Page 92 of The Vespertine Treaty

"I will bring her back," I said. It was a vow.

Aemelia looked at me, her eyes wet but fierce, and nodded. "You better. Or I will spend the rest of my life finding a way to kill you, Cain. And I’m very, very patient."

I almost smiled. I liked her. She had teeth. No wonder she was so close with my spitfire of a wife.

“We should also prepare a healing room," I said, turning toward the door where Rhana waited, pacing anxiously. “Ophelia will need it when I get her back.”

I walked out into the cool air of the Scholars District, the orb pulsing in my hand like a second heartbeat.

The game was over. I had a direction. I had a target.

And gods help Malathor, because I was coming for him.

CHAPTER 33

OPHELIA

Time had lost its shape. It had dissolved into a muddy, terrifying loop of shivering cold and the dripping of water somewhere in the dark.

I didn't know how long I had been in the cell. Hours? Days? The darkness was absolute, save for the sliver of sickly yellow light that bled under the heavy iron door. My stomach had twisted from a hollow ache into a sharp, cramping pain, demanding sustenance that wasn't coming.

They had thrown a bowl of something into the room earlier—a grey, gelatinous sludge that smelled of sour milk and rot. I hadn't touched it. I would rather starve than let whatever poison Malathor brewed into my veins.

My wrists were raw. The ropes had been replaced by iron manacles that chafed against the skin, cold and unforgiving. They were chained to the wall now, giving me just enough slack to sit on the damp straw mattress or stand with my back hunched.

I stared at the door. I could hear him breathing on the other side.

The guard.

He wasn't an Obscurer like Rosette, nor a high-born mage like Malathor. He was a low-Cenite, a hired thug with barely enough magic to light a candle, but enough muscle to snap my neck. I could smell him through the cracks—unwashed skin, cheap fabrics, and the metallic tang of a sword that had seen too much use.

"Please," I called out. My voice was a broken rasp, dry as parchment. "Hey!"

The breathing stopped. A heavy boot scraped against the stone.

"Please," I tried again, licking my cracked lips. "Just... tell me where we are. That’s all. Are we near the coast? I can smell salt."

Silence.

"My family will pay you," I lied. I had no family who would pay. Cain wouldn't pay; he would just kill. But this male didn't know that. "I am Ophelia Alistair of House Alistair. My lineage is valuable. Whatever Malathor is paying you, I can double it. Just let me go."

The lock clicked.

Hope, bright and foolish, flared in my chest. I scrambled up, the chains rattling loudly.

The door swung open, and the guard stepped in. He was a brute, his face scarred, his eyes small and mean. He didn't look like a savior. He looked like a butcher eyeing a carcass.

"You never shut up, do you?" he grunted.

"I can make you rich," I pressed, desperate, backing away until my shoulders hit the cold stone wall. "You don't have to?—"

His hand moved faster than I expected for someone so large.

The slap sounded like cracking ice in the small room.

My head snapped to the side, my vision whitening. The force of it threw me off balance, and I crumbled to the straw, the taste of copper flooding my mouth. My cheek, already cut by Rosette’s magic, throbbed with a fresh, blinding agony.

I gasped, looking up at him through a curtain of hair, shock paralysing my lungs.