“And your mother?”
Was he acting nosy or making conversation? Gwenyth wasn’t certain. “She works with my father.”
“Do you have siblings?”
“No,” Gwenyth said with finality. The less she needed to keep straight, the better.
“Do you work in the bakery?”
“I work behind the counter.” Something about her words struck her as right.
A loud slam of a door had her starting.
“Interesting,” Martinos drawled. “We’re to have company.”
“Another prisoner?”
“Quiet,” Martinos snapped.
Gwenyth backed from the door, fighting her curiosity. Another door slammed, closer this time. Someonewascoming.
“I can give you half an hour and no longer,” a masculine voice spoke from outside Gwenyth’s cell. “I will wait outside the locked door.”
“Who is in that cell? I sense a presence.” A demanding feminine voice.
Someone used to issuing orders and expecting obedience.
“The human woman who married Leonidas,” the man said, sounding supremely uncomfortable.
The woman tittered. “Oh! What a fine jest. Let her out. I’ll speak to her too.”
“That is not a good idea,” the man said.
“Open her cell door,” the woman commanded. “I am paying you handsomely for this visit. A warning. I do not appreciate those who oppose me. I can handle my brother and a weak human. Open. The. Cell. Door.”
A key turned in her prison door. Another scraped in Martinos’s cell.
“Go,” the woman instructed, imperious and regal. “I will knock on the door once I am done. Leave the torch.”
The hairs at the back of her neck rose.Danger, it whispered in the air, and everything in Gwenyth stiffened. She didn’t want this meeting the woman was forcing on her.
“Open the door and come out where I can see you,” the woman demanded. “Both of you.”
The contempt in the woman’s tone had Gwenyth’s knees shaking. At least she was no longer cold. Instead, renewed terror flooded her with the urge to flee. She inhaled and repeated the action until she’d steadied herself. After one final inhalation, she opened the door and stepped from the cell.
The woman wore a brown cloak with a hood that covered her hair and screened most of her face. She set the torch in a holder on the wall, and the light illuminated a larger area. The woman pushed back the hood to reveal her long black hair, her golden eyes, and her wicked smirk full of cruel amusement.
“What are you doing here?” Martinos demanded the instant he stepped from his cell.
Gwenyth hadn’t imagined what Martinos might look like, but she saw he was tall and lean in his ragged clothes. A black beard covered most of his face, but his golden-brown eyes glittered with anger. His eyes were the identical size and shade of the woman’s. Gwenyth glanced back at the woman and her calm satisfaction. Her dispassionate demeanor.
“Brother, dear. Are you not pleased to see me?” she mocked.
Gwenyth shot Martinos a sharp glance but kept her mouth shut, not wanting to draw the woman’s attention.
Too late.
The woman observed her, interest and a hint of malice filling her expression.
