Page 115 of Her Cruel Redemption

We returned to the cellar and spent another tense stretch of time waiting. Within Leela’s basket was a flagon of water and some food—honey cakes and dried beef and a couple of apples. I held one of the apples in my hand, running a thumb over its smooth skin, before offering it to Draven. He met my gaze and something unspoken passed between us. An echo of a moment long gone, a moment that had propelled us down a path neither of us had anticipated, a path that had veered so far from what we each thought we wanted that we hardly seemed the same people anymore. I didn’t think he needed magic to know where my thoughts were as he accepted the apple, rolling it between his hands, balancing it on the tip of his fingers before taking a bite. The food and the water seemed to strengthen him a little, and the time that passed after that was easier, though we still spoke very little. If we spoke about what had happened, what we were doing, then I was afraid I’d collapse under the weight of it all, and I didn’t have time for that. I needed to be strong, to keep my focus on one moment at a time.

I must have drifted off again in the small hours of the morning, and when I woke it was to find myself lying alone with the blanket tucked tightly around me. I sat up, scanning the shadowy cellar and found Draven standing on the third of the five stairs leading outside, peering through the slats in the doors, the moonlight breaking through casting bars of silver light across his face.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, rubbing my eyes.

It took him a moment to answer me. ‘Lester told me where Lidello is in the city.’

I cursed inwardly. What a stupid thing for Lester to have told him. ‘And why is that important?’ I replied, even though I know damn well why. Though,hehad no idea that it didn’t matter anymore.

He said nothing.

I rose, blanket still clutched around my shoulders against the chill as I approached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Draven, look at me,’ I said, my tone iron and stone and warning. He obeyed, gaze flicking to me. ‘Lidello is dead.’

He frowned, searching my face like he thought I was lying. ‘How?’

‘I killed him.’ There was that fierce satisfaction again, sharpening the curves of my voice.

His expression fractured, changed as he seemed to move through a spectrum of emotions. Disbelief, maybe. Then something darker. ‘Why?’

I remembered the scars that covered his body, the ones I’d traced with my fingers in dim lighting. Those were only the scars that were visible. ‘Because when I thought of what he did to you…’ My eyes flicked down for a moment before I strengthened my resolve, looking up at him, holding his gaze no matter what I would find there. ‘I couldn’t let him get away with that. I hate him for it.’

He watched me, considering me silently, whatever was in his head hidden behind that still expression of his.

‘Now I’m sure there are others in this city that you’d like to relinquish their ability to breathe,’ I continued. ‘Dovegni likely tops the list.’

His mouth twitched, lip curling as I said the other man’s name. ‘He doesn’t deserve to live.’

‘He doesn’t. But you do. And given what I just gave up to give you that chance, I think you owe it to me to survive.’

I could see the way he wavered, feel the fight to release that end he’d chased for so long. He‘d told me in the caverns that I’d become more important than his revenge. But for a moment, looking up at this moonlit, blood-soaked, damaged man, I wasn’t sure if that was true.

When he finally nodded, I released a rush of held breath, suddenly feeling exhausted. I realised I hadn’t really been sure of what choice he’d make. He climbed down the steps, each step easing some of the tension that had crept into my body. ‘Alright.’

‘So if I happen to doze off again, I won’t wake to find you’ve slipped out to have one last go at it?’

He took my hand. Entwined his calloused fingers through mine. ‘You won’t.’

He followed me back to the corner and we slid back onto the floor together. I found a cloth and wet it with the water from the flagon and gently washed some of the blood from his face, his neck, his arms. He held still, tracking my movements, and every time I looked up at him he was watching me with tension strung between his brows and along his jaw.

‘Why do you keep looking at me like that?’ My words brushed the dark as a whisper.

The corner of his mouth flickered with a smile. ‘I’m waiting for you to vanish. I’ve dreamed about you often enough. I can’t convince myself I’m not asleep in the cell now.’

My throat tightened with emotion, choking any reply. It still felt like madness, to be here with him. To have broken him out of that dungeon. To be planning to flee the city with him. And if we made it… what then?

I dropped the cloth and leaned into him with a sigh. One moment at a time.

Sometime later, a scratching at the door made me jolt up in a panic, heart immediately pounding, magic jumping to my fingertips, making my head spin in a dizzy swoop. Draven was already on his feet, positioned between me and the door, like he could do a thing in his state if we were discovered.

‘Rhi,’ Leela’s voice whispered, and I exhaled in relief, rising to my feet to open the door. She climbed down into the cellar with Lester close behind her.

‘Did you mange it?’ I asked, even as she drew a rumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me. ‘What’s this?’

‘The name of the ship you’re going to be stowing away on,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘Its captain isn’t from these shores. His voyage has been grounded for too long and he wants to go home, he knows nothing about Oceatold’s politics, and he’s angry with the king for the tax jumps on imported goods since the beginning of the war. He’ll do basically anything for a bribe, including transport a couple of criminals.’

‘Oh, Leela. You’re a miracle worker,’ I breathed, staring down at the note in my hand.The Lady of Mercy.A shiver crept up the back of my neck, like a gentle brush of the fingers of fate.Mercy.

‘She’s a bloody slave driver, that’s what she is,’ Lester grumbled, poking around the shelves lining the walls of the cellar. ‘Have you found anything to drink down here? Surely they must have a little whiskey or something—aha!’ He pulled a bottle from the back of a shelf, wrenched the cork out of it, and took a hearty swig. I barely spared him a glance as he coughed through the burn of whatever he’d just swallowed.

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