My stomach twisted at her words. Beside me, Cindrissian remained motionless, but the tension radiating off him was a storm gathering at the horizon.
Xyliria’s eyes gleamed as she stepped closer to him. “Hurt her, and you’ll all receive food and water,” she said lightly.
The silence that followed made even breathing feel like defiance.
Cindrissian didn’t so much as blink before responding. “No.”
Xyliria let out a dramatic sigh, shaking her head. “I thought you might say that.”
A sound echoed through the chamber, a strained, uneven breath. A gasp. A choked-off noise that clawed down my spine.
Xyliria flicked her wrist and the guards stepped forward, dragging someone into the torchlight.
Fenric.
His dark hair was damp with sweat, matted with dirt and blood. His wrists were bound, his breathing laboured, but he was conscious. He didn’t struggle, didn’t speak, just sagged between the guards, his weight supported by their hold.
A pressure caved in my chest. It took me a second to realise I wasn’t breathing.
Beside me, Cindrissian went completely still.
A predator assessing its options.
“If you refuse,” her voice was almost gentle, “I’ll execute him. Right here. Right now. In front of you.”
Cindrissian didn’t react, but the air held its breath, like the moment before a storm, when everything stills before the first bolt of lightning strikes.
Xyliria watched him, savouring the moment, waiting for his response. As though she already knew what it would be.
Ashterion shifted on his throne, his fingers tapping once against the carved armrest. There was a hesitance in the way he spoke, someone testing the boundaries of his own authority. “Xyliria?—”
She didn’t even let him finish.
With a single graceful flick of her hand, she cut him off, not even bothering to look at him as she spoke. “Don’t waste your breath, husband.” The title was a sneer. “You’ve already proven you’re far too soft for these matters.”
Ashterion went rigid, but he said nothing else. He didn’t argue. Didn’t challenge her. Didn’t even look at her.
I expected anger, expected his power to crack the air, but instead, his head lowered, his fingers curling into the carved wood at his sides. It was so quick, so subtle, but it was a flinch all the same.
A High Lordflinching. Cold unease crawled through me.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Cindrissian’s focus snapped to Ashterion, his expression neutral, but for the briefest second a muscle in his jaw twitched. His hands fisted at his sides.
I didn’t know if it was anger, recognition, or disgust. It was gone too fast to decipher.
Xyliria, oblivious or unconcerned, turned back to Cindrissian. “What will it be, Cindrissian?”
A full second passed. Then another.
I choked on my own breath, unable to force it down as I waited. Waited for words I didn’t want to hear.
Finally, he exhaled, tight and short. “I’ll do it.”
“It’s fine,” I said before he could even look at me. “We need this. Just get it over with.”
Survival. That was all that mattered now.
I braced myself, preparing for the inevitable. Cindrissian had never shied away from cruelty. If anything, I figured it was the control that would bother him, the fact that he was being forced rather than choosing it himself. But when our eyes finally met, I saw something else.
