Prince Emmett De Vere
They keep forgetting to feed me.
It’s my aching stomach that wakes me, not the rhythmic drip, drip, drip of water from the walls falling on my face. After weeks, I’ve grown used to that, but the hunger I can’t tune out.
The first few days, they brought me trays of crusty bread and bruised fruit I didn’t recognize. At least, I think it was daily.
There’s no light down here so I can’t be sure.
But then the stretches between meals grew longer. “You have to feed me more often,” I said to one of the guards. My voice
was hoarse with disuse. “I’m human. I’m going to die if you don’t feed me.”
Bram might want to punish me, but he doesn’t want me to die. If nothing else, I have to believe that.
The guard grunted a nonresponse and went on his way, muttering something about humans being too fragile.
That was five sleeps ago.
I reach up and prod at the fresh scar on my scalp where the hilt of one of the guard’s swords knocked me unconscious my first
day here. It’s fully healed now, which is my only measure of time. It’s been at least two weeks, longer probably.
I take stock of the rest of me. My shirt is torn all over, bloodstained and filthy.
Under it, my ribs stick out, concerningly sharp.
In the corner, my coat is balled up. I’ve been using it as a pillow.
The rest of the detritus from the wedding, my dead boutonniere, my shattered pocket watch, the royal sash made of blue silk, are all shoved in the corner.
I’ve sorted through them, found only one useful tool.
It stings worse than any wound to think of that day, but it’s where my mind goes every time I close my eyes. Her face. The way it crumpled when she realized we’d failed.
I failed her.
Every moment I’m in this cell I’m failing her.
I’m not going to survive much longer. If I have any hope of escape, I have to act now, while I still have the strength.
I’m delirious, but I’m not imagining the footfalls on the stone stairs. This time it’s a smaller guard, one I’ve seen before.
That’s good. I think I could overpower him if it came down to it.
He shoves the tray of food through the gap at the bottom of the bars, not caring that the cup of water spills all over the
bread, leaving it soggy and me with nothing to drink.
I swallow the food in small bites so that I don’t throw it up, and wait an hour or so for it to settle in my stomach. I’ve
been waiting for weeks, hoping Bram would free me, but I won’t have the strength to attempt an escape much longer, and I refuse
to just lie down and die. I’m more afraid of that now than I am of anything that lies beyond these bars.
I take the silver pin that once held my boutonniere in place and slip it into the iron lock welded to my cell door.
I feel around for the mechanism, and after a few agonizing minutes, something clicks and the door creaks open.
I nearly cry I’m so relieved, but I can’t lose focus yet.
Along the edge of the wall, I stay hidden in shadows. There are a few other prisoners down here, but they’re all huddled up
in the corners of their cells, too unconscious, weak, or apathetic to rat me out.
I turn one corner, then another, through the serpentine dungeon, and then finally I see it: the rough stone staircase. My
way out.
I make it up one flight and glimpse sun for the first time since the wedding. Warm yellow light pours through a gate at the
top of the stairs like a beacon. I’m nearly there, hands outstretched, when footsteps rush up behind me. The guard doesn’t
say anything, just grabs me from behind and tosses my too-light body down the stairs like it’s nothing.
My temple bounces off the edge of a step, sending blood pouring down the side of my face and out of my ear in a sickening
rush.
He kicks me hard in the stomach, then brings the hilt of his sword down in the spot between my brows.
They say when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes, but I don’t see anything but her. Ivy in the back of
a dark carriage, Ivy covered in mud, the May Queen crown on her head, Ivy biting her lip in a garden, Ivy sprawled out under
me in a coaching inn. The freckle on her shoulder I longed to kiss. A loose blond curl. Soft brown eyes. A flush across her
cheeks.
Ivy. Ivy. Ivy. Ivy.
I can’t bring myself to regret any of it. Not if it meant I got to have her.
As darkness claims me, my final thought is of Ivy Benton in her wedding dress, haloed by golden sun. I feel warm for the first
time in weeks.