Will was painfully acquainted with the palace prison cells. He’d tortured enough poor souls within them to recognize exactly where he was when he rose to consciousness—and to know there was no chance of an escape, at least not without aid.
He leaned his head back against the rough stone wall, his shackles clanking with the movement. There was a sort of poetic justice in this, he supposed. He had committed enough sins within these very walls that it was only fitting that his own demise should happen here as well.
The thought did nothing to cool his ire.
He shifted, wedging his body further into the corner of the room. They’d put Aya in a cell next to him, and though both were entirely enclosed, a small hole in the wall made it so that they could speak to one another.
It was through that hole he’d learned of their fate. And it was through that hole that he was trying, desperately, to reason with her.
“You could easily use your power to break us free from here,” he muttered, his voice low so the patrolling guards would not hear. “Hells, Aya, you could have killed Hyacinth where she stood.”
He wasn’t angry at her, but his tone was sharp regardless, his fury at the realm at large unable to go unheard.
“I could have,” she agreed quietly. “And then I would also have to kill every guard, Dyminara or otherwise, that stood in our path.”
And they would deserve it,Will thought viciously. But he bit back the words. Aya wasn’t finished.
“And then what?” she asked. “We address the people as murderers of their queen and those who vowed to protect them?”
“Wevowed to protect them,” Will seethed.
They didn’t deserve her. None of them deserved her.
“Either way,” Aya breathed, “I end up being exactly what they feared.”
Will shoved his head back against the rock, the pain no match for what was aching in his chest.
The distant memory of an old argument on a terrace of Trahir rose to mind: him, urging Aya to kill anyone in her path if it meant she’d live to see another day. He still wanted her to do it. Damn these people to the lowest layers of the hells.
They didn’t deserve her.
“Aya…”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “No matter what I do, I’m painted as the villain. And I’m…” Her words cracked, and she paused for a moment. “I am exhausted.”
Grief hollowed him out as he caught the wetness in her voice. She couldn’t give up now. Not after all they’d been through.
Fight with me. Fight with me, dammit.
And yet…
He couldn’t bring himself to make that plea of her. Not when she’d carried the weight of this fight for far too long.
“So what do we do now?” he asked instead.
Aya was silent for so long, he wondered if she had answers to give. He had plenty, but…he did not know how to ask her to continue to bear this burden. Not when he could hear the agony in her voice.
“Hyacinth will bring us before a crowd,” Aya finally said heavily. “I can make my case then.”
A muscle feathered in Will’s jaw as he swallowed down a thousand retorts. Executions like this were typically held in front of nobility and upper merchants, but not for the purpose of a fair trial. They were a spectacle for the rich. It was too much of a risk to trust them to hear reason. Not when they were so fearful. Not when they were so selfish.
We should fight.
But Aya sniffed, and Will’s chest tightened, and when she spoke again, her voice was thick. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” he vowed.
“Will you just…be here with me?”
