Page 33 of Daggermouth

The blow caught her temple and her vision exploded into white stars, ears ringing as if someone had detonated a bomb inside her skull. Blood trickled warm down the side of her face. Shadera turned her head slowly, cheek scraping against the floor, and let her lips spread into a bloody grin.

She wouldn’t give them what they wanted, she would never obey Veyra orders.

Gloved hands grabbed her shoulders, dragging her upright and setting her on her feet as she jerked against their hold. Their grip on her body tightened as they began to haul her toward the door. Shadera kicked wildly, grunting against the pain. She wouldn’t go without a fight.

The guards shoved her through the doorway, her broken body slamming against the metal bars as they manhandled her into the corridor. The impact sent fresh agony through her collarbone, and a cry finally escaped from between her lips.

Shadera had trained for this, had trained to be tortured, to withstand beatings. She’d die before she gave any of her secrets to the Heart.

Behind Shadera, the other prisoners began to scream, their voices growing louder as she snarled at the guards. Her knee met the groin of the first officer and he buckled over as a second round of electricity seized every muscle in her body, and this time a scream tore from her lungs.

“Leave her alone!”

“Get your hands off her!”

The protests spread like wildfire. Every cell they dragged her past erupted in screams and shouts, hands reaching through bars, faces twisted with rage and desperation. The guards grasp on her arms deepened, fingers digging into flesh already mottled with bruises.

“Shut the fuck up,” one of the guards shouted, firing one bullet toward the ceiling as they halted and looked around the cells in warning.

For one second the prison fell quiet, the bullets’ echo the only sound. Then, out of the quiet a woman’s voice, thin but determined, began to sing. The melody was old, but Shadera recognized it immediately and panic shot up to her throat.

No, no. Her eyes frantically searched the cells for its origin. This would cause chaos, would cause a massacre. Her sight locked on the woman. The same woman with the ruined eye from her cell.

Prisoner 3421.

She did not stop singing as she held Shadera’s stare.

Did not stumble over the words.

She nodded once to Shadera, placing her hand over her heart and began to sing louder.

“Silence!” the guard yelled, twisting toward her and aiming his rifle. Still she sang as a red dot found the center of her forehead.

Shadera saw it, the moment the woman accepted her fate. The moment her shoulders fell back and she took one last stand against the Heart, pushing her chin up in defiance.

“No!” Shadera screamed, lunging toward the gun. “Stop—”

The shot rang out as the other two guards yanked her back. For one terrifying moment, Shadera went wholly numb as she watched the woman’s body crumple to the ground. Blood poured from the bullet hole between her brows in three lines as the prison seemed to hold its breath.

Shadera’s chest rose and fell in rapid succession as she dragged her eyes from the woman’s lifeless body to find all the prisoners’ eyes locked on her, hands over their hearts, chins held high.

No.

An explosion of song reverberated off the walls of the prison, every person singing. Every prisoner echoing her defiance. Every head dipping toward Shadera in recognition. Men and women, young and old, their voices blending into a chorus that filled every corner of their cages and spilling out into the corridor beyond.

It was the song of defiance, of hope in the midst of despair, of unity in the face of oppression. It was the national anthem of the old world. The song that had been outlawed when New Found Haven rose.

It was more than a song,it was a battle cry.

More guards flooded into the prison at the sound, guns drawn and circling around Shadera, barrels trained on the innocent.

“I said silence!” the guard snarled again as they spread down the narrow corridor.

The prisoners ignored him, their voices rising higher, the forbidden anthem pouring from their throats as their fists began to bang on the bars, their feet stomping in rhythm with their voices. Each defiant, each scared, each steady.

Shadera stood frozen in the center of the swarm of guards as the song flowed over her skin. Her heart swelled, guilt and fear filling the muscle. Tears began to prick at the corners of her eyes at the disturbing beauty of this moment.

She could feel the weight of their courage, the way they were choosing to defy the Heart knowing it would only bring them death. They were brave in a way she’d never been. She’d never fought for anything other than herself. But these people, these strangers, were giving up any chance of survival, all for a doomed rebellion. All because Shadera had pulled a trigger. All because she had dared to execute the Heart’s heir.