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Fuck.

He needed water.

I raised my hand, palm outstretched toward the damp ground and flicked my fingers. Nothing happened. I tried again and still nothing. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as frustration swelled inside me.

They had somehow blocked lesser magic.

“Fucking black magic . . .” I whispered as I glanced around the cell, searching for anything that could help. The dripping continued its maddening rhythm, taunting me with the promise of water just out of reach.

A sudden cough erupted from Dukovich’s throat, his chains scraping against the stone with the movement as I pushed my hand back through the bars. My fingers found his face, heat blooming against my palm as it found his cheek and dragged his chin toward me.

“If you die and leave me alone in this fucking hellhole, I will bring you back to kill you myself. Do you understand me?” I bit out the question, though an undercurrent of worry ran through the words.

A weak chuckle collided with the musty air. “Never thought I would see the day you begged for me to stay alive.”

“I’m not begging, I’m threatening,” I snapped, my hand falling from his face. “There’s a difference.”

He drew in a shaky breath. “You know, love, if I had known all it would take was being imprisoned and on death’s door for you to show me you care, I would have arranged for this months ago.”

“You’re an idiot,” I hissed, but couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of my lips as I leaned my back against the bars.

A heavy sigh escaped from between my clenched teeth, exhaustion seeping into my bones, but I pushed it away. I would not risk waking to him dead beside me. I had lost all sense of time as the dank air clung to my skin like a suffocating shroud, the weight of our reality pressing down on me.

I would not die a fucking prisoner.

My eyes fluttered shut as I willed my mind to conjure a solution, an escape, a way to keep us from being harmed—anything. The knot in my stomach tightened, twisting and writhing like a living thing inside of me as I thought through every scenario.

Cin would come for us, I knew that for certain.

It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. She was impulsive and self-sacrificing, sometimes to a fault, which meant she probably had tried to come back the second Dukovich and I fell from Nithra’s back. But Andrues was not; he was the voice of reason. But that reason would only give them more time to torture us and we didn’t have time—Dukovich didn’t have time.

Landers still wasn’t back, though the screaming had stopped hours ago. At least, I think it was hours. Maybe it was only minutes. A fist clamped around my heart as my mind spiraled into the abyss.

If they fucking killed him . . .

“Talk to me,” I murmured, shaking the thought from my head. “You need to stay awake.”

The fabric of his clothing rustled as he readjusted his position with slow, pained movements, his chains clanking together and sending an eerie echo down the corridor lined with cells. He positioned his back against the bars on the other side of me, warmth radiating off him and kissing my skin as I leaned against them.

“What would you like me to say, love?” he asked, his voice low and strained.

“I want to know the truth of how you really got here, how you went from being one of the most powerful rulers to betraying your realm.”

I knew fragments of why he did what he did, small pieces of his motives. But there was something deeper than just hope behind his betrayal. Someone like him, people like us, don’t betray the things we love for the idea of hope with no guarantee of the outcome.

Dukovich was silent for a heartbeat. “You want to know my story?”

It was a loaded question and I knew what he was really asking.

“Yes,” I breathed, my answer slipping into the silence. The one word held a plethora of emotions, charging the air around us.

It may have been the most honest thing I had ever said to him.

I cared about him, that was the truth.

And though I didn’t know if I could ever give him the parts of me I knew he wanted, I would not let him die thinking he didn’t mean something to me.

“My mother was a maiden to the King of The Silliands, but she was not bred to be sold like most maidens are. She was taken from my grandparents when she was fifteen as payment for a debt that my grandfather couldn’t pay. The King had seen her beauty and wanted her for himself, forcing her to become his concubine, even though she was just a child,” Dukovich continued, his voice low and tinged with bitterness.