Something hard and smooth knocked against his bound hands, and he opened his fingers as best as he could to accept the flagon. Then Tocco, Odos/Bur-something, and Melody/Hil-something hopped back onto the front of the cart, and they were on their way.
The princess’s knee bumped him as they rumbled down the dirt road, and her soft fingers brushed his when she took back the water and quickly thrust something else into his hands.
“Bread.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
“Are you going to tell us your name?”
“Are you going to admit yours?”
She didn’t ask him another question for the rest of the ride.
StrongarmshauledIsahndown what felt like an endless series of stairs with at least two landings as they dragged him deep underground.
The air cooled, taking on the faint mineral smell of stone cellars with a hint of herbs and olive oil. It smelled like wealth.
A door groaned open on old hinges.
“In,” Tocco commanded, pushing him forward before ripping off Isahn’s blindfold.
He blinked at his new accommodations. It was a proper cell with well-maintained stone walls and a cot with a thin mattress. A chamber pot greeted him from the far corner.
With his long locs swaying, Tocco reached down to grab a shackle connected to a long chain. Itclangedwhen he yanked it, testing the bolt in the wall. Apparently satisfied, he cuffed Isahn’s ankle.
“Where am I?” Isahn asked.
“Somewhere safe,” Odos replied, not unkindly.
“For you or for me?”
Odos snorted, and the guards exchanged a glance but didn’t answer. The door closed with a heavythunk,a flicker of distant light visible through the small iron-barred window. The lock scraped into place.
Alone, Isahn tested the shackle. With enough chain to reach the cot and the pot, he couldn’t get to the far side of the room without it pulling taut.
Fuck. He should’ve picked his shackles back in Sorhaven and fled.
Settling back onto the lumpy bed, he worked through what he knew.
Rumor painted the Blackmail King’s daughter as cruel, power-hungry, her father’s willing apprentice in tyranny. His abduction and their torture attempts all tracked with what he’d heard about the Kastrumanos family at Selwas’s House of Lords... except... the guards had been surprisingly gentle, even at their worst, and seemed to be softening more. They’d let him out to piss, given him water and bread, and this cell was significantly nicer than that basement. If George was truly her father’s daughter, wouldn’t she have left him to rot?
He couldn’t trust them. This could be a strategy to lull him into compliance before the real torture began.
The traitorous part of his brain countered:Or maybe she’s different. Maybe she’s nice.
He’d find out soon enough.
Eventually, bored of the steadydrip, drip, dripof water from somewhere down the corridor, Isahn sent his magic out scouting. There was a single round vent hole in the corner of the ceiling. He snaked a thin stream of liquid magic through the pipe until he found what he was looking for: conversation.
“I still can’t believe it worked out for you two,” George rasped, her tone warm. “I’m so happy.”
“You’ll get out too,” a woman replied, sounding tired but kind.
“I don’t plan to get out. I plan to take over.”
Isahn’s mouth dropped open, and he sat up straighter.
An unfamiliar man replied, “As you should.”
