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“I’m saying you’re expendable,” Theron snapped. “The next time you’re handed a lady to fuck, youfuck herso I don’t have to listen to her mewling about her neglected cunt, do you understand me?”

I wanted to snap back at him, to tell him to go and fuck the lady himself. But the retort died on my tongue as the knot in my stomach wrenched. I just wanted him to go away. My head dropped.

“Yes, Sire.”

Theron’s wings rustled as he pushed himself away from the window. “Good. The carriage will be waiting for you at dawn.”

Alone again, I dried myself and dressed. I needed to see Elara. I needed to hold her, to drench myself in her sweetness and erase everything that had occurred that evening. I needed to convince myself that we’d be free soon. That this torment had an end. That this wasn’t the life that lay ahead of me forever.

I packed a satchel for the coming days while I waited for it to grow quiet outside. It had to be the early hours of the morning. I didn’t have much time before I had to get to the carriage, maybe two hours if I was lucky. But it didn’t matter. I had to see her.

I waited and waited. The sounds of the guards didn’t die down. The laughter and chatter of guests in the castle gardens carried on and on. I became more and more anxious. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Go awayI cursed silently at the voices outside.Go away so I can see her. I need her.

But by the time the grounds fell silent and the readily-flowing alcohol lulled everyone to sleep, dawn had begun to break on the horizon. There was no time now. I’d be gone for days. I was leaving her here alone. I was overcome with such an overwhelming sense of grief that I hung my head in my hands and wept.

Please,I begged.Please, if you’re real, if you brought us together, please get us out of here. Please. I’ll do anything.

* * *

She smiled up at me widely. “He’s kicking again. Here.” She moved my hand, to the top of her swollen belly. I felt the insistent nudging of tiny feet.

“Oh Gods.” I laughed in disbelief. “He’s so strong.”

“Or she.”

“Or she. I don’t care.”

She sighed as she leaned against me. “I’m so happy.” She looked up at me.

Her eye was missing.

I gasped. “Oh gods, Elara.”

“What?” She raised a hand to my face. Her little finger was gone, blood dripping from the rough stump left behind. “Rook?”

The patch of skin where her tattoo had been was bleeding through the white linen of her dress.

I ran a hand over her bald head. “Fuck, Elara, what has he done to you?” She was bleeding, everywhere. Blood poured from her belly, as though someone had slashed it from within.

“Rook.” She tipped her head, her lips trembling, both sockets now empty of her beautiful blue eyes. “Rook, where are you?”

The jolt of the carriage woke me, and I gasped, trying to catch my breath as the nightmarish image of Elara’s bleeding body and hollowed eye sockets swam before me.

I’d been gone three days, barely able to sleep, unable to do anything but worry what was happening to her in that castle.

She was alright of course. I heard her voice in my head, I felt the glow of warmth in my chest as her heart beat steadily beside mine. She missed me, but that was all. She was safe. No harm had come to her.

Yet since I’d left Veles, I’d had nothing but endless nightmares. Elara having all the wounds of the heirs inflicted upon her. Elara giving birth to a child only for Theron to crush its skull under his boot. Returning to Veles to find Elara hanging from her tower, her neck snapped so that her head hung at a sickening angle, her glazed, dead eyes gazing at me.

I was ready to lose my mind. The business I’d been sent away on had been a joke, collecting papers from landholders and nothing more. A servant’s errand. It had been an excuse to get me away from her. To punish me for not doing his bidding. For not being his devoted little slave any longer.

He’d broken me once before. He’d tamed my spirit into a cage where it had festered and died, rotting for years into nothingness. But now, with Elara’s breath and life inside me, I was renewed. I was no longer his dead-eyed thug, and Theron could see that. Uneasiness crept over my shoulders like a cascade of ice. He couldn’t know. Hecouldn’t.

I looked out of the window of the carriage to see familiar mountains and forests around us. We were almost back at the palace. I felt the sharp stab of anticipation, desperate to see her. I’d sneak to the tower that night. I would. I had to see her. If I didn’t, I’d go mad.

The carriage rolled into the castle grounds, and I didn’t wait for it to stop before I threw open the door, stumbling towards the palace entrance. Regan was waiting for me, eyeing me with something between irritation and boredom.