Agroan of metal forced me awake, and then I was being tossed onto a cold stone floor before the door was slammed shut behind me. I tried to push myself up, but everything ached, my skin still burning where Arden had marked me. What did the inscriptions mean? What had he meant when he told me I was his?
“Try not to push yourself,” a soft voice cut through the silence, and I stiffened, pushing through the pain to rise to my knees, scanning the darkness of the new chamber.
“Easy,” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”
Rhyas’ warning darted across my thoughts, sparking fresh terror.Be careful who you trust.
I slid along the floor, wincing each time my scraped palms met gravel, until my back met the bars. The beast didn’t respond, its silence putting every part of me on high alert. It had never been silent, had never leftme alone before.
“You’re new,” she said, and I turned back to find a woman lingering just out of reach, her hands held out in quiet assurance that she meant me no harm. But was that true? Could I trust her? Could I trust anyone in this horrible place? Rhyas seemed to be the only one whose words might ring true, but he was the very reason I was here. Could I even trust him?
She lowered herself to the floor, her brown hair brushing the top of her shoulders, her silver eyes soft. I looked down at her extended hand as she reached out for me, moving to the iron shackles secured around her wrists, inscriptions carved into the metal. Something within me recoiled at their presence, at the subtle hum ringing from them.
“Looks like Yressia left you with quite the wound.” She stood before hurrying to the far end of the chamber. I tracked her steps to where she stopped before a shelf-lined wall littered with items that she began riffling through.
“Yressia?” I asked as she returned with a small bowl of water and a rag.
“The Featherclaw,” she said as she knelt before me. Water dripping echoed off the stone walls as she wrung the wet cloth over the bowl. “She’s Arden’s pet. I heard he had her smuggled in from somewhere long ago. She tests each of his fighters before he marks them.”
I couldn’t form a response.
“He keeps her caged and underfed so she’s always ready to hunt,” she said as she lifted the cloth to my face.
I pulled away from her reach, and hurt flitted across her face. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“How do I know can I trust you?” I asked, my voice quivering despite my attempts to be brave. I couldn’t feel the beast’s presence, hear its voice, its guidance. Its instinct.
I had never felt more alone.
She let out a low breath. “There is nothing I could do to prove you can. It’s smart of you to be reserved.” She looked past me to the hallway beyond our cell door. “There are some here who would sell you out for a bite of bread.”
I resisted the urge to follow her gaze, too afraid to turn my back.
A somber smile curved her lips as her gaze returned to me. “You’re an immortal.”
I frowned. “I am.”
“That must be why they put you in my cell,” she said. “They took me from Moonhaven when I was a child.”
My heart shuddered, and I pushed myself up, a strange hope rising in my chest. “You…”
She nodded, her smile fading. “I don’t even know how many years it’s been.”
I winced as she carefully dabbed the rag against my injured eye, but I held still, allowing her to clean it.
“You’re still so young,” she said, as if it broke her heart to say it. “If you were past yoursettling, you would have healed without issue, but this… I fear it will leave a scar.”
“I can still see,” I said.
She smiled. “That is wonderful news,mikros.”
My heart swelled at the word. It sounded like home.
“How is Moonhaven?” she asked as she continued to clean the wound.
Hope died in my chest. “I don’t know.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
