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“She isn’t far ahead,” Selkie said softly, but even that felt too loud in the stifling darkness.

“Cerilla has been kept in this place?” I whispered, the feeling of dread creeping under my skin the way rot burrows into a corpse.

“This place is where we have lived for the last century,” Kaezlyn scoffed from behind me.

Whimpers echoed through the eerie shadows, bleeding from the depths of barred cells with locked doors.

Helion looked over his shoulder at me. “The only time we get out of a cell is the week of the games, be grateful you will never experience it.”

My molars ground together until my temples ached, swallowing the urge to make him splutter his lasts breaths.

“I’ve spent plenty of time in a cell, thanks to you,” I said, raising my chin and ignoring his shameful warmth still clinging between my thighs.

The amusement bled from his eyes in a heartbeat, turning his back on me.

Runes carved across the lock of the cell that Selkie led us to. The symbols pulsed faintly as Helion stepped closer. The moment his flame touched the first mark, the ward struck back.

His body jerked. Pain tore through my hands in a hot, agonizing wave. A whimper left my lips against my will.

Black blood covered his knuckles and ran down his wrist before the fire crept back over the wounds.

My pain eased, becoming an echo that I could only feel through the bond as if he were blocking it.

Helion bared his teeth and pressed his palm harder against the door until gold flame swallowed the runes one by one.

“Fuck!” he yelled, voice filled with agony.

Good, I thought to myself. But an emotion I refused to name shot through my chest, making my heart constrict.

The iron softened beneath his hand and began to weep molten lines down the stone until the door squeaked on its hinges.

Cerilla was chained against the back wall of the cell, almost completely hidden in the darkness.

Shackles were around her wrists, arms stretched above her head, forcing her to hang limply, as if she were devoid of life. A slow rage simmered inside of me at the sight.

Her dark hair hung tangled around a face drained of every warm smile she had once worn. The iron around her wrists had burned rings into her skin, raw and angry and cruel, and when she lifted her eyes to mine, I did not find the woman who had tricked me. I did not find the warm-hearted betrayer who had delivered me into Helion’s hands.

I found someone broken enough to look almost human.

“Lyra,” she whispered. My name left her mouth like an apology she had no right to give.

I hated her.

But I hated the naive part of me that ached at the sight of her bleeding and bruised against that wall.

Did she know I was the reason her kingdom suffered? Is that why she had me dragged here?

Helion burned through her chains and caught her when her knees failed.

My gaze caught the way Helion’s arms trailed over her waist.

The sea inside me crashed against my ribs, ancient and possessive, cold enough to drown every sensible thought before it reached the surface.

“You will walk,” I seethed, power leaking into my voice, splitting it into multiple layers of a single, terrifying harmony.

Helion’s head snapped to my direction, a wicked smirk curving his full lips and making his dimples deepen.

“My wife is jealous,” he chuckled, dragging out the syllables as if he were savouring the taste. He let go of Cerilla. She collapsed towards the filthy floor of the dungeon like a fresh corpse.