The door groaned open.
Ilys didn’t move. She remained on the floor of her cell, her back to the door, hands loosely clasped in her lap. The chains around her ankles dragged as she shifted, enough to signal that she was alert. She refused to look.
“I thought you might be more forthcoming after some rest.” The King’s voice was measured, composed, with just enough warmth to suggest civility.
Ilys nestled deeper into the freedom she carved out in her consciousness. Silence had teeth, and she had learned to wield them.
He stepped inside.“I don’t like the dungeons. Too bleak. But they have their uses.” A pause. “Where is the girl?”
Still, she didn’t answer, fixing her gaze on the far wall, studying a crack in the stone.
The King sighed, low and theatrical. “Come now. Where is Hanna?”
That name.
Ilys turned her head, just enough for him to see her profile.
“Did it ever bother you?” she asked, her voice hoarse from disuse. “That even after all your titles, your sermons, your scriptures…your life hinges on a terrified child?”
The King's smile did not falter, but it tightened. Just a hair.
“She is more than a child. She is a symbol. A legacy. She is mine.”
Ilys rose to meet him, the pull of the chains whispering against the floor. “No,” she protested. “That’s the one thing she never was.”
His eyes narrowed.“I offered you sanctity,” he said, voice harder now. “Purpose. I made you divine, Ilys. And this is how you repay me? By hiding the girl? By dragging your broken body through my halls like a martyr who never earned the cross?”
Ilys took a step toward the bars, her smile faint but sharp. “You never made me divine. You made me useful.”
The mask cracked.
He stepped closer, close enough that she could see the tremor in his hands, the thread of rage held barely in check.
“You do not get to bait me,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “You think yourself clever. Brave. But you have never known true suffering, Ilys. You’ve danced at its edges, yes. But I can drag you into the center of it.”
She leaned in, her breath ghosting the space between the bars.
“Then do it,” she whispered. “Break me, if that’s all you know how to do. But if you were half the prophet you pretend to be, you wouldn’t need to ask me where she is.”
The King stared at her, fury boiling just beneath the skin of his composure. Then, quietly, he reached through the bars and placed a single hand against her throat, not tight, not yet, but threatening in its ease.
“I built a kingdom from ash and obedience,” he proudly detailed. “Do you think I will hesitate to build a tomb beside it?”
She did not flinch.“Then dig.”
He released her abruptly, her touch burning. He stepped back, spine straight, expression cold once more.
“Enjoy the silence, Ilys,” he said, already turning away. “In time, even your defiance will wither.”
The door slammed shut behind him and the lock slid home with the finality of a grave.
Chapter 45
The boots returned with purpose.
Four sets this time. Their rhythm echoed down the corridor, accompanied by the metallic rattle of chains and the low hiss of coals being stirred to life.
Ilys remained where she was, kneeling now, not by force, but because she had chosen not to stand. Her hands rested in her lap. Her head bowed, the long curtain of her dark hair veiling part of her face.
