“Your friend over here…” Altair said, nodding at Talon.
“Talon Strom,” Tal said, sticking his hand out for an introductory shake, which Altair ignored. Talon mouthednice to meet you tooand lowered his hand awkwardly.
“Talon,” Altair continued, “can secure us horses. I want to be in and out as quickly as possible, without drawing too much attention to us. Otherwise we’d never make it out of the city, festival or no.”
After that first night, the trio had met several times to hammer out details. How to get Altair in and through the castle without notice, how many horses to get, how to break Iyana out of the cell, which gate to leave by… Emmeric only needed to let Iyana in on the plan, helping her to cling to any sort of hope she may still possess.
And so he’d ended up back down in the dungeons the first chance he could, having stopped by the apothecary first. The strange pain in his fingers hadn’t gone away yet, he’d told the woman there, and she’d happily supplied him with another numbing draught. Still shaken from his encounter with Zane, he hurried the rest of the way to Iyana’s cell.
Emmeric cursed when he arrived. Iyana was again lying naked on the cold stone floor, but this time her back was to him and the evidence of a flogging was apparent. A whip had flayed some areas of her back down to the muscle. Her breathing was ragged, labored. Emmeric didn’t care what Altair said,hewas going to get to Azazel first and pay everything back tenfold.
“Iyana,” he whispered.
Moaning, she pushed herself to her knees, moving stiffly to avoid hurting her back further. She gingerly placed his cloak over her from the front so her back was still open to the air. He was happy to see she still had the cloak, that they hadn’t confiscated it, and he hoped it provided her some small measure of comfort. But he saw the change in her immediately. Iyana’s face was sallow, skin pale, hair tangled into one big knot. Ribs were now visible. Her eyes, though. Herfuckinggorgeous caramel-colored eyes were dull, lacking all of her normal fire, her energy.
Emmeric knew she wouldn’t last much longer. And she was stubborn enough to die instead of giving Uther anything.
“Mouse,” he said, sadly.
“I hate that nickname,” she mumbled. The corner of his lip twitched up, thinking he could goad her into an argument. Help her back from the brink.
“Is it because you hate mice, or because it was me who gave you the nickname?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, shoulders slumping forward. His heart sank—there’d be no enticing her into an argument.
Speaking lowly so only Iyana heard him, he said, “Two days, Mouse. That’s all. Two more days. Your…boyfriend is here.” The word tasted like ash in his mouth. But a small spark returned to her at the mention of Altair.
“He’s here?” she whispered.
Emmeric nodded. “Help is coming. Two days.” He handed the draught to her through the bars.
“How do I know I can trust you? That he’s really here, and you’re not working with Azazel, telling me what I want to hear, so I give information?”
“Why would I do that when it would damn me as well?” he asked.
She shrugged, then winced. Taking the cork out of the vial, she took a small sip. She’d been rationing it, and Emmeric felt terrible he hadn’t come back sooner with more. There was no other way to help her at the moment. A raw desperation to prove he cared filled his body, but he didn’t know how to express it. Instead, he looked upon her with pity as she lay herself down carefully and slept.
Emmeric closed his eyes, too. “Two days, Mouse,” he whispered. Who was he trying to comfort—Iyana, or himself?
Chapter 24
Iyana
Drip…drip…drip.
Everything was easier if she separated her mind from her body. She would have thought she’d hallucinated Emmeric’s last visit—gods knew she’d had plenty of those, plus strange dreams—except she now had more of the numbing draught. It helped to quiet the worst of the pain, but her body still ached. And she couldn’t trust Emmeric’s story of Altair being here. She wouldn’t let herself hope too much, because that would only lead to disappointment. Altair had let her down before. She would no longer rely on him to save her.
It may have been two days since Emmeric visited, but she had no way of knowing. They fed her so infrequently, not that she ate what they did give her, and she hadn’t seen sunlight in what felt like a year, although it might have only been a few hours. Azazel’s sessions were worsening, becoming more frantic. Typically, he played with his food before eating, but the past couple of times he’d been desperate for answers. Wounds in various stages of healing testified to the acceleration of his methods.
Emmeric had told her he hoped she was a good actress. The truth was, she didn’t need to act. While the draught lessened the severe pain, she still felt every bite of the whip, the pressure of the knives, the heat of the fire.
Drip…drip…drip.
She wrapped herself tightly in the cloak that still smelled faintly of lemons, helping to ground her, keep her sane. How was she to truly know if the cloak even existed? Had Emmeric been here at all? Maybe she was lying naked in her cell, sniffing something that wasn’t real. It was good Imo and her parents weren’t hereto see her this way. It was bad enough that Emmeric had seen her in such a state, if he even had. She’d had dreams of him. Confusing ones. Dreams where Emmeric wrapped her in his arms, promised she’d be safe, and she believed him. The dreams were peaceful. Altair had appeared in her dreams also, sweeping her off her feet like the first day they met, and flying her away. She’d trail her fingers through the clouds, bursts of light following in their wake, the cool water and fresh air healing her wounds. They would fly into the stars, he’d pull her close, and they’d stay there forever, content, happy.
Her parents visited occasionally. When she saw her mother, it was like looking in a mirror—she couldn’t be much older than Iyana was. Smooth, golden skin, light brown eyes, the softest dark hair drifting through her fingers like silk. Her father was darker skinned with short curly hair, but eyes of an earthy green. She would’ve loved to have inherited her father’s eyes. The two of them always smiled at her, her mother stroking her hair, her father holding her hand. In temporary bouts of lucidity, Iyana recognized that her parents weren’t actually there, but she wanted to live in the fantasy. Perhaps Altea had taken pity on her, sending her parents from the Everlands for brief visits.
Or her brain was clinging to sanity by its fingertips, scrambling at the cliff face for purchase, trying to grab anything to pull itself up. Early on, it had been food, but that rope had quickly slipped through her fingers. Her parents were like a tree branch growing fortuitously out the side of the cliff, its roots strong, able to withstand any storm. But the tree had been there for ages, the bark was brittle, and the longer Iyana held on, the creaking grew louder, and she knew the tree would eventually break under her weight.
