Wrath’s brows draw together. “You’re telling me that when Gilead pulled you over the wall, that was the first time you had ever left?”
I nod.
The silence between us is deafening. I regret revealing that about myself. Wrath will only see me as the weak and shelteredprincess who is too much of a liability to set loose. I grow restless under his scrutinizing gaze, feeling utterly inferior.
“You think less of me because of it?” I speak, unable to take the quiet much longer.
“I think more of you.”
I falter at his words. My lips part to speak, but nothing comes. The King of Wrath has no reason to be kind to me. He’s playing some twisted game. This is a trick to gain my trust or get me to do a favor for him in return. I can sense it.
“You don’t mean that.” I step away, desperate to escape the sensation of his magic.
“I do,” he replies firmly. “You can go wherever you like, Raelys. You are not bound to these walls.”
“Why would you say that?” I push open the door and exit into the hallway. I don’t believe his words. “When I am your prisoner.”
My mind reels at the thought that someone handed me freedom so easily, as if it meant nothing. I’ve fought for it for so long, desperate for the tiniest sliver of independence, and now it’s been given to me by the man I loathe. It doesn’t make sense. None of this does. I should be planning my escape from the North, not cozying up to the king. What am I thinking? His game is obvious. Wrath wants me to let some information slip—something he can use against the South.
Wrath follows me. “If you were a prisoner, you’d be chained in the dungeon,” he challenges. “It’s fifteen days to Crossgate. Twenty to Grimhold Crossing. If you can manage to open the keystone arch and travel back through the mountains, I’d be impressed.” Wrath rattles off the travel routes with ease. “Therefore, you wandering around the town doesn’t worry me.”
“Because I am trapped here,” I reply bitterly, hating this feeling of always being a tool to control.
“You came on your own volition, Raelys,” Wrath reminds me. It wasn’t a real choice, though. I would have never made it home from Avelisar by myself. He knew that and leveraged it against me.
“I had no other choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he counters. “Like the choice you made to enter that room.”
“I got lost on my way back.” I huff in annoyance.
“Are you implying my castle is more grandiose than yours back home?” he taunts.
“No.” I scoff. “It is like the magic changes the corridors as I walk.” I turn my head and speak to the walls directly, gesturing to them as if they can hear me.
“It does no such thing.”
“Then maybe I require a map to get around,” I comment under my breath before changing the subject. “If it isn’t magic in the castle, what is it?”
He hummed. “It’s magic, but not all of it. It’s a shell of what it once was, an ember slowly burning out.”
Confusion washes over me. “Your magic is dying off?”
“It’s a curse that limits us from accessing our full powers,” he explains.
“How do you know it’s a curse?”
“You passed your room six doors ago,” Wrath points out, ignoring my question entirely.
Halting my steps, I turn and look behind me. Sure enough, my room is down the hall. I glance back at the king, a dozen questions still lingering on my lips. I don’t ask them.
Instead, I simply reply, “Goodnight.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You even knowwhat kinda place this is, girl?” A burly man stands before me, his forearms thick as tree trunks, wiping the surface of the bartop. He has thick, curly reddish-brown hair and a scraggly beard. The man’s dark brown eyes hold a serious gaze that sends a bolt of nervousness down my spine.
Behind the man are several stacked wooden barrels, each with a spigot protruding from the wood. They bear a worn and slightly rustic appearance. Some of them leak onto the floor, causing my boots to stick.
