Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
KATELL
Katell woke with a jolt, her chest heaving as though she’d just finished her morning run around camp. The air was thick, cloying with mildew and despair. The chill of the damp stone beneath her seeped into her skin.
Her pulse quickened as her eyes strained against the darkness.
A cell.
Panic surged before she could stop it. Her body froze, her mind yanking her back to Bruna—the clash of steel, the sickening roar of the crowd, her own screams. The phantom taste of copper filled her mouth.
No.
Her breathing hitched, and she forced herself to focus on the present. The faint sound of dripping water echoed through the oppressive silence. Not the arena’s belly—it was far too quiet. Besides, Bruna’s arena was being torn down. She’d seen it firsthand.
To her left, iron bars glinted in the dim torchlight that flickered from an empty corridor beyond the cell. She tried to sit up, but a sharp tug at her wrists stopped her short.
She looked down. Burnished gold bands encircled her wrists, and iron chains dragged against the floor. The hum of her magic, always a faint thread beneath her skin, was silent.
Dampeners. Again.
Her memories came back to her in fragments—Dodona, Tarxi, the First Legion, the Freefolk. And at the heart of it all, the bitter sting of betrayal—a knife lodged deep between her ribs, twisted by hands she’d once trusted.
Her fists clenched, the chains rattling against the stone.
“Fucking Dorias,” she hissed.
A figure stirred in the shadows. Another prisoner, shackled to the opposite wall. “Kat?”
Katell’s breath caught. “Leywani?” Her voice cracked, raw with thirst.
The woman shifted, straining to sit up. Dim light caught her face—cheekbones sharper than they should’ve been, dark hair matted and tangled, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion yet still vivid.
“You’re awake.” Relief softened Leywani’s words as she tugged a thick wool blanket tighter around her shoulders. Another rested across Katell’s lap, but she refused to touch it. A measly blanket wouldn’t erase what Dorias had done—nothing would.
“Barely.” Katell rubbed her wrists—her skin was chafed red. “Where are we?”
Leywani hesitated, her gaze darting towards the cell bars, as if expecting their captors to appear at any moment.
“Kisra, I think,” she whispered, stretching out her legs.
A clean pair of boots adorned her feet since Katell had last seen her.
“But I’m not sure. That commander, Dalmatius, isn’t one for small talk.
” A sly smile tugged at her lips. “Handsome, though. I’ll give him that.
Anyway, they moved us a lot. Through shadows. It was hard to keep track.”
“Romilda,” Katell growled. If she ever got her hands on her again, she’d repay what she did to Tia ten times over. “Moving through shadows is her Gift.”
Leywani scowled. “Yeah. She was a delightful bitch.”
A soft chuckle escaped Katell—a rare reprieve in the suffocating gloom. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Did they hurt you?”
“No. Dalmatius kept his word.” Leywani wriggled her feet, showing off her new boots for emphasis. “Though they did leave me in here all day with only water, and now I’m positively starving.”
Katell’s stomach rumbled in agreement, the sound echoing through their shared cell.
“Here.” Leywani nudged a waterskin across the floor with her toe until it bumped against Katell’s boot. “That’s all I can offer.”
Katell snatched it up, uncorked it with shaking hands, and drank. The water was lukewarm, but it slid down her parched throat like salvation.
Leywani studied her for a moment, then ventured, “That man—Dalmatius. He was your commander?”
Katell lowered the skin, wiping her mouth. “Yes.”
“And your lover?”
Katell blinked, taken aback by the question.
Leywani smirked, as though savouring the moment. “He cradled you in his arms and wouldn’t let anyone else touch you. Also, I caught bits of conversation from some of the soldiers.”
“You learned Rhaetic?”
“No,” Leywani answered with a huff. “But they forced some vile potion down my throat, and suddenly I could understand it all.”
“They gave me one too when I joined the legion…” Katell trailed off, the words sparking a flood of memories—her first days with Dorias, when she’d been eager to prove herself. She had joined the Black Helmets because she’d trusted him, believed in his vision.
She’d been so convinced that the Sixth was the right path. But now, looking back, her gut twisted.
How could she have been so blind?
Guilt weighed heavy on her shoulders. Her mistakes had led to the Freefolk’s enslavement and suffering. “I’m so sorry, Ley.”
“I know.” Leywani’s tone was understanding, and Katell’s throat tightened.
“I never meant for all this to happen. I never thought—”
“That he’d betray you?” Leywani whispered.
Katell remained silent.
Leywani let out a dramatic sigh, but there was a flicker of something softer beneath the humour. “Well, with his good looks, I can’t say I blame you. It’s obvious why you fell into his trap.”
She was trying to make light of the situation, as she always did, but instead of lifting Katell’s spirits, it only made her heart ache.
“I missed you,” Katell admitted, the words heavier than she intended.
For a beat, Leywani’s confident facade cracked. Her face softened, eyes glistening with unspoken pain before she managed a fragile smile. “Me too.”
“I’m…” Katell faltered.
The word sorry hovered at the tip of her tongue, but it felt so inadequate compared to all the pain she’d caused.
How could she apologise for what had happened at the matching ceremony—and for everything that had followed?
Leywani, perceptive as ever, tilted her head and waved a hand in casual dismissal. “My husband is dead,” she said flatly. “No matter what happens to me next, at least I’m free of him.”
Katell clenched her hands, the cold metal of her dampeners biting into her skin—a pale echo of the suffering Leywani must have endured at the hands of that brute.
“I won’t let them harm you.” Whatever leverage or strength she still had left, she would wield it with everything she had to protect Leywani.
She owed her that much.
“I know.” Leywani’s lips curved into a rueful smile. “But I don’t think we’ll have a choice.”
The cell’s damp chill seemed to close in around them. Torchlight caught the lines of Leywani’s face, revealing both exhaustion and a quiet, stubborn resilience.
“Will you tell me?” Katell asked softly. “Everything that happened to you after you left Camp Bessi? I need to know.”
So, Leywani did. She told Katell about the horrors of living with a man who’d seen her as little more than a servant, her value measured by how well she cooked his meals, tended to his home, and kept his bed warm at night.
Katell’s heart twisted with each word, her nails biting into her palms as she listened to Leywani describe the oppressive loneliness of those years, the days blurring into nights with no one to speak to.
Then another bride came to their camp, traded from a neighbouring village.
“She showed me how to grind certain roots together,” Leywani said quietly, her voice tinged with a bitter kind of gratitude.
“To stop myself from bearing his children.” Her jaw tightened.
“It was the only freedom I had, the only choice I could make for myself.”
She recounted the fleeting relief that washed over her whenever her husband left to hunt for days, followed by the looming shadow of his return.
Her voice sharpened when she described the day the First Legion descended on their camp.
How the men had fought back, but it had been futile.
With a sharp edge of satisfaction, she confessed the grim spark of joy that lit within her when her husband fell, even as her own fate hung in the balance.
“But the quarry,” she continued with a slight tremble, “that was a different torment. The shifts were endless, the accidents too common. Never enough food or water. Just work until your body collapsed.” Her gaze hardened.
“But I never gave up. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t meant to die there—not like that. ”
Katell listened, saying nothing, her throat too tight to speak, faced with Leywani’s resilience.
“And then, Alena came,” Leywani said, her expression softening for the first time. “She snuck into the camp, looking for her friends—the Non-Humans.”
Katell frowned. “Non-Humans?”
“A mother and her boy,” Leywani explained.
“The mother was in bad shape after an accident, but Alena didn’t give up.
She created a distraction, went after the soldiers who’d taken the boy, and brought him back to his mother.
” Leywani paused. “When San—the mother—died, Alena was devastated. But still, she didn’t stop. ”
Leywani’s expression darkened. “Gortynius—a cruel, evil man—found her and beat her in front of his men. Badly. For a moment, I thought he would kill her, but she did something to him. I’m not sure what, but there was a flash of light, and suddenly his Gift was hers.”
“Wind magic?” The memory of Alena wielding that very Gift in Tiryns flashed through Katell’s mind.
Leywani nodded. “Exactly.”
Katell leaned back against the damp wall. Interesting. So her sister could take other Gifts? Was that how she’d collected so many?
“Alena…” Leywani faltered, glancing down before meeting Katell’s gaze. “Alena gave us hope again. And the Rasennans… they’re scared of her. I heard them talking—about Tiryns, about how the siege was broken. But they called her by another name. Omega.”
Katell’s heart skipped a beat. Omega. Like the golden Mark on the back of her sister’s hand.
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant drip of water, both lost in their thoughts.
Finally, Leywani spoke, her voice soft yet probing. “And you? Will you tell me what happened after you were exiled? Scylas told me about the elders… his grandfather had it coming, we all knew that. But then, where did you go?”