Page 5 of A War of Three Kings

Edmund’s expression shutters and I know I have cut deep. A sharp spike of satisfaction fills me.

He points a finger at me. “You will die here before you lay eyes on my daughter again. Understand that, Aldrin. There are no lengths I won’t go to if it means I can protect her.”

I believe it. A deep, primal part of me knows it to be the truth. The best I can do is to get my people out.

I sway in my seat as heavy fatigue falls on me like a suffocating blanket. The lack of sleep and food dulls my thoughts and for a moment, it is all too much. The headache that has been my constant companion grows until there is nothing else.

I will drown in the currents of these games. They will turn Keira against me. They will reframe the beautiful tenderness and passion we shared into an affair of abuse, and her thoughts will sour when they land on the short time we spent together.

Hopelessness floods through me, deeper than the despair I felt during my isolation. But no matter the odds against me, I will always fight for Keira.

Edmund slides the plate of food forward an inch, allowing me to take it. My numb fingers clumsily grab at the relative delicacies: two thin slivers of meat, a single baby potato, a carrot and three peas. I gulp it down before he can whisk it away,but the portion is just enough to whet my appetite, to make me remember just how hungry I am.

“Do you see how we take care of you when you cooperate?” Edmund reclines in his seat, sipping his wine. His words sound like they come from a great distance. “Think on it in your isolation. I hope next time you are more forthcoming.”

I slam the plate back down on the table and break it in two. “For the love of the gods, Edmund?—”

Naomi cuts me off. “Otherwise we’ll have to resort to crueler methods.”

“I want to know about my people. Are they being kept in this prison? Are you torturing them with deprivation as well? Have you questioned them?” I grip a shard of pottery so tightly in my fist it draws blood, pointing it at Edmund threateningly. “TELL ME!”

Thick bands of air wrap around my arms, pinning them to my sides, then slowly pry open my fingers to remove the makeshift weapon. Sweat drips down Edmund’s face with the precise work.

“So many questions, Aldrin, when you refuse to answer ours.” Naomi tsks, then calls for the guards.

I fight them as they pull me out of my seat, kicking one in the groin, managing to break free of a bind and elbowing another in the jaw. “EDMUND!” I roar as I am hauled to my feet. “Have you hurt my people?”

He doesn’t answer as I am dragged from the room by multiple soldiers and back down the corridor, stumbling and tripping over my own feet as the last of my energy reserves flees me.

We pass through the layers of wards crisscrossing the doorway of my cell, then the guards dump me unceremoniously on the stone floor. I land on my knees, the shock of the impactrunning up my legs, quickly followed by searing pain. The door slams shut behind me.

Poisoned, starved, denied sleep for days, heartbroken—not to mention the sickly fear curdling within my stomach for my band of warriors…it is almost enough to break a man, and they haven’t lifted a hand to me, or sliced a physical wound. Not yet.

I scream and scream and scream.

I pour all my fury, agony, grief and despair into that animalistic roar. I beat my fists on the ground.

None of it matters. No one can hear me.

Chapter 2

Keira

Inky darkness engulfs me on all sides, only partially broken by the fire orbs that hover around us. Their warm light illuminates the heavy dust motes that hang in the air of these ancient dungeons. I struggle to breathe as panic claws through me and my heart pounds frantically.

I have to find him.I have to find him.

It has been six days since they took Aldrin from me. I cannot bear the possibility of him being locked down here, in a cell that hasn’t been disturbed in hundreds of years.

The only sounds are the scurrying of rats and the dripping of water. Dirt and muck coat the walls of the narrow corridor that leads deeper into the dungeons.

The cells are rank, scattered with yellow bones and decaying cloth, as though people were shoved down here then forgotten about. Each room we pass falls back into complete blackness as our orbs recede.

A person could go mad down here in six days.

A sob wrenches out of me at the very thought. A vision flashes in my mind: Aldrin screaming and screaming in a cell and no one being able to hear him. It breaks my heart.

An arm wraps around my shoulders, and I flinch despite myself.

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