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It was difficult to hear under the name-calling, the slurs, the cursing. The noise of hatred always dilutes injustice, makes it too easy to disregard, but she still heard it.

It might bring her some small relief to shriek the way those drunken aggressors had. She could bellow about fear and all the ways it bends integrity, and the two poor lads at the gate would be forced to listen. They might even believe her, sympathise with her. But then they’d wake up tomorrow, don their uniforms and carry out their scheduled duties, chained to the commands of their Queen whether they sympathise or not.

Footsteps echo down into the dungeon, glancing off the stone walls. Someone is descending the stairs. The guards straighten.

The sound disappears, and then a voice rings out. “Leave us.”

“But… Your Grace–”

“Now, if you please,” the voice says.

“She might be dangerous, Your Grace.”

“Who? Young Ruby?” it says, coming closer to the keep entrance. Queen Cressida suddenly strides from between the guards and through the open gate, making the men jump to the side to avoid touching her, such would be their bad luck. Cressida comes down the row of cells to the very last, where Ruby is caged. “She wouldn’t dream of harming one of her Queens, would you, Captain?”

Her instinct is to nod her head, to lower her gaze. But she thinks of Dawsyn sitting in this very cell, undaunted, and lifts her chin instead. For the first time, she lets her eyes sweep the length of Cressida, lingering over her silver hair, the jewels resting on her bosom. “I doubt I’ll get the opportunity,” she says icily.

Cressida’s head snaps to the guards. “I said,leave!”

The men shuffle away at once, the clatter of their armour dissolving slowly. And when it is silent once more, Cressida turns her glare back on Ruby.

Cressida, the largely disliked Queen of Terrsaw with a stare more cutting than a carving knife.Too bitter for a Glacian to eat, the people say, and her scrunched nose often gives weight to it. Her lips press together as though an unpleasant taste lingers there, and so a perimeter of deep lines encircle her mouth. Ruby knows that Alvira rarely allows her to leave the palace. Cressida is, and always has been, harmful to the palace’s image.

Ruby, however, is not so easily fooled by a scowl. The woman has far more wit and perception than most.

“My dear wife will join us shortly,” Cressida says now. “I wanted the chance to speak with you myself first.”

Ruby only waits. She knows what lies before her, and it isn’t mere conversation. Torture, then starvation, then the gallows.

Torture is the most efficient way to find answers. Starvation is effective, but not as swift; best to test a prisoner’s grit first. Death is salvation, in the end. Ruby should know, she’s seen it enough times.

“Why did you do it?” Cressida demands. “Why did you run away with that half-breed and the Sabar girl?”

It’s not the question Ruby is expecting. She deflects it. “How did you find out what became of me?” she asks in kind.

“Ah.” Cressida nods. “You areveryclever. Those guards chased their sorry tails right back to the Mecca, heaving and hailing about how you’d been taken, which we all believed, of course.”

“And yet here I am.”

“Here you are,” Cressida agrees. Her frown deepens. “Fortunately, we are acquainted with a new friend in Glacia. I believe his name is Adrik.”

Ruby’s stomach tightens painfully.

“He got word to us that you’d paid him a visit. We’re working toward a new truce agreement, you see. It was a show of good faith. He mentioned you had all taken your leave rather unexpectedly.”

Ruby’s fingers flex and clench restlessly, but she remains silent.

“I answered your question,” Cressida says, her tone darker now. Gone is the lilting titter, that infuriating tenor of superiority. In its place is a voice that Ruby has rarely heard her use. Careful, quiet. “You’ll answer mine.”

Ruby does not allow her eyes to trail away from the older woman’s. “You ask me why I followed a girl up a mountain, like the thought is impossible, but that’s not what I did,” she says, her upper lip curling into a sneer. “First, I looked around the kingdom and saw its monuments and shrines. Then I heard the voices of its people, crying and begging for the mercy of just one of their own. I followed the last living Sabar to the Ledge, and I saw for myself its people,ourpeople,” Ruby impresses, “and the hell we have condemned them to. I went to find those we trapped like animals across the Chasm, and you ask me why?” The captain laughs bitterly, acidly. “What queen sees a bid for her people’s salvation and askswhy?”

Cressida says nothing. Those lines etched around her mouth deepen.

“Only a self-serving one,” Ruby answers for her. “A cruel one.”

For a moment Cressida is still and quiet, her jaw tensing. “You wish to free the Ledge too, Captain?”

“It is well past time that we do,” Ruby replies.