Annoyance flits across Jessina’s face, and she narrows her eyes at me. “Yes, how did you manage that?”
Since I’m not about to blow Nysara’s cover and share how she glamoured us to look like the Icehearts so that we could get Lavendera out of the Ice Palace, I just continue smirking up at her in silence. Pain still pulses through my thigh and shoulder from the stab wounds, but I try not to let anything show on my face.
“That won’t be an issue,” Bane says. He sweeps his gaze over me, Isera, Orion, and Grey. “You four might be tough. But little Hana here…” He smirks as he shifts his black eyes to her cowering form. “We will have her broken and obedient in no time.”
By the wall, Hana tightens her arms around her knees and stares back at him with those wide eyes of hers. Short and skinny, and with that expression on her face, she looks like a child.
“So, you,” Bane locks eyes with Grey, “are going to open a portal to where the Gold Clan’s pocket reality really is. Then, she is going to open it. And then you three,” he looks to me, Orion, and Isera again, “are going to go in there, put the dragon steel bracelet on their clan leader, and then come back out with that person.”
“Or what?” I spit back at him.
“Oh, it’s very simple,” Jessina picks up. “If you don’t, we will kill all three of you and then have little Hana here destroy the pocket reality. Then we will kill the Gold Clan as well. If they don’t join us, they die.”
“They have shield magic.”
“Fine. If they don’t join us,youwill die. That should be motivation enough for you.”
My mind churns as I turn their words over while also sorting through half formed plans and memories and snippets of information. Without access to our magic, putting up any sort of fight is going to be difficult. But they haven’t won yet.
We might still be able to use this to our advantage.
So for now, I lower my chin as if in defeat and speak the words they’re waiting for.
“Fine, we’ll do what you want.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s hard to tell how much time has passed. Both because we’re always kept in dungeons or cells or locked rooms with no windows. But also because they keep moving us from place to place frequently.
Every time Hana comes back from one of her sessions with them, they take off Grey’s collar and force him to open a portal to another location. Probably so that Hana, who is the only one of us who ever sees the outside of a cell, won’t be able to tell us where we are when she gets back.
And every time she gets back, she looks worse. I know that they are making her research how to open the Gold Clan’s pocket reality. Since the pocket reality was created by someone else, it’s apparently not as easy as just flicking her wrist and making it open. And I also know that they are torturing her. Extensively. They apparently meant it when they said that they plan to break Hana and make her become their new tool who can use the dragon steel. So far, she has managed to hold out. But she is looking worse and worse every time the Icehearts dump her back in our cell.
Though I suppose the rest of us aren’t doing all that well either.
Isera spends most of her time hyperventilating with her head between her knees. Since she is intensely claustrophobic, at least in tight spaces where she can’t see outside, every minute in these windowless cells is pure torture for her.
Orion isn’t much better. He just sits with his back to a wall, staring out at nothing with his one good eye and continuously tapping his fingers against his leg in an incredibly stressful rhythm. I don’t blame him. He’s probably trying to estimate how much time has passed and how much remains until his wounds are no longer fresh enough for Haldia to heal.
The only person who isn’t having a mental breakdown is Grey. Apart from the times when the Icehearts force him to portal us to a different location, he simply leans quietly against the wall close to where Orion is. In fact, his turquoise and yellow eyes barely leave his king. So he is the only stable person in this room.
Because I am also suffering from a never-ending mental breakdown. But for an entirely different reason.
I slide my hands underneath my thighs where I’m sitting on the cold stone floor, hoping that no one could see how much they were shaking. But it’s useless. Because my entire body is trembling.
Grey slides his gaze to me, a look of concern on his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I reply with as much conviction as I can muster. “I’m just cold because my body is using up all of my energy to heal the stab wounds.”
Understanding dawns on his face, and he gives me a nod before shifting his gaze back to Orion.
I stifle a breath of relief.He bought it.
It’s partly true, anyway. My body is using a lot of energy while trying to heal the wounds that Jessina inflicted on me yesterday.Or the day before. Or however long has passed since they took us captive.
But that is not the reason why I’m shaking. It’s not the reason why I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin and bang my head against the wall.
It’s because I still haven’t been able to use my magic.
