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“Talk to me,” I pleaded. Why did I feel as desperate for this answer as she looked to speak it? “I promise you’ll be safe. I’ll help you.”

That was why.

Because Mila had gotten through to me when no one else could, had challenged me in a way I’d needed while never crossing the blurred lines I didn’t even understand. Now I wanted—needed—to help her.

“Nothing happened.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, a crack in her armor as those eyes continued to beg. Help me say it. “Nothing—nothing—” Help me. Her voice went ragged. And then, a sob racked her body. “Nothing.”

Her entire frame shuddered, usually as solid as a fortress before me, now collapsing to her knees.

I fell right beside her, palms pressing into the wooden floor as I resisted the urge to pull her to me. My throat thickened with whatever misery she was going through. It coated the air and made my nerves stand on end.

Mila’s hands were tight around her wrists as she rocked, clutching those gold cuffs like they were her last lifeline—like her heart beat within them, and if she let go, it would be giving up. She shook her head violently, muttering words I couldn’t hear beneath her breath.

Help me say it, her stare continued to plead.

“One word, Mila. Give me one word, and then we’ll get to the next one.”

She blinked at me a few times, seeming to realize I was here. I wasn’t leaving.

“A crack.” She tried to breathe evenly over the sobs, but the words came out choppy.

“A crack?” I repeated quietly.

“A crack.” She nodded. Her tears still flowed, but her eyes held mine, and she summoned some kind of unprecedented strength. “Up near the ceiling. Water trickling down from it. Drip. Drip. Drip.” Her hands twisted around her wrists with each word. “All the hours I spent in there. Drip. Drip. Drip.”

Slowly, gently, I extended a hand, stopping inches away from her. “Can I?” I looked between her wrists and her eyes.

Help me.

A few deep breaths. A nod.

Carefully, I unlatched her fingers from her cuffs and pulled both of her hands between my own. They were cold, palms sweaty. I rubbed them softly to warm her, and fuck, being able to at least touch her smoothed over the hole in my chest, helping me focus.

“Why did that bother you, Mila?”

“Because.” She took a huge breath, deciding. Her blue eyes, usually so assessing, but now so vulnerable, explored mine. She searched for something—I didn’t know what. Seemed to find it, though. “I was a prisoner of war for three months, Malakai.”

My world froze.

Then, it exploded. All I saw was dawning realization bathed in blood as my heart cracked open for the woman before me.

A prisoner.

Three months.

The scars covering her body?—

Oh, fucking Spirits, it made so much sense. Her ability to be in my head. To somehow understand what I was feeling when no one else could. Her strength, her recovery expertise, and her sensitivity to touch when she’d been trapped.

When I’d met her, it was obvious she hadn’t been training recently based on the lack of calluses on her hands, how smooth they’d been. She probably hadn’t fought since the war. Until Daminius, and then she dove headfirst into the new phase. Everything Lyria had said came back to me.

We’ve stuck together ever since the treaty.

When one of us wakes screaming in the night, the other is always there to remind her where we are.

And it was all Lucidius’s fault. She’d suffered worse than I’d ever imagined due to the war that man and his mistress had ignited. That brought bile up my throat—I shouldn’t be the one to comfort her—but as she opened her mouth to continue, I forced it aside. This was about her.

“For nearly one hundred days, I lived in a pit in the ground with bars over my head and brush dragged across them. I rarely saw the sun or the sky. They only let me out for…” She gestured to the scars on her legs. “And for this…”