I hadn’t even steadied myself before I saw him.
Ashterion sat casually at the head of a long, polished table.
A snarl ripped from my throat, vicious and unrestrained, my teeth bared, my muscles tense and prepared to strike.
Ashterion watched me unfazed.
And I hated him for it. Hated the way he sat there, draped in the calm he wore as armour. As though he wasn’t the reason Istood here, bruised and beaten, dragged from a cell that should never have been mine.
I lunged. Or I tried to.
The chains around my wrists yanked me back before I could so much as reach him, the harsh bite of metal digging into my skin, sending a jolt of pain through my arms.
“You bastard,” I spat. “You fucking bastard.”
Silence stretched between us.
And then, finally, he spoke. “I see your time in the dungeon has not dulled your fire.”
I nearly snarled again. He had no right to sit there, so composed, so unaffected, while I stood before him like this—filthy, battered, every inch of me aching.
“Go to hell,” I rasped.
His midnight-blue gaze lingered on me. Then he leaned back, responding with the ease of someone who’d heard it all before. “I’m already there, dear fireling,” he said, “and it seems you are too.”
“What do you want?” I demanded. My entire body trembled with the effort not to launch at him. “Another show? Sorry, I don’t have any more dragons for you to murder.”
Ashterion didn’t react to my venom. He gestured to the chair nearest him, his movements fluid and controlled. “Sit.”
I didn’t move.
“Sit,” he repeated, and this time there was a hint of the power that lurked beneath his composed exterior.
“Why?” I finally managed. “Why bring me here? Is your wife watching somewhere?”
A shadow crossed Ashterion’s face at the mention of Xyliria, before his expression smoothed back to that infuriating calm.
“My wife is currently occupied elsewhere.” The tension in his tone held like a leash. “This conversation is between us.”
I stared at him, unmoving, suspicion winding through me.
“I said sit,” Ashterion repeated, his voice deceptively soft. “Unless you prefer to continue this conversation on your knees.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to silence my next retort. My legs moved involuntarily. Traitors. The scrape of the chains against the floor drowned out my thunderous heartbeat.
“Food,” Ashterion said, gesturing his hand through the air. A bowl of stew, and a glass of cold water materialised in front of me.
I eyed the steaming bowl of stew warily, the rich scent of seasoned meat and vegetables curling in the air. My body screamed for sustenance, yet my mind remained sharp, distrust woven into my bones.
Ashterion sighed, a sound that was almost exasperated. “I’d hardly go to all this trouble just to poison your food.”
My fingers curled around the edge of the chair, the bite of the metal cuffs against my wrists grounding me in my suspicion.
“You’ll forgive me,” I said flatly, “if I don’t put blind trust in the male responsible for putting me in a fucking cell.”
His gaze shimmered with something I couldn’t understand, but he merely leaned forward, resting one arm against the table. “If I wanted you dead, you would be.”
“Comforting.”
