Chapter 4 – Azaria
AZARIA
They moved me. Not the isolation wing from before; this was something else entirely.
The stone was bare, the doors thicker, and no sound came from the other cells.
I recognized it. It was designed for people they wanted to disappear.
There was no routine or comfort. The guards who passed my door never spoke.
Not even the scrape of boots in the corridor broke the silence for long.
And no visitors. I hadn’t expected any. I’d told Dain to stay away and keep the squad safe, but the absence still pressed heavily.
No familiar voices. No faces I could place. Only silence and stone.
The cold down here was deeper than before, burrowing into my bones.
The bench was harder. The walls felt closer.
They’d brought me food at some point: bread, cheese, dried meat.
I forced it down without tasting it. My wrists ached where the bindings had been.
They’d removed them when they moved me. No need, apparently, when the door was this thick, and the runes etched into every surface did the work for them.
Small mercy.
They brought me to the Truthteller again. Mid-morning, I thought. Hard to tell. The same man as the day before, in the same cold stone room, asking the same questions—reordered and reshaped, but circling like vultures.
Did you accept the Thornvales into your squad under duress?
No.
Has Quinton Thornvale influenced your command decisions?
No.
Have you had contact with Dravareth operatives since their defection?
No.
Every answer clean. Every answer true.
I watched their faces for any hint of change, any crack in their certainty.
Got nothing. They were better trained than the council’s usual interrogators; professional and thorough.
It was almost impressive. When they finally led me back to the cell, my head was pounding.
Hours of the same scrutiny, the same cold questions.
But I hadn’t slipped. Hadn’t given them anything.
Back in the cell, the silence pressed closer.
I kept circling back to the same thought: the squad. Were they still together? Or had the council already started isolating them, breaking the foundation we’d built?
Dain would hold the line. I knew that. But for how long? And what if the council came for them next?
I wondered if he’d told them what I’d said about Callan. If they believed Callan was innocent. Or if they’d already decided he was a traitor.
I tried asking the guard once, voice low. “What’s happening with my squad? Are they?—”
He didn’t even look at me. Just kept walking.
They wanted me cut off, blind and alone. It worked more than I’d like to admit.
I held onto memories. Solmarin, mostly. The warmth of it.
The way the city had felt alive in ways Tempest never did.
That night on the rooftop with drinks and stars overhead, wearing the dress that made me feel like someone other than a captain for once.
Quinton beside me, close enough I could feel the heat rolling off him.
The way he’d looked at me. The way I’d almost?—
I stopped that thought before it went further. The Truthteller would be back in the morning, and if they caught even a glimpse of what I felt for a Dravareth defector—the man the council was already using as proof of my compromised loyalties—it wouldn’t just destroy me. It would destroy him.
But I could still hear the squad’s laughter from earlier that week. Zephyr’s sharp commentary. Reyna’s grin. The way we’d all sprawled across those chairs in Darann’s manor, like we belonged there. That was what I kept. The sound of their voices. The weight of their presence.
I let it anchor me through the dark.
The quiet thickened that night. I tried not to let it in, but it pressed close anyway.
Footsteps.
I looked up, squinting against the sudden brightness as torchlight spilled through the door. Two guards stepped inside, faces blank.
“On your feet,” one said.
I stood slowly, joints stiff from the cold. “What’s happening?”
“You’re being moved.”
My pulse jumped. “Moved where?”
The guard’s expression didn’t shift. “The Black Cell.”