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Chapter forty-two

ATALIIA

A groan slipped from my lips as I pushed my eyelids open against the searing pain beating through my head. A dank smell filled the air as I squinted into the dark, trying to piece together what had happened—where I was.

The last thing I remembered was falling from the sky.

My throat pulsed, slowly squeezing shut, suffocating me as the weight of manacles around my limbs finally registered. My body went wholly still for one moment.

No.

I couldn’t fucking do this again.

I couldn’t be a prisoner. I couldn’t be here.

Static began to fill my head as I yanked my hands, pulling on the chains as my breathing became erratic. Memories flooded behind my eyes, hovering at the edge of my vision—my fingers clawing at the cuffs around my ankles and wrists as audible sobs burst from my throat between the panting.

I couldn’t fucking do this again .

“Breathe, Ataliia. Breathe.” Dukovich’s voice sounded from somewhere behind me and I snapped my head around in the dark.

“Where are you?” I asked, my voice a stifled whimper as I searched the shadows for him.

Chains rattled a few feet from me, the sound screeching through my mind as his silhouette moved across the space. He hissed, groaning as if he were in pain. “Here,” he said, his breath thin as a wet cough fell from his lips.

I pressed my palms to the damp stone floor, slowly feeling my way across the cell toward his voice, my restraints heavy and loud as they dragged behind me, scraping and grating.

My knees slid against the cold ground, pain flaring there with every movement as I shuffled toward the sound of his voice.

My fingers stretched out in front of me, the outline of them disappearing into the dark as they pushed through the air, feeling the rough texture of the cell walls before finally hitting the cool, hard metal bars that separated us.

“Duckovich . . .” I whispered, my voice cracking as I wrapped my fingers around the bars, the cold iron biting into my skin as I pressed my face against them. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

He let out a weak chuckle that morphed into another cough. “I have been better,” he managed, his words strained. “But I will live.”

I nodded into the dark, closing my eyes to try and stay off the panic that was surging through my body.

“What about you? Did they hurt you?” he asked, his pained groans blending with the loud clank of his chains as he dragged himself across the floor toward me. I shook my head, my heart pounding between my ears. I knew he couldn’t see me, but my lips wouldn’t form the words, wouldn’t move.

A sudden scream pierced the air, echoing off the stone walls. My entire body went rigid as a sob broke from the depths of my chest. Dukovich’s hand found mine through the bars, his fingers rough and calloused as they squeezed mine. My nails dug into his skin.

That sound.

I knew that sound too well. It was the scream of being ripped apart, piece by agonizing piece.

Dukovich’s grip tightened on mine, his other hand slipping through the bars and wrapping around the back of my neck as he pressed his forehead to mine. “Don’t listen to it,” he commanded with a fierce whisper. “Just focus on my voice, love.”

I could already feel myself fracturing, the cracks spider-webbing out from my center. I squeezed my eyes shut, hot tears leaking from beneath my lids.

I couldn’t fucking do this again. Not again.

Please, not again.

“I’m scared,” I whispered, my voice breaking and catching in my throat. “I . . . I can’t live through this again.”

His hands flexed across my body at the pain spilling from my words and he pressed his head harder against mine. “I know. I am scared too.”

His admission hung in the air between us, raw and honest as I clung to his presence, to the strength of his hands like a lifeline.

Another scream tore through the darkness, ricocheting off the walls and slamming into me like a physical blow.

I flinched, my body uncontrollably trembling and curling in on itself as I struggled to breathe through the terror gripping my chest. A whimper slipped from my lips as Dukovich made a low sound, almost a growl in response.

His hands slid down to cradle my face, his touch gentle despite the desperation in his grip. “Stay with me, love. Don’t let your mind go back there. Stay here, right here with me.”

I tried to focus on his words, on the sensation of his skin against mine, but the memories were relentless, battering down the fragile walls I’d built to contain them.

The stench of blood and sweat, the searing agony of a blade slicing into flesh, the Svech being pressed into my wounds, the Uthrens wrapping around my body, the white-hot kiss of the brand plunging into my side, the hoarse pleas that echoed endlessly in the pit.

They all came rushing back, threatening to drag me under, crashing over my mind in never-ending waves.

My body shuddered as another wail ripped into the air, echoing off the musty walls. Dukovich’s hands pulled me closer, his hot breathing flowing against my face as he spoke. “Listen to me, Ataliia. You will get through this. I swear it.”

“I can’t . . .” I whispered, my voice raw and broken. “What if they—”

“No,” he cut me off. “I will not let them take you from me. I will die before I let them take you from me.”

Another sob wracked my body and I pressed myself closer to the bars, desperate to feel his solid presence, to anchor myself to something real amidst the chaos warring in my mind.

His thumb slid over my cheek, brushing away the tears that streaked down my face. “Breathe with me, love. In and out. Just focus on my voice.”

I tried to match my breathing to his, letting the steady cadence of his words wash over me. Slowly, the vise grip around my lungs began to loosen, the static in my head quieting to a dull roar.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “You are doing so well. Just keep breathing.”

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, foreheads pressed together, hands clasped around the other as if we could somehow merge through the cell bars through sheer force of will. When Dukovich finally spoke again, his voice was threatening, anger and conviction warping his tone.

“You will make it through this, Ataliia. And when you do, burn this place to the ground and salt the fucking earth.”

As if in defiance of that promise, another scream tore through the prison like a dragon’s, the sound scraping against my already frayed nerves. I flinched, my fingers instinctively tightening around the Dukovich’s.

I recognized the tone of it.

“Landers,” I whispered, realization dawning with sickening clarity. “They’re torturing him, aren’t they?”

Dukovich was silent for a long moment, the weight of his hesitation confirming my fears. “Yes,” he finally said, his voice rough. “I believe so.”

“How long?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “How long have they had him?”

His jaw clenched at the question, the muscles flexing beneath skin. “Hours, I think. It is hard to tell with no light. They dragged him out not long after they brought us here. His cell is on the other side of you.”

I closed my eyes, blocking out the images that flooded my mind. I inhaled a shaky breath, my stomach churning at the thought of what they must be doing to him. The knowledge that Dukovich and I were next.

“Are we still in Ammord?”

I felt the nod of Dukovich’s head in response and a shiver skidded down my spine.

I would rather be back in the fucking pit.

Dark tales of horrors that transpired within these walls had always been whispered about.

The sadistic stories of the leaders and armies were written all throughout The Stories .

The lore said Ammord was the pathway to hell, and from the feel of the black magic and witchcraft that saturated the air and pricked at my skin, I almost believed it.

Ammord did not torture using physical pain. No, they used something much worse against you.

Your own mind.

I had spent all these months learning how to shift, focusing on nothing else just so I could be out of my body—to escape the pain I felt trapped in my own fucking skin.

All this time and that was the least useful of all my magic in situations like this.

I should have been honing everything else.

The mind was a witch’s strength, and I had neglected it.

The last time I used my mental and emotional manipulation was in Ammord, when I killed those guards to get Nox free. But my emotions weren’t heightened then like they were now. My head and mind had been clear, the magic didn’t need to sift through my own emotion before finding theirs.

But maybe . . . maybe I could use it on myself. Use it to control my own emotions, to calm me so I could get into the minds of anyone trying to harm us.

Another scream seeped through the cracks into our cells and I pressed myself closer to the bars as if I could reach through them and hold Landers.

To tell him he would be okay—that we would be okay.

A flicker of anger sparked in my chest at the sound of his suffering, chasing away the tendrils of fear coiling inside me.

“Where are you injured?” I asked, shaking the screams echo from my head. I needed to focus on something, anything other than the agonized cries around us.

“A broken leg, I think and some bruised ribs. Don’t worry about me, love. It is nothing that will kill me,” he said, shifting his body to rest his back against the bars.

“Good,” I snapped, pushing to my feet and walking over to my cell door. “I’m the one that gets to kill you, you’re not allowed to die on me before that.”

A breathy chuckle slipped from his lips. “There she is.”

“How well do you know Ammord’s High Priest and Priestesses? Do you know if they know who you are yet?” I asked, pressing my face against the bars and trying to see down the long corridor of cells.

“Well enough to know that if we do not give them whatever answers they are looking for, we will be dead within a few days. They do not care who we are, or if they can use us as a bargaining chip. And . . .” He let out a weighted sigh, pain braided through it.

“And they know. When we fell back into Camp Bane, they already had a chain around your ankle . . . you screamed for me when they dragged you away.” His words caught in his throat as he choked them out.

“You screamed my name as they pulled you from my arms.”

My heart clamped in my chest, his words sinking into my bones as the memory came flooding back.

That is how he broke his ribs, his leg.

Protecting me from the fall off Nithra’s back. Wrapping his body around mine so it wouldn’t break me.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I whispered, swallowing back the emotion building in the base of my throat—the guilt. “You shouldn’t have tried to protect me. It wasn’t worth it.”

“To me, love, it was.” His answer was firm and resolute and I didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead, I pulled my eyes back to the passage on the other side of the bars, squinting to find any way out.

They knew we were valuable. And they would use that knowledge to break us in every way imaginable.

“Fuck,” I breathed, raking a hand trough my hair. “So, what do we do? We can’t just sit around waiting for them to come for us.”

Dukovich was quiet for a long moment, the eerie silence stretching between us like a living thing.

“No one, and I do mean no one, has ever made it out of these prisons alive. So we give them nothing. No matter what they do to us, no matter how much they make us suffer, we do not give in. You hold onto Landers and you endure and pray that Hyacinth gets to you both before they decide you are no longer worth their time.”

My brows furrowed at his words and I turned to face him. The chains scraped loudly against each other as I crossed my arms. “What do you mean ‘gets to us both’? She would never leave you behind.”

“I mostly believe that.” He chuckled. “But I will not make it out of here alive. My betrayal of The Silliands was a direct betrayal to Ammord because of the alliance the realms share. They will kill me when they drag me from this cell.”

My chest tightened at his words, a cold dread seeping into my veins. It was then I realized that he had been telling me that this whole fucking time.

Not once did he say we would get out, that we would survive this.

He had only said I would.

“No,” I said, my voice sharp. “No. I won’t let that happen. We’re all getting out of here, together.”

“I made my choice when I left The Silliands and I knew what the consequence would be if I was caught.”

“Then why did you come?” I hissed, anger flaring hot in my gut. “Why would you ever come back to Ammord, to Camp Bane, and risk being caught?”

“Love . . .” he started, but I cut him off.

“Don’t ‘love’ me,” I snapped, tears pricking at the corner of my eyes as I furiously blinked them back.

“I will tear this whole fucking prison apart with my bare hands before I let them kill you.” My voice cracked, the emotion and truth spilling out of me.

“You do not get to force me to care for you just to fucking die.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at the admission as my chest heaved against the heavy darkness. I was thankful for it at this moment. That he couldn’t see the fear of losing him carved into my face.

Rage built inside me, and I let it burn away every ounce of fear and despair. We would survive this nightmare.

And when we did, there would be a reckoning.

A reckoning that would shake the very foundation on Nimbria.