MY HEAD THROBBED, and I could feel the blood running down the side of my face and dripping from my chin as Nismera’s guards dragged me down the twisted stone steps. My legs scraped along the stone, but the pain suffusing the rest of my body far outweighed the burn of bruised knees.
I’d just sighed when I’d awakened to find the all too familiar collar around my throat and the chains clamped tightly around my wrists, reminding me that no matter how much power I had, it could be bound. While the collar by itself wasn’t a threat, as Samkiel and I had proven on Milani’s ship, the cursed black chains changed everything. She’d beaten me until I was unconscious, waited until I woke, and then beat me some more. Over and over, we’d repeated the process for days.
When Nismera tired, the guards took her place, working together to see which ones could break me first. None did. Sure, getting beat to shit hurt, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of my screams. When I wouldn’t scream and they tired of my smart ass mouth, they started cutting.
The guards finally stopped walking, and I raised my head, blinking the sweat from my eyes. Peering through the blood-matted strands of my hair, my eyes finally focused. Despair gripped my heart, and I shook my head weakly, tugging at their hold on me. Bound in the same cursed chains, Reggie sat in the middle of a circle formed of runes.
The guards barely noticed my feeble attempts to free myself. They yanked me to the side and tossed me onto the ground in a huff. A fresh wave of pain washed over me, my bones aching with the impact. As I tried to breathe through the agony, they secured the chain connecting the cuffs to a ring anchored into the smooth, grainy floor. I barely noticed because my one good eye had fallen on the one person I would have never expected to be here. Reggie. Fuck. If they’d gotten to him, did they also have Samkiel? No. I couldn’t think of that right now. I needed to focus. I needed to plan. Samkiel was fine. He had to be. I’d accept nothing less.
“As it began, so shall it end,” a woman’s voice chanted.
“As it began, so shall it end,” another female voice echoed. “This is how the world ends.”
“They keep saying that,” one guard said, nodding toward the two females bound in the circle with Reggie. They had to be the other fates, which explained how Nismera knew.
“Ignore them. Our king says they are so lost now, half the time they speak of nothing but the old days.”
The other guard made a low noise of dismissal before the two of them turned away and left. The door scraped loudly as they sealed us in. I shifted, trying to ease myself closer to Reggie, and yelped, the pain from my more severe injuries making my body tremble.
Reggie raised his hand, stopping me. “I am okay, but you …”
I had never seen Reggie in pain, but now it twisted his features and dulled his eyes.
“What?” I formed a crooked, broken smile. “You don’t think I look pretty?”
His brows furrowed like a scolding father, but even with one good eye, I caught the shine of tears in the fate’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I coughed and wished I hadn’t. I was pretty sure a rib or two had broken and was puncturing some organ.
“Dianna. What did she do to you?” he asked, his voice cracking.
“Listen, you don’t want to know, and I hope your visions never show you.” I would never tell him, but there was no hiding my physical condition, and Reggie wasn’t stupid.
His gaze landed on my left hand, slick with blood from where they had removed my fingers. “Your ring?” Reggie nodded. “She has it?”
I glanced back at the door, making sure it was still closed, and lowered my voice. “No, as soon as I got the chance, I took it off and swallowed it.”
His eyes widened a fraction.
I shrugged, hating how only one arm lifted and the shock of pain that came with the movement. “Work smarter, not harder,” I said through clenched teeth.
He said nothing, but a look of understanding passed between us. Slowly and painfully, I shifted, twisting my body away from him before shoving the fingers on my good hand to the back of my throat. My stomach lurched, eagerly spilling its contents. The ring hit the stone floor amidst the splatter of liquid, and I picked it up, wiping it across my poor excuse for clothing. She’d basically put me in a worn sack, and it was already torn and filthy.
Bracing myself, I used my ruined hand to help work the ring onto my pinky. It was the smallest finger, and the ring slipped on with little resistance, but I still winced in pain as the muscles bunched under the nubs where my fingers had been.
“I’m alive.”I shoved the words through our bond.“I’m alive, and I am with Reggie. Wait for me. I have a plan. Not a great one, but one, nonetheless. Remember that I love you.”
The entirety of him flooded into my mind, his warmth a soothing balm over my nerves. A force far greater and more powerful than I had ever felt caressed my skin, my bones, my very soul before his voice filled my mind.
“Di—”
I yanked the ring off with a sound that was a near sob. The agony of ending the connection between us and losing that warmth hurt worse than any wound or torture, but if I allowed it to continue, he would know where I was and come for me. I wasn’t ready for that yet. If he came too soon, we’d never find what we needed from here. I was alive. That would bring him peace. I was far stronger than Nismera knew, and regardless of what she did to me, I could withstand it. I had to.
Glancing at the door again, I worked at freeing a stone from the floor and tucked the ring beneath it. Patting the stone back into place, I made sure that no one could tell it had been messed with. I knew Nismera would be back, and if she caught me with it, she’d destroy it, or worse. I couldn’t let her use it to find him, and it was my only connection to him.
“So that jewel works even from this far,” a deep voice said from behind me.
I groaned. Good gods, I had thought I had gotten rid of him. Really, I didn’t want to have to deal with him as well. I turned to look back at him, surprised to find him encased in a golden bubble, a ring of runes pulsing brightly where it met the floor. Well, that was a surprise. Death hadn’t taken him like I’d thought. Nismera had.
