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At last my fingertips graze cold metal instead of rough wood. The handle.

I wrench it downward and push, and the ponderous door swings slowly open.

61

As I shove the door wide, gold lamplight floods over me, revealing three figures.

One is a guard, standing just inside the door. He’s been watching Prince Havil work, I suppose, but his head swivels toward me as I enter.

The second figure is Prince Havil, clad in a black vest and purple silk trousers. His lean milk-white arms are bare, and the brown waves of his hair are as neat as ever. Only his hands are soiled—smeared and spattered with the blood of my Warlord.

The Warlord’s wrists are tied, and the bit of rope between them hangs over a huge iron hook in the ceiling of the cold cellar. His great arms are bulging, sinew and muscle stretched to the limit. He’s naked, barefoot, and his toes barely brush the floor enough to take a little of the strain off his arms and shoulders. His ankles are manacled and tethered to the wall so he can’t kick his attackers.

His body has been sliced deeply in several places, just as I saw through the ether. His right eye is swollen shut, sealed by dark blood trailing from a cut on his brow. His lips are puffy and bleeding too. I can’t tell if he’s conscious.

Prince Havil whirls at my interruption. Eager blood flushes his cheeks, and his eyes sparkle. He has been enjoying himself.

A throb of nausea passes through my gut as I realize just how little I knew this man, this prince I’ve been acquainted with for years. I was going to marry him, when I had no idea who he truly was, or the cruel depths he was concealing.

There’s a scratchy raw feeling in my throat—my airway warning me that it might revolt soon. I try to control my breathing, to keep the sword behind the stiff fold of my overdress.

“My dear!” exclaims Prince Havil. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Your men told me you’d caught someone sneaking around.” I take a step toward him.

“Yes, the leader of the ruffians himself. Probably planning to steal you again. Or maybe he intended to slaughter your whole family in your sleep. I’m trying to get information out of him, you see, to keep you safe.”

“What information?”

“If he’s alone, that sort of thing.”

“I think it’s fairly obvious he’s alone. You must have been working on him awhile, and no one has come for him.”

“Well, I suppose at this point it’s more of a punishment than an interrogation.” Havil chuckles and gives me a wild smile. “You didn’t think I’d let him steal my future wife and then walk away, did you? A man must have satisfaction, you see. Especially when a fiend like this has dared to touch his property. Now, go back to the inn, there’s a good girl.”

He nods to the guard, who leans forward as if to take my arm and escort me out.

But I sidestep and swivel, setting my back to the wall and pointing Joss’s sword at the guard. “I’m not your property, Highness. And I’m not going back to the inn.”

The guard hesitates, casting a shocked glance toward Havil. “Sire?”

“I’m not fond of this change in you, my dear,” says the Prince gravely. “You were such a sweet, submissive little thing before they took you, and now—” He shakes his head. “I only hope what they did to you can be undone. It may take some vigorous polishing before my little gem is smooth again. Take the sword from her.”

I slash at the guard, and thanks to my brief training with the Warlord I manage to hold him off for a few minutes before he disarms me with his own sword. The guard picks up Joss’s weapon and looks to his prince for orders.

Havil waves him away. “Step outside and leave her to me. See that no one else enters this room.”

The guard nods and ducks out of the cold cellar with both swords, pulling the door shut behind him.

“I don’t want to consider what this defiance means,” says the Prince, approaching me. He’s much shorter than the Warlord—about my height. To string up the Warlord like this, he must have had help from much stronger men, probably some of the soldiers outside.

Despite his lack of height, Prince Havil exudes a bitter threat I can’t help but fear. With the Warlord, my fear was always laced with a sort of jittery expectation, a fevered anticipation of his touch or his words. Havil has been nothing but soft and kind to me for as long as I’ve known him—but when he placed such value on my virginity as a matter of his own pride, my view of him shifted. I can see him clearly now, the genteel serpent slithering around his tender prey, no less deadly for the pretense of gentleness.

“Why did you come out here, my dear?” Havil asks, stroking my chin with a blood-wet finger. “What do you want? Do you want to watch me flay the man who dared steal from me?”

I jerk my face away from his touch. “I want you to let him go. Fulfill your part of the bargain and honor the truce we’ve established.”

“Truce?” He laughs. “We will take back the village we gave him within the month, and my men will hang all his vagabond followers from the walls of your father’s stronghold. Then no one will dare attempt such a thing again.”