Chapter 12 Days of Darkness
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAYS OF DARKNESS
My body had learned the contours of the stones beneath me, a map of discomfort I’d memorized over three endless days of isolation.
The chill had long since seeped past flesh and settled in bone, a constant companion more faithful than any courtier I’d ever known.
I shifted, wincing as the movement awakened the dull throb in my feet—memories of my desperate flight through the castle corridors, embedded in flesh like shards of broken promises.
Water dripped somewhere in the distance, a steady, arrhythmic companion to my thoughts. Drip. Pause. Drip. Drip. Pause. Like the last breaths of a dying thing. I’d measured time by those drops, an exercise in futile precision that kept the crushing weight of reality at a slight remove.
The silence broke with the sudden groan of metal, the door at the far end of the corridor swinging open with a protest of neglected hinges.
Heavy footsteps approached, each one deliberate, unhurried.
The guards of Vareth, my guards once, now Valen’s, kept to a schedule as reliable as the rising of the moon.
Twice daily they came, marking breakfast and supper with the same emotionless efficiency.
I straightened my spine, refusing to be found curled in upon myself like some wounded animal.
The dark fabric of the dress Valen had brought me—a simple thing, unadorned and practical—hung loose on my frame after these three days of watery broth and stale bread.
I smoothed it with palms that had once known only silk and velvet, now calloused from exploring every inch of my prison walls in search of weakness.
The guard appeared, a broad-shouldered silhouette blocking what little light spilled from the corridor beyond.
His face, half-hidden in shadow, bore the impassive mask of one who had learned that seeing prisoners as people made the job impossible.
He carried a wooden tray in one massive hand, his other resting on the hilt of his sword, a precaution that might have been laughable if it weren’t so insulting.
What threat could I pose, barefoot and unarmed, my strength leeched away by grief and hunger?
“Good evening,” I said, though I knew he wouldn’t answer.
Three days of attempted conversation had yielded nothing but stony silence.
I’d tried questions, commands, even pleading on that first desperate day.
Now I spoke merely to hear a human voice, even if it was my own.
“The weather must be pleasant above. I cannot smell rain in the air you bring with you.”
His eyes flickered toward me for the briefest moment as he pushed the tray through the small opening at the floor of the bars.
He hadn’t met my gaze, but he did acknowledge my existence, which was something.
Perhaps Valen hadn’t completely stripped away the humanity in the guards of Vareth.
Or perhaps it was simply pity, the most useless of emotions.
The tray held what passed for a meal in this new reality—a wooden bowl of broth thin enough to see through, a hunk of bread that had long ago surrendered any claim to freshness, and a cup of water that at least appeared clean. A feast for the damned.
I nodded stiffly, a duchess accepting an offering at court. The guard’s mouth twitched, then it was gone, and so was he, the dungeon door closing with a finality that echoed through my bones.
I reached for the tray, my stomach betraying my dignity with an audible growl.
Hunger had become a strange companion, sometimes sharp and demanding, sometimes a distant, dull ache that I could almost forget.
I dipped a finger into the broth, finding it lukewarm at best. Better than cold, I supposed, though memory cruelly summoned images of steaming bowls of fragrant stew, fresh-baked bread glistening with butter, wine that tasted of summer sunlight.
I ate slowly, methodically, making each bite last. The bread scraped my throat going down, and I chased it with sips of water, measuring my consumption with the careful precision of one who understands that these meager provisions must sustain body and spirit until the next delivery.
Finished with my meal, I set the tray aside and rose to my feet, ignoring the protest of stiff muscles and the renewed pain from the cuts that had not yet fully healed.
Standing made my head pound harder, a rhythmic hammering that echoed the beat of my heart.
Still, I forced myself upright, unwilling to surrender even this small act of defiance.
I now knew my cell measured eight paces by six—I’d counted them a hundred times, tracing the perimeter like a caged animal seeking escape.
The walls were old stone, solid and uncaring, bearing the marks of countless years of silent witness.
I ran my fingers along them once more, feeling for cracks, for loose mortar, for any sign of weakness that previous explorations might have missed.
There was nothing. The craftsmanship of Vareth’s dungeons was, ironically, something my father might have been proud of.
Generations of skilled stoneworkers had ensured that these walls would stand long after those who built them had returned to dust. I pressed my forehead against the cool stone, allowing myself a moment of defeat.
“Are you there?” I whispered to the wall that separated my cell from the next, though I hardly believed my neighboring companion ever existed.
Silence always answered me when I tried to speak with my neighbor. Sometimes, I thought, just for a moment, I heard breathing not my own, but he never answered my attempts to converse.
I lifted my gaze to the grate above, where the last embers of daylight were fading into blue-black night.
Through those bars, I could sometimes glimpse a passing cloud, a fragment of sky, a teasing reminder of a world beyond stone and shadow.
The sight was both comfort and torture. Proof that life continued, oblivious to my suffering, yet also evidence that there existed something beyond these walls.
As darkness claimed the grate, I sank back down to the floor, drawing my knees to my chest for warmth.
My mother’s crown, a thought that came unbidden, unwelcome.
Where was it now? Had Valen claimed it as a trophy along with my kingdom and my freedom?
The thought sent a spike of rage through my veins, hot and clarifying.
My fingers curled into fists, nails biting half-moons into my palms. The pain was welcome, real, present.
A tether to the world of sensation when everything else threatened to dissolve into nightmare.
I would endure this. I would survive. Not for myself, what was left of me to save?
But for those who might still draw breath in a world controlled by a monster wearing a crown.