Chapter 15
It was dark—so unmistakably dark—like wading in thick ink.
Ellaryn could feel the cold latch onto her with cruel hands.
It was hard to explain how she felt in the moments before her heart resumed its beating, before her wounds sealed themselves, and scars took their place.
It was as if her very essence was trapped in onyx, body paralysed, in a sort of calm.
Twice today she had suffered injuries meant to kill, and twice today she would rise again.
She could already feel the damp air biting into her cheek, the cold of the cell floor dissipating into her bones until her joints clacked and trembled.
This was how the King ground her down. Pushing her immortality to its violent limits.
The low light peppered her vision as she came to.
She knew exactly where she was. Exactly which cell she would be in. The same one he always left her in.
“Sailen?” Her voice came out hoarse.
“Ellaryn.” A small voice, laced with quiet panic, seeped into her ears. “I was calling your name; I thought he killed you this time.”
He did, she thought to herself.
“I’m here,” she croaked out, sitting herself upright, fingers pinching her temple in an attempt to dull the pounding in her head.
Her stomach throbbed with the movement, and flashbacks of the King’s blade sinking into her chest ricocheted off the walls in her mind.
She cringed internally. The scar had already formed on her abdomen; though the wound sealed itself shut, the pain still lingered.
“Thank the Gods.” He breathed, and she heard some shuffling as if he had leaned against the other side of the wall.
Ellaryn’s shoulders stiffened at his choice of words, but down here in the silence of the cells, no one was around to hear the blasphemy. To punish him for speaking of the Gods when there was only one ruler in Cinders.
She tilted her head, staring up at the damp ceiling. “Yeah, thank the Gods,” she muttered sarcastically.
Blasphemy or not. She didn’t believe in the Gods.
Not here. Not in Cinders.
She knew the bitter truth—they were all alone in this world.
But even as she thought this, Xander’s eyes shone like stars in her mind—bright, impossible, clear.
Maybe they had been alone, but now… now was different.
There was someone in their corner.
God or not.
Cinders had a rival, and Ellaryn would do whatever she could to ensure the King’s fire dulled along with every spark in the city.