Chapter 36
Cold.
It’s so cold.
Sensations start to creep back to me, pricking every bit of my skin as the numbness leaves my body in slow, painful waves. My head feels heavy as stone. My vision is blurry.
I blink, again and again, until the darkness turns into light, burning low but disorientating.
The cold seeps in from the damp, hard floor beneath me. My breath comes shallow, my teeth clattering. Icy water drips from the ceiling above—no, not ceiling—stone.
Some sort of … cave.
Where am I?
Is this a dream?
It takes me a long, aching moment to realise that what I’m seeing is real. Every fibre of my body protests as I push myself up, my heart pounding in fear and confusion. I look around … and realise that I am in a holding cell built into the rock, thick, rusty bars sealing me in.
What—
How did I—
For a breath, I’m convinced the rebellion has me. That they’ve dragged me here. I try to piece my last memories together—I was in the village, talking to James and the others. Then Kieran and I went home. We got dressed. We were about to go out, and—
Mother of the stars.
Kieran.
Everything slams back into me in an instant. I remember now. The kiss. The heat of his hand. And then choking. Gasping. Crawling towards each other—
I stop breathing.
Oh, Gods—Kieran.
“Hello!” My hands slam against the bars, my voice raw and urgent as I scream at the top of my lungs, hoping to catch someone’s attention—anyone who might be able to tell me what the hell happened to Kieran. To us. “Please, can anyone hear me?”
I don’t know why I’m here. And I don’t care.
The image of Kieran’s face—straining for air, eyes wide with fear—burns into me, tearing every breath from my lungs.
He’s not here.
He’s hurt.
And I don’t know where he is.
Gods… oh, gods.
Please.
Please.
I scream until my throat aches, but the cell stays silent. It’s too damn dark. Too cold. My black sequined gown is now damp with dirt, clinging uncomfortably to my skin. Autumn feels like winter in this cell, ice clawing its way to my slow-beating heart.
Something happened.
We were hurt.
Wait—
But I’m not.
I’m not anymore.
That means Kieran is not hurt.
Relief crashes over me, but I don’t stop shouting. I can’t, not until I know what the fuck is going on. Not until I see for myself that Kieran is alive and well.
But nobody comes.
No one at all.
My knees buckle, my heart in shambles. My fear a monster clinging to my shadow.
No one comes.
I wait and I wait, alone in the dark with nothing but a flickering light and the cold to accompany me.
Like a reaper waiting patiently for my heart to slow until it stops.
And still, no one comes.
Warm.
It’s too warm.
This is not just a holding cell, I realise.
It’s a torture chamber.
Just when my heart is slow enough for sleep to take me, when my body begins to surrender to the cold, the air swells with heat—enough to drag me back. To keep me breathing.
And then, just when I start to feel almost comfortable … it vanishes.
The chill seeps in again, slower this time.
No.
This can’t be happening.
Kieran will feel all of this too.
I rest my aching body against the wall of the cave, trying to focus my mind somewhere else, but it’s no use. Each shiver, each gasp will cut through the bond like a blade.
I’m hurting Kieran, and I can’t stop it.
Please.
For what feels like forever, I just sit there, too cold to move, too broken to speak, enduring the hell this cave forces on me.
It breaks me, then pieces me back together.
Again.
And again.
A part of me begs for the final breath—to end this agony.
But I can’t.
If I die, Kieran dies with me.
So I breathe, even though it hurts.
I don’t know how long has passed, but then I finally hear it—
Footsteps.
It takes everything in my power to force my eyes open. The world swims at first, fractured and all blurred, until the shape resolves—tall, winged, framed by the bar.
Atticus.
“Oh gods … Atticus,” I rasp, my voice shredded raw. My throat feels like sandpaper, my lips cracked. I haven’t had a single drop of water in forever. I try to push myself up, but I can’t.
He can help.
He can get me out of here.
But—
Why hasn’t he moved?
Where’s the urgency?
Why—why is he looking at me like that?
“Atticus … what’s going on?” I murmur, panic rising. “Where is Kieran?”
“Where is Kieran?” he repeats, stepping closer, his face half shadowed in the dimmed lit light. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“What—”
“Why, Cassandra?” he snaps. “Are you trying to check if your plan worked? If he actually died?”
I freeze. It’s like the air in the entire cell is sucked out.
My … plan?
“Atticus, what are you—”
“Thanks to you, he’s now lying in bed, barely alive.” His mouth curls in a cruel scoff. “Got to hand it to you. Iron-laced perfume? Clever. I genuinely didn’t see that coming. You wore your little mate act so well … but they don’t call it a rat if you see it coming, do they?”
Oh, Gods.
He thinks I did this.
Is that why I’m in this hell hole?
My perfume was laced with iron?
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” I manage slowly, muscles screaming as I drag myself closer to the bars, “but I didn’t do this. I don’t know anything about the perfume … and why would I poison him when I can feel his pain through the bond?” I choke. “Please … take me to Kieran.”
“No,” he spits. Not even a second of hesitation. “The link is severed. We made sure of it.”
“What?” The sound tears out of me. “No, no, Atticus, our mating bond—"
“You poisoned him. What the fuck do you care if it’s still there?”
“But I didn’t!” I shout, fear creeping in, taking over every bit of my body. My hand grips the bar so hard its bites into my skin. “I swear to the stars, I didn’t do this! You’ve got the wrong person!”
But he just stands there, not even blinking.
The cell is icy, but it’s nothing compared to the look in Atticus’s eyes—sharp, glacial, utterly unforgiving. I have never seen him like this … and I doubt those who have ever lived to tell the tale.
“I trusted you,” he murmurs. “I asked you to keep an eye on Jordan and Florence … and then you went and did this?”
“For fuck’s sake, I didn’t do it!” I yell. “You can’t just keep me in here! You don’t even have proof! What if someone is trying to frame me?”
He shakes his head like he’s already made up his stupid mind and nothing is going to change it.
“Actually, you’re wrong,” he says, and for all the handsomeness he possesses, his smile has never been so ugly. “Because Kieran’s out, I am—by law—acting High Lord of this Court.” He steps closer, shadow falling across me. “So yes, Cassandra—I can keep you in here.”
What is going on right now?
This has to a joke.
There has to be some sort of mistake.
Where is everyone else?
Gideon? Skylar? Virgil?
Even Lucas?
Did they all just swallow this lie without a second thought?
“I want to speak to Gideon,” I demand. He’s been glued to me for weeks. He knows there’s no chance I could have done this.
“You’re not in the position to request anything here.”
“I am your King’s mate,” I grind out.
Atticus leans in, a wicked smile on his face. “There is no King in this Court. However, there is a High Lord—and right now, that’s me.”
I am lost for words.
I have never known Atticus to be so ruthless, so—irrational.
I don’t understand.
What the fuck is wrong with him?
Then it clicks.
How he’s acting High Lord, how no one has been in here, how I have had no chance to speak, to defend myself.
Oh Gods.
The ugly truth hits me like a heavy blow to the skull.
“It’s you,” I snarl, rage flooding my veins like wildfire. “You fucking did this.” I spit the words like venom. “You are the rat!”
His eyes flicker. A flash of lightning in the dark.
And I know. I just know. It’s him.
“That’s a bold accusation,” he says casually, arms crossing. “You should be careful, Miss Thorne. I could have your head, you know.”
“Kieran would never let it happen!”
“Kieran isn’t here, is he?” He arches a brow, his green eyes too delighted for someone whose King lies on death’s doorstep. “Who knows if he’ll ever regain consciousness?”
I grip the bars until I feel my skin split. Fear bleeds into fury.
“I’m going to kill you,” I swear, then again, louder. “When I get out of here, I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“When you get out of here?” Atticus scoffs. “That’s rather ambitious.”
“So is treason,” I snap. “I don’t know what your angle is, but this Court will never be yours.”
“Oh, Cassandra … you really are na?ve, aren’t you?”
I don’t reply, just stare at that face, wishing I could smack the smugness right off it.
Kieran trusted him.
We all trusted him.
“The Court is already mine.”