“These will scar,” he says at last, applying a salve that burns sharp before settling into numbing cold. “Consider them a lesson. A reminder of your foolishness.”
I try to shape a reply, but the words dissolve before they reach my lips. Darkness presses in again, heavy and absolute.
Chapter 12
When consciousness returns, it comes in pieces. First, sensation: a dull throb across my back. I'm lying on my stomach on something soft. A mattress, perhaps. Fabric brushes against my cheek—clean linen. Then smell: herbs, leather, metal polish. Then noise: something like grinding metal, and a distant, guttural rumbling that sounds like it emanates from some primal beast.
I push myself upright in a cold sweat—or at least I try to. Pain sears across my back at the abrupt movement, like something pulling at healing flesh. The events that passed before I lost consciousness rush back to me in a terrifying, unwanted flood, then settle on me like a dead weight. None of it was a nightmare. It was all real, and I am still a prisoner of the Ironhold, now locked in the room of a gladiator who owns my life.
I peel back the sheet which still covers part of my body with trembling hands, taking stock of myself. My tunic is completely gone. In its place are bandages wrapped around my torso.Who took off my top? Who bound me in these?
I feel sick and try to move again, more slowly this time, shifting my legs off the single bed and feeling the touch of cold stone beneath my bare feet. I push myself up to stand and feel thesheer weakness of my limbs. I don't trust my legs to hold my weight. For how long have I been unconscious? My parched mouth makes itself known and I scan the chamber desperately for a pitcher of water. One stands on a small service table on the opposite side of the chamber. I cautiously leave the safety of the bed frame and stagger over to it, quickly catching the support of the nearby wall with one hand.
That's when I notice it: something peculiar about the wall. Something I realize now how much I’ve missed. A window, just a small, narrow thing, but a window nonetheless and a glimpse into the world beyond these walls.
Judging by the muted light, it’s either early morning or evening, and this room must be high up, because the view stretches for miles. I see the dry scrublands that we crossed in our convoy here, and beyond that, a haze of dark gray and the occasional flickering of orange. The Lower Wards, which naturally circle the empire’s gleaming capital like a puddle of mud, where all the dirt and dust scrubbed from the glamorous Crown City flows to and accumulates—until it is time to purge it. A convenient location for the empire’s game fuel, even if it isn't pretty to the eye.
The lock clicks, and I twist as the door swings open. Zeriel fills the threshold a heartbeat later, a brown-wrapped bundle in one hand, a ring of keys in the other. His dark brown eyes catch on me across the room, momentary surprise flashing before his face hardens. His clothes are stained with blood, his skin damp as though from the training yards. Perhaps it is evening, then.
“What are you doing?” His voice cuts, low and sharp, as he slams the door shut behind him.
I bristle at his accusatory tone, achingly aware of how fragile I am before him now.
“What does it look like?” The words scrape from my throat in a hoarse croak.
He drops the bundle onto the table with a heavy thud. “Sit,” he says.
“I’m not used to taking orders from strangers,” I shoot back. My legs tremble with exhaustion, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me collapse.
His gaze flicks over me incredulously. “Do you want to undo everything the healer just did for you?”
That catches me off guard. A healer. Someone has been here, tending my wounds. They must have been the one who stripped my shirt. My eyes dart toward the bed, wavering for a moment, but then my thirst wins out. I lunge toward the water jug instead.
Mistake.
Pain flares white-hot through my back as my knees buckle. I brace for stone, but it never comes. A fighter always anticipates movement. Zeriel’s hands clamp around my arms, strong as forged steel, arresting my fall. The jolt still rips a groan from me.
“Stop fighting me,” he mutters, hauling me bodily across the room and forcing me down onto the bed. He strides back, pours water into a cup, and returns. He presses it to my lips, his eyes daring me to defy him. Pride falters against thirst. I drink greedily, cool liquid spilling down my chin.
“Slow,” he warns, voice edged with command. “Or you’ll make yourself sick.”
When I finish, he sets the cup aside and unwraps the brown bundle, producing a metal container. The lid hisses faintly as he opens it, steam curling into the air. He pours the contents—thin soup—into another cup and presses that toward me. I swallow a few mouthfuls of the salty broth before grimacing and pulling back. “What is that?”
“Food,” he snaps. “Be grateful you’re getting any.”
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“Two days.” He rummages through a cupboard. “You developed a fever. The wounds were infected.”
I draw a breath, steadying the rasp in my throat. “Why did you claim me?”
His shoulders tense, just slightly—a tightening only someonewatching closely would notice. For a moment, silence stretches, taut as wire.
Then, at last, he turns.
His gaze locks on mine—sharp, assessing. Somehow, the silence is worse than any reply.
“Well?” I press, my voice brittle.
