Chapter 15
Lina's POV
The guards dragged me through the labyrinthine corridors of Wyrmspire Citadel, descending deeper until polished marble gave way to rough-hewn stone weeping moisture in the flickering torchlight. The air grew thick and oppressive, heavy with sulfur and unwashed bodies—the lowest pit of the citadel, where the worst offenders were sent to rot.
We reached a narrow iron door set into the stone. The cell they threw me into was barely larger than a coffin stood on end—four walls of black obsidian with only a palm-sized ventilation grate in the door. When the iron panel slammed shut, darkness swallowed me whole.
I pulled my knees to my chest, my bound wrists throbbing where the rope had reopened the burns beneath. At this point, I thought bitterly, even Moros couldn't help me anymore. I didn't want him to try—didn't want Augustus to discover we'd known each other before I'd entered the citadel.
Augustus was paranoid by nature and despised deception above all else. If he found out Moros had been helping me all these years, he would kill him without hesitation. Moros had already sacrificed too much for me—I wouldn't let him throw his life away as well.
As I sat there in the suffocating darkness, terrible clarity settled over me. Augustus had never intended to let me go. He could have simply decreed my imprisonment, but instead he'd chosen the cruelest method: letting me believe I would be free, letting me count down the days until release, letting me taste hope—and then personally crushing it at the threshold of freedom.
Ten years of backbreaking labor, of swallowing my pride, of enduring humiliation and pain. And it had all been for nothing, a dream he'd allowed me to cherish only so he could watch it die in my hands.
I hated my family—hated my father for his cowardice, hated my sister for her indifference—but I hated Augustus more. He had everything: power, wealth, an entire continent that bowed to his will. Yet he couldn't bear to let me have the one thing I'd earned through a decade of servitude—my freedom. This wasn't possession. This was torture for its own sake.
He destroyed my life, but he would never have my surrender. He thought could torture me into saying I loved him? I'd rather die in this pit than give him that satisfaction. If I was going to die anyway, I would die with my dignity intact.
I don't know how long I sat there before the scrape of a key in the lock made me flinch. The door swung open, and torchlight flooded the cell. Grok crouched in the doorway, holding an oil lamp that cast grotesque shadows across his jowled face.
"Lina," he said, his voice oily with false sympathy. "You need to understand something. His Majesty went to considerable trouble to arrange this situation. If he didn't care about you, why would he bother? All you have to do is admit that you took the pendant because you couldn't bear to leave him, and all of this ends immediately. You'll be elevated to the inner court, given apartments fit for a consort, and those who once looked down on you will grovel at your feet."
I stared at him through tangled hair, my mind working furiously. So it was true—the dragon crystal pendant had been planted deliberately, a conspiracy between Grok and Augustus to trap me here.
Grok seemed to take my silence as consideration. "Think about it. You'd go from being a half-blood slave to the King's favored woman. Your mother could live in comfort. Those pure-blood elves who've spent years sneering at you would be forced to show you respect." He paused. "Stay with His Majesty, and you'll have a real future."
I slowly raised my head and turned it slightly so my good ear faced him fully. When our eyes met, I let him see the cold contempt in my gaze as I lifted one trembling hand and pointed deliberately at the open door behind him.
"Get out," I said, my voice hoarse but steady.
Grok's face darkened, the false sympathy melting away. He straightened abruptly and let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Very well. I've seen plenty of women desperate to climb the social ladder, but I've never encountered one as stupid as you. You think your stubborn pride will earn you anything? His Majesty doesn't want your defiance—he wants your submission."
He turned toward the door, then paused on the threshold. "I've said my piece. Since you're determined to suffer, then enjoy what the Sunless Chasm has to offer."
The door slammed shut, plunging me back into darkness.
But soon it opened again, and two guards hauled me to my feet and dragged me down a narrow corridor to a larger room that made my blood run cold. In the center sat a heavy wooden chair bristling with iron spikes on its back, armrests, and seat. The walls were lined with other implements: thumbscrews, an iron maiden, a rack.
A man with cold, reptilian eyes sat near the wall, watching with clinical detachment as the guards forced me onto the spiked chair and began fastening leather straps around my limbs. I felt the sharp points pressing against my skin through the thin fabric, not yet piercing but promising agony if I moved.
"Tell me," the man—Talon—said in a voice like gravel, "how did you manage to steal His Majesty's dragon crystal pendant?"
I forced myself to remain absolutely still, feeling the prick of spikes against my skin. I knew it didn't matter what I said—I would suffer regardless. Augustus didn't care about the truth. He only wanted to break me.
But I'd endured ten years to reach this point. I wouldn't surrender now, not when that man was waiting beyond the Storm Gate. If I couldn't be with him, if I was truly going to die in this pit, then I would die with my vow to him intact.
Talon waited, then sighed when I remained silent. He raised one hand. "Bring the thumbscrews."
A guard approached and selected a pair of iron thumbscrews from the table. My heart hammered as he fitted the devices over both my thumbs and began to turn the screws slowly. I felt pressure building, a dull ache that gradually intensified as the metal closed tighter around the bones.
Click. The screw tightened another notch. My body jerked involuntarily, and the spikes on the chair dug into my back, drawing blood. I bit down hard on my lower lip, determined not to scream.
The guard was going slowly, I realized—too slowly. Someone, probably Moros, had gotten to him, had paid him to show mercy, even if that mercy was only relative.
But as time stretched on, my thumbs swelled and bled, pain radiating through my entire body. Sweat poured down my face, and blood trickled down my back where the spikes had pierced my skin. I kept my teeth clenched, refusing to cry out.
And then, just as I thought I couldn't endure another second, a voice rang out from the doorway, sharp and commanding: "Stop this at once!"