Page 182 of Black Sea

That sudden, horrifying realization struck me like an avalanche. I fell to my knees, gasping as tears welled up in my wide, void eyes.

Amlach leaned toward me. I held my breath as he slowly lifted his hands to dry my cheek with the back of his fingers, the groove between his brows deepening more and more.

As if something were bothering him.

As if something were upsetting him.

In fact, he suddenly drew back and returned with his shoulders against the rocks, staring angrily at the low ceiling.

I stayed there for the rest of the night, on my knees.

Looking at him.

101

The flame of the candle, now fully melted into the copper saucer, extinguished as the first shy dawn light crept in from the top of the stairs. Outside the cell, Araton let out a discouraged sigh and headed upward. Moments later, I heard the faint sound of a small group of soldiers approaching.

But I didn’t take my eyes off Amlach’s, not even for a second.

Not even when my brother returned with the guards following him.

Not even when they surrounded me.

Amlach was my entire world. And, as if we were each other’s reflection in a mirror, we rose together. Slowly, in perfect sync.

One of the soldiers unlocked the slave collar with a key and roughly took it off the prisoner’s neck, dropping it onto the bench with a metallic clang.

“Take him away,” Araton ordered.

One of the guards was about to grab Amlach by the elbow, but the sideways look he gave him was so deadly that the young elf immediately reconsidered.

Amlach’s cunning gaze returned to me. “Goodbye, mate.”

It was my last chance to expose him. To scream. But I couldn’t, for it was as if the intensity with which we had been staring at each other all night had taken my voice away.

A ghost of a smirk appeared at the corner of his lips, then he followed the soldiers out of the cell without causing a scene.

“I’m sorry, Nauriel,” my brother said in a low voice, looking down. “I mean it.”

His affliction didn’t even affect me, because I knew it was a lie: The only thing that mattered to him now was watching his beloved’s murderer die. My pain didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter to anyone.

When he realized he wouldn’t have an answer, Araton headed to the surface to join the soldiers.

I listened as they walked up the forest path back to the palace, clearly distinguishing Amlach’s footsteps from the others. As soon as my ears no longer caught the sound of leaves and small woods creaking under their feet, I turned my back to the cell’s door and watched the slave collar on the stone bench.

What could I do?

What should I do?

102

Mornon

A circle of disgusting druids waited for me in the middle of the long hall. Clothed in a regal white robe that seemed to shine like a diamond in the still faint dawn light filtering through the walls of pointed glass doors with wrought-iron decorations, Erech glowered at me as he squeezed the armrests of one of the two stone and wooden thrones he was sitting on.

“Walk, dog,” his son growled from behind me, pushing me.