Chapter 52
Acold, stone surface presses into my forehead, and I groan against the throbbing in my temple. Blinking my eyes open, I lift a hand and bring it toward my cheekbone—my fingers coming back coating in thick, drying blood.
“She’s awake.”
I straighten. My vision blurs, and the room tilts sideways as I steady myself.
A guard stands in the corner of the small, windowless room, studying the space over my shoulder. Dark blood stains dot the table before me, and long chains dangle from rhodium cuffs encasing my hands.
My heart races in my throat, and I jerk against the chains, but they don’t give.
“What’s going on?” I say, my voice thick and raspy. There are no gaps in the walls—no dungeon surrounding us or prisoners watching from other cells.
My stomach pitches. This is an interrogation room.
The guard keeps his attention pinned on the back wall, as if I’m not even here. I glance over my shoulder, and my chest tightens. Bolted to the obsidian wall, a series of chains dangle from the stone. Each one ends in a thick cuff, and a line of deep crimson stains the floor beneath it.
A ringing fills my ears, and I brace myself against the chair beneath me—trying to jerk it free. But a series of thick screws attach it to the floor.
My heart pounds against my ribs. “Where’s Kressa? I can explain everything. She’ll tell you, she—”
The door swings open, and Kressa appears in the doorway. Elias takes up the space over her shoulder, and they step into the room, neither of them meeting my gaze.
Golan follows in next, and the guard shuts the door behind him.
A heavy, weighted silence settles over the room.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and pin my shoulders back, maintaining a sliver of composure. I did what I set out to do. The wedding is ruined and Callum is dead. Even if I don’t walk out of here alive, Isolde can regain control of the Sky, and Kressa won’t have to promise herself to anyone.
“Whatever punishment you have in store for me, I’ll take it.” I lift my gaze, locking eyes with Golan. “Only a coward would hand their child over for marriage. And you did that not once, but twice.”
His eyes narrow, and he steps forward, resting his hands on the lip of the table. “If you think you’re in chains because of that, you’re wrong.”
Kressa folds her arms over her chest, but even as I study her face, she won’t look my way. A muscle feathers in her jaw, and I test the bond, but the rhodium around my hands is too thick to penetrate.
“Then what is it?” I say, turning back to Golan.
“Where’s the Fire Court?”
I scoff. “I’m the Queen of the Sea. I have no idea where the Fire Court is, nor do I care. I’m not so threatened by a community that has been in hiding far before I was born.”
He tilts his head and burrows his gaze into me. A chunk of stone breaks free from the ceiling and slams onto my forearm. I cry out as it breaks skin. Blood drips from the gash, and a sickly purple bruise forms along the surface.
“I’ll give you one more chance.” He leans closer, his hot breath wafting across my cheeks. “Where is the Fire Court?”
In my periphery, I catch Kressa tightening her arms over her chest—her fists so tight her knuckles blanch.
“What makes you think I know?” I snarl.
“Beyond you wielding fire?” He straightens and buries his hand into his pocket.
The edge of a piece of parchment sticks out, and a lump lodges in my throat. He pulls out his hand and smacks the letter from Isolde onto the table.
Kressa’s fingers press welts into her biceps.
I tilt my chin toward the crumpled parchment. “What’s this meant to be?”
Golan scoffs and turns over the correspondence, smoothing out the edges. “It’s exactly what it looks like. A letter from Queen Isolde to you. Found under your mattress, beside this.”
He unfurls his other hand, and rays of light sparkle from the emerald.
My stomach somersaults. A lie teeters on the edge of my tongue, but Kressa turns and pins her attention on me.
I don’t recognize the look on her face. This isn’t the fiery anger I received after she put me in chains and brought me to Ignata. Nor is it the wild gleam in her eyes before a killing blow.
No, this is a cool, icy rage.
She steps up to the table and slams her hands against the stone. “After what she did to you back in Sarenia, you still trust her?”
My chest squeezes, and I shake my head. It’s only one piece of correspondence, and this one—despite the damning words on the page—isn’t the worst of them. “She was going to get me out. And my crew.”
Kressa bares her teeth and jabs a finger against the parchment. “So did you? Leave your window open for her at night?”
There’s an insinuation in her tone. One that is not founded, but I can’t tell her that without giving away too much. I press my lips into a thin line, but it’s enough of an answer.
After everything, I can’t lie to her.
“You’ve ruined everything,” she hisses, her face only inches away from mine. “I thought I could trust you, but it turns out all of this was a lie.”
I shake my head, my pulse pounding in my skull.
Her father eases her out of the way and leans over the table. He narrows his eyes on my bloodied arm, and another chunk of rock breaks loose from the ceiling. It slams into the same spot at the first one, and I scream as white flashes in my vision.
“Final chance. Where’s the Fire Court?”
I bite into the flesh of my cheek and shake my head. “I told you. I don’t know.”
He swings a hand back and slaps my cheek. My head snaps to the side, and a hot pain slices across the skin. I lift my good arm and rub at the sting, pinning a glare on him.
He looks at me down the bridge of his nose. “You wield fire, Calisdana.”
My throat works on a swallow, and I force myself not to look at Kressa. I’ve already betrayed her trust, but I made a promise that I’d keep the location of the Fire Court a secret. That’s one I intend to keep.
I let out a small huff. “It’s not my power.”
Another rock falls, and its sharp edge lands in the wound. I grit my teeth and stifle a scream as it chips out a piece of bone. Blood streams out of my arm and flows off the table, dripping onto the floor.
“I should warn you not to play me as a fool,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. The veins spanning his throat protrude, and he glances over his shoulder at the guard. “Prepare the guillotine.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the guard says. He pulls open the door and leaves the room, shutting it behind him.
“Just get it over with,” I whisper, trying and failing to staunch the blood. My mind grows heavy, dizzy. “No need for an audience when you can just kill me right now. Stone me or slice me up until I bleed out. I don’t care.”
He clicks his tongue, and a slow smile spreads across his face—pinching his eyes at the corners. “What makes you think the guillotine is for you?”
The pain disappears, and I stiffen. “What are you talking about?”
He pulls out the chair across from me and settles into it, resting his elbows on the table. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice my escape vessel being taken out of the cove?”
A dull ache spreads across my chest, and my lungs seize up—unable to pull in a full breath.
Behind him, Kressa’s eyes widen, but she makes no move to intervene. In the corner of the room, Elias stands completely still. The only time he has made any sort of movement is a flinch when a stone falls on my arm.
“Don’t hurt them,” I whisper. “Please. I’ll do anything.”
He lifts a brow. “Anything?”
“Yes.” My voice is breathless, and a sour taste settles on my tongue.
“Tell me where the Fire Court is, and I’ll free your crew.” He reaches out a hand, as if I can even take it. “You have my word.”
Cold sweeps over my body. Not only will he spare them, but he’ll set them free. Something I promised I’d do anything to make happen. And I’d sacrifice every soul on the continent if it meant keeping my crew safe.
My gaze meets Kressa’s for the span of a heartbeat, but she doesn’t need to mutter a word for me to read the thoughts racing through her mind. If I tell Golan where to find the Fire Court, it’s a death sentence for them.
But if I don’t—
“They’re living in the interior of the mountains.”
Kressa turns her back to me.
Golan hums. “And how does one get to the inside of the mountains?”
My chest squeezes, but I continue. “There’s a clearing in the forest just outside the boundaries of Ignata. I don’t know how to summon him, but there’s a Sopor that will take you directly to the Fire Court. A city called Amoren.”
A smile grows on Golan’s face, and he pushes the chair back, standing to his full height.
He snatches the emerald from the table and shoves it into his pocket.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He turns and wrenches open the door, speaking in a hushed voice to the guard standing in the dim hallway.
I lean against the chains, trying to get a glimpse at the other side of the door—where in the castle I’m being held. But it’s too dark, and Elias steps into my view.
His gaze sweeps over my face, studying each facet of my expression. Without a word, he follows his father out the door.
Kressa glares at me. “I never should have trusted you.”
“Kressa, please understand what—”
“You saw Isolde when we visited Sarenia, didn’t you?”
I press my tongue into my cheek and turn away.
She scoffs. “And this whole time, you’ve had the emerald. Do you understand that all of this could have been avoided if you just handed it over?”
“I couldn’t trust you,” I hiss, baring my teeth. “You had my compass, and you can wield fire. With those and your emerald, you would be too powerful.”
“You think that’s what this is about? Power?
” She shakes her head and strides toward the door.
“You were right, that some people disregard the things that are right in front of them.” She pauses, pressing her hand against the rocky doorframe as she glances over her shoulder, not quite meeting my gaze.
“But in my case, I paid attention, just to find out what was right in front of me planned to deceive me all along.”
Tears sting the space between my eyes, and I go to stand, but the chains jerk me into place. “I was trying to make it right.”
“Too late. Come dawn, you’ll be dead.”
She disappears, and four guards enter the cramped interrogation room. One produces a gnarled skeleton key and unhooks my chains from the table, handing each of them to one of the others guards.
They drag me out of the room and deeper into the darkness.