And—nothing.
It doesn’t work. Where my power should have been, there’s just an empty void.
A frustrated grunt escapes me.
His lips freeze into a cold smile. “First time in iron chains?”
I glare at him.
“Why did you really come to Arbinj?” he asks, undeterred.
“Untie me.” I force ice into my voice, though the heat in his glare might set me on fire.
The corner of his mouth lifts in a cruel mimicry of a smile.
“Answer my question.”
“No.”
He leans forward, menacing and large in the small carriage. In a flash, his hand wraps around my neck. He doesn’t squeeze—not yet—but his message comes across loud and clear.
The Dark Commander looms even closer, and I recoil as much as the chains will allow.
“Is this where you tell me not to touch you? Because you’re the princess of Tundrayn?” His voice drops to a silken whisper, threaded with violence. “Tell me, was that the real you? Or just another mask?”
I swallow hard, and he smirks, though it’s more a baring of teeth. A long finger traces the line of my bare collarbone—my necklace is gone. I shiver, despite myself.
I’m defenseless prey beneath his hateful gaze.
“Why did you come to Arbinj?Do notlie to me. I won’t ask again, wife.” I wish he’d stop calling me that, a mock endearment wrapped in threat.
“To marry your brother!” I snap. “We’ve had this conversation before, remember?”
Not the answer he wanted, apparently.
The sky darkens outside, dimming the faint shimmer of light that filtered through the small carriage window.
A distant rumble mocks me.
Dark shadows stretch along the walls like tendrils reaching for me. My bladder twitches, and I clench hard, humiliated by the familiar terror clawing through me.
The Dark Commander sits back, knees spread wide, hands steepled casually over his abdomen. “I’ll summon the storm inside the carriage, if that’s what you wish. But then you’d faint again like a sad, sniveling child, and I’d have to wait for you to wake up and start all over again. So make it easier for both of us and tell me. Why. Did. You. Come.”
His words ravage my already shredded heart.
His cruelty is precise, practiced.
The air shifts—thicker, wetter. Like the breath of the sea before it drowns you.
I tilt my chin in defiance, mouth stubbornly shut.
He sighs. “You were going to poison everyone at the Equinox Festival.”
Shock roils through me, and I can’t stop my mouth from parting.
“I had the tunnels flushed out. There were barrels of toxinnia ready.” He rests his chin on a hand, cold eyes trapping me in place. “And the wormbark oil in my chambers?”
Hischambers.
