Page 136 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

But now, she didn’t feel an explosion of warmth in her chest. She was as bitterly cold as the cyclone winds, and her toes curled in her boots in the worst kind of way. Blake blinked at her silence.

“Without you, I . . . without you we cannot win. We need you,” he urged.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking!” She slammed her hand against the bars. “The man who never believed in magic, who refused its existence, has come crawling to me so he can use me in this war. Usingloveas a tactic to push me into something I don’t want.”

“Your power is unique. With it wewillwin. We will get everything we ever wanted! Everything we talked about—together. I thought you still wanted that.” Hurt pinched his face.

“I don’t wantthis.”

“Don’t choose this path,asterya.”

“Don’t. Call. Me. That.” She bared her teeth in a snarl.

Blake’s face hardened, his desperation melting away like a façade. “Final chance, Kora. Join me, or you can die here.”

The coldness of his words penetrated her chest, turning it into a barren frozen ruin.Their façade had been a façade.There never had been anything between them, it’d all been one continuous lie. She’d been a pawn in his game—a way for him to excel the ranks and gain favour with Barron. Her dreams were never the goal for them to be together. To think she’d been willing to risk it all forlove. It’d just been another façade to mask his.

This entire bloody time.

“We were never real,” she replied, the words spoken out loud, settling like a chilling confirmation.

Blake sighed against the thick slimy bars of her cell, a glimmer of regret rippling across his face before his features smoothed out into detached coolness.

“Are you going to tell him?”

Blake paused, frowning at her question.

“About me? My . . . gift.”

“There’s no need,” he replied bluntly.

“Where’s Theron? Is he here? And Ivar?” Kora inhaled sharply.

She’d wondered if the prince was contained in one of these cells . . . or if he’d been one of the many bodies tossed to the watery depths below. She’d called his name, and Ivar’s, the first night, but had been treated with a smashingvisitfrom the guards.

She learned her lesson quickly to keep her mouth shut.

“They’re not here,” she deflated at his words. “You won’t see—”

“Captain!”

Her stomach leapt to her throat as she jumped towards the bars, hope blooming in her chest. Samuel and Aryn had come for her, they had—

An unrecognisable soldier hurried across the railed platform outside the cells—straight to Blake.

“Captain, we need you above. There’s been a . . . disturbance,” he addressedBlake, who glanced warily at her, and that burning rage consumed her all over again.

“Captain?” she seethed.

Blake shrugged disinterestedly. “A spot opened up.”

“Howdareyou. How fucking dare you!”

And just there, sown in gold on the side of his healed shoulder, was the captain ranking. He’d taken her title, her position.Her life.

“You had to put me in a cage to get what you want!”

He arched a smooth brow. “You put yourself there. I told you the impulsive plunders were unsound.”