way beneath his skin, seeing far more than he’d ever intended to reveal.

  “We should sort out the illusions now,” he said, harsher than he’d meant it to be.

  He needed distance. Space. To rebuild the walls she’d somehow slipped past with nothing but a damp cloth and steady hands.

  He moved to the centre of the room, shadows trailing him. This was safer—this role he knew. High Lord. Captor. Monster. Not... whatever had happened with her hands on his skin.

  “Stand here,” he instructed, gesturing to the space before him.

  Isara rose slowly, her expression guarded once more as she moved to where he indicated.

  “I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said, voice low.

  Isara gave a small nod. “Fine.”

  His hands lifted. Shadows rose. Each one would have to be precise—enough to bruise, to welt, to bleed just right.

  “It will hurt,” he added, almost absently. “Each one for only a moment.”

  He should’ve stopped there. Should’ve kept it clean. Clinical. But her gaze pulled more words out of him before he could catch them.

  “I have no desire to harm you,” he said, softer now. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Isara’s eyes widened a fraction. She searched his face, and whatever she saw there made something inside her shift.

  “I believe you.”

  Everything inside Ashterion froze. The shadows stilled. The magic halted. His thoughts, every ancient, blood-slicked one—ceased.

  She believed him.

  He stared at her like she’d spoken in a language no one had dared use on him in centuries.

  Three words.

  And his entire world tilted.

  63

  The cell door slammed shut behind me, the iron lock clicking into place with a finality that settled deep in my bones.

  The guards didn’t say anything. Just shoved me forward with the same practiced disinterest they used for all of us.

  Good.

  It made it easier to lie.

  I staggered into the cell, every muscle already bracing for what came next. Darian shot to his feet first, his expression contorting—relief, then fury, then something tight and horrified.

  “Gods, Isara⁠—”

  “I’m fine,” I said too fast, too sharp.

  I wasn’t fine. But that’s what I had to be. Because if I faltered, if I showed even a fraction of what had actually passed between me and Ashterion, they’d see it. They’d ask. And I wouldn’t know how to answer.

  Brynelle stood next, pale beneath bruised skin. Varyth hadn’t moved from where he lay, but his eyes were open, watching. Always watching.

  I dropped to my knees near the corner, the cold stone bit against my legs.

  “Did he do—” Brynelle didn’t finish the question. Didn’t have to.

  I nodded once. “Yes.”

  The word was acid on my tongue.

  Darian’s hands curled into fists. “He’ll pay for this.”

  “No,” I said quietly, head bowed, hair falling forward to hide my face. “Don’t.”

  “Isara—”

  “He didn’t get what he wanted,” I lied. “I didn’t give him that.”

  Varyth stood. “What did he ask you?”

  My throat tightened. I forced myself to meet his eyes.

  “He wanted me to break.” I held his gaze, let him see the defiance I knew he expected. “I didn’t.”

  Another lie. A prettier one.

  Because part of me had broken. The moment I’d agreed to lie to Varyth, something had cracked that I wasn’t sure I could fix.

  Varyth’s hands braced against the wall, muscles trembling with effort. His breath came shallow but the look in his eyes had turned to frozen starlight. That terrifying, breathless calm that meant the storm had already arrived.

  “I’ll kill him.”

  I looked up, heart hammering, throat dry. “Varyth⁠—”

  “I’ll tear him apart,” he said again, louder now, voice raw with fury. “I don’t care what power he holds. I don’t care if the gods themselves put him on that throne. I will make him choke on every drop of blood he spilled.” His hands slammed against the stone wall, hard enough to echo.

  For a moment I wanted to let him believe it. Wanted to be the version of myself they all expected, the one who had been tortured and survived. The one who deserved this kind of rage.

  But watching the fury blaze through him, watching what he would do for me, made the lie feel like a fresh wound.

  “Varyth,” I said again, quieter this time. “Please.”

  His head whipped toward me. “He harmed you.”

  I let the silence confirm it.

  Fenric hovered nearby, close but not quite touching. His presence warm, steady. As though he wanted to reach for me but didn’t know if he should. Didn’t know if it would hurt me more. The grief in his expression was soft and gutting.

  Lincatheron, by contrast, stood stiff and seething near the wall, arms folded, wings twitching in minute bursts of tension. He hadn’t said a word since I returned—but his silence was loud. A furnace of rage simmered just beneath the surface. I knew that look. He was counting breaths. Calculating casualties. He wouldn’t speak until he could control it.

  “He dies for this,” Varyth snarled, shaking with rage. “I will end him myself. With my hands. Slowly.”

  I swallowed. My fingers dug into the stone at my sides. “Stop.”

  “I should’ve torn his throat out the moment he looked at you. The moment he spoke your name.”

  “You couldn’t,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “They had you in chains, same as me.”

  He flinched. I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t break here. Couldn’t let the mask slip. Not yet. Not when this might be our only chance at survival.

  “I’m back now,” I said. “That’s what matters.”

  Varyth crossed the cell in two steps and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against him like if he pressed hard enough, he could keep all my pieces from coming undone.

  His embrace was warmth and fury, the tremble in his chest giving away how tightly he was holding it in. I felt the pulse of his magic beneath his skin, erratic, barely contained by the collar.

  “I should have protected you,” he whispered into my hair.

  I didn’t deserve his guilt. I’d lied to him. I was still lying, right now, in his arms.

  And worse—worse—a part of me didn’t even regret it.

  Because if Varyth knew the truth… if he knew I’d touched the monster, tended him… if he knew I’d looked Ashterion in the eye and told him I believed he meant me no harm.

  My stomach twisted.

  Why had I said that?

  Why had I looked into the face of the Shadow Lord, the creature whispered about in blood-soaked corners of fae history, and thought—maybe?

  Maybe he wasn’t what they said.

  It had been a moment. A flicker. But I’d meant it. I had looked at his wound, at the way his breath caught when I touched him, at the crack in his mask, and I had believed he wouldn’t harm me.

  I was a fool.

  Varyth’s arms tightened around me. “You’re safe now,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

  I wanted to scream that I didn’t even know what safe meant anymore. That I didn’t know where the lines were—between mercy and manipulation, between pity and power, between the person I was and the thing I was becoming to survive this.

  But I just nodded against his shoulder. Stood in his arms and tried to breathe through the weight of the lie on my chest.

  I spied Cindrissian over Varyth’s shoulder, silent and still, tucked in the shadows like he always was. But now he stepped closer, his gaze never leaving mine.

  “Ashterion did that?” he asked.

  I looked up, and caught it. Something in his tone. Something that wasn’t surprise. Not really.

  He knew.

  My breath hitched, shallow in my throat, and I didn’t answer. I just looked at him—pleading, silent.

  Please don’t.

  Cindrissian studied me for a long moment. Then, almost like an afterthought, he asked, “Does it make it on your list?”

  I hesitated for only a breath. “No.”

  He nodded, and stepped back, leaning against the wall once more.

  The others glanced between us, watching the exchange with quiet puzzlement. But neither of us offered explanation.

  I let myself exhale.

  Because whatever Cindrissian had seen, whatever he suspected… he wasn’t going to expose it.

  The others were curled in uneasy sleep against the stone walls, exhaustion and pain dragging them under despite the ever-present tension that clung to us.

  Except for Darian and me. We sat side by side against one of the walls, watching the others breathe.

  “You okay?” Darian’s voice broke the fragile quiet.

  I let the air in my lungs go and hoped the ache would go with it. “No.”

  Darian didn’t push. He sat there, his warmth a grounding thing against the cold.

  I hesitated before speaking again, fingers curling around my knees. “I… accidentally told him about Mireth and Eryx.”

  Wordlessly, Darian reached out and squeezed my hand. Warm. Solid. A quiet, simple anchor. We sat there, breaths steadying in the silence, the weight of our lives pressing against our shoulders.

  Darian’s hoarse whisper broke the quiet. “As a babe, he used to wake me up at dawn, you know.”

  I blinked. My mind sluggish with exhaustion, with too many emotions fraying at the edges. “Fionn?”

  Darian let out a tired, rasping chuckle. “Yep. Every gods-damn morning.”

  I rested my head against the wall, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. “Mireth was the same,” I murmured. “Eryx though…” A small, aching smile pulled at my lips. “He’d sleep until noon if I let him.”

  Darian chuckled, the sound rough and worn. “Smart kid.”

  “The smartest.”

  I let myself think about them. Really think about them. And it threatened to rip me apart. Mireth and Eryx. Wondering where I was. Why I hadn’t come back.

  I released a slow, shaky breath. “Mireth had the fiercest little glare.”

  I could almost see it now. Her arms crossed, brow furrowed, fists planted on tiny hips.

  “You mean she has.”

  I stilled. He was right. Maybe we weren’t getting out of here alive, but I knew they’d be kept safe.

  I swallowed. “She has the fiercest glare.”

  Darian nodded once, firm despite the weakness in his body.

  He leaned his head back. “Eilrys likes to say Fionn and I will run her into an early grave.” His lips twitched, his voice fracturing. “Joke’s on her, I guess.”

  “We’re never holding them again, are we?” The words broke from me before I could shove them back down.

  Darian didn’t answer right away. He sat there, breathing, staring at the darkened ceiling as if searching for answers in the carved stone.

  A soft tremor ran through him. “No. I don’t think so.” The answer sounded like it came from the same dark place as my own.

  There wasn’t anything either of us could say. Nothing that would fill the hole that had been ripped in each of our chests. I did the only thing I could. I leaned in without thinking, cheek against his shoulder, the fabric of his shirt scratchy with dried blood and salt.

  “Eilrys will look after them.” Darian exhaled, slow and steady. “She’ll raise them like they’re her own.”