“Take her to her room and send her some food. We need her well-fed for the harnessing. And take him to the dungeon.”
I heard their footsteps disappearing.
The guards that had been holding me upright throughout the exchange grunted under my full weight and steered me towards the cells in the basement.
* * *
Drip, drip, drip. The monotone sound pierced through the fog clouding my brain.
Consciousness returned slowly and with it, the pain.
I tried to open my eyes. One responded, the other remained swollen shut.
It came back in fragments, then all at once.
The battle.
The Leviathan.
Maelis.
Her face.
Her voice.
The look in her eyes like I was nothing more than a task already completed.
The betrayal struck harder than any blade.
I shut my eyes again and let the darkness take me.
Oblivion was preferable.
Because what came before it, that certainty that everything I loved had been a lie, was far worse. Perhaps this was what I deserved. For thinking I could outwit the Fates. For reaching for something that was never mine to begin with.
* **
Hours had passed.
Or days. I couldn’t be sure anymore.
There were no windows, no voices, no footsteps, just the occasional tray of food appearing beside me, as if by magic.
No one spoke to me. No one looked me in the eye.
The collar around my neck was heavy, too tight. It didn’t choke me outright, but it made every breath feel earned. I’d hoped, once or twice, that it might knock me unconscious. It didn’t. I remained awake, aware of every single emotion. That was the worst part.
I didn’t want to think.
Didn’t want to sit here, alone with the knowledge that I had doomed us all, because I couldn’t keep my distance from her.
From Maelis.
From the moment I saw her, something in me shifted. I used to tell myself it was just her beauty. That would’ve been easier to live with, easier to dismiss.
But it wasn’t that.
It was the way she smiled. The way she defied every rule, every limitation, with a fire I couldn’t match but desperately wanted near. The way she fought for the people she loved, with everything she had.
