Page 5 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

My body still throbs, but the pain reaches a lull—no better, but not actively getting worse. I open my eyes and glance up to see Pestil and Friener standing beside my bound hands, putting their instruments down.

“Leave us,” Caledon says. The clerics’ footsteps fade. Caledon steps into my vision, his face neutral as he eyes the damage his clerics have done.

“I’ll admit I thought a weak, pampered royal such as yourself would break sooner than this,” he says. I try to summon up some insult to throw at him, but it hurts too much, and my throat is raw from screaming. I can only watch him mutter to himself until he finally meets my gaze.

His eyes are still black with hunger, and I wonder if he’s always like this. Desperate for his next fix, dreaming of the time when he can suck another person dry of their magic.

“If you won’t answer my questions about your powers, let’s try something else,” he says, looking pleased with himself at the idea.

I stiffen, then wince from the shock of pain that radiates through my stomach from clenching my muscles. What else could Caledon want from me?

“How about the Hand of Ralus? I know you must’ve been to some of their bases. Met with their leaders. Tell me where to find them, and I’ll bring in our healers. Your suffering could be over in minutes.”

I can’t deny that the idea of leaving this relentless pain behind me is oh so tempting. But I have to think beyond the husk of raw nerves and flayed flesh they’ve reduced me to .

I picture the purge in Otscold, the screams of my friends’ parents as their children were cut down by the clerics.

I see the fear and pain of the rebels after the Temple’s attack the day we arrived in Tread.

Yes, I’m in agony now, but if I were to give Caledon what he wants, that agony would be increased hundreds—thousands—of times.

It would destroy the Hand’s safe havens and the towns and villages that dared to shelter them.

I can bear this torture if it means no one else has to go through the same horror.

“It won’t work, Caledon,” I say as firmly as I can manage, though my head is spinning. “There’s nothing you can do to me that would make me give them up. Unlike you, there are people I care about more than myself.”

Caledon smiles, as if I’ve just given him everything he wanted.

“That is what I’m counting on, foolish girl,” he says.

I frown, growing dread edging out some of the pain.

I don’t like not knowing what he means. Then he calls one of the clerics back in and speaks to them in a low voice, his tone calm and sweet once more, and my dread thickens.

Whatever he has planned, I can tell from the anticipation and excitement written all over his face that it’s going to be bad. Very bad.

Several long minutes later, a tall man is pulled into the sanctuary and forced to his knees. He’s thin and disheveled, his clothes filthy. He must have been the Temple’s prisoner for some time.

My heart stops when he lifts his head to show his freckled face.

Kit .

The first boy I ever kissed. My best friend’s brother. The person I thought I’d lost along with his parents months ago. He’s alive .

Fresh tears spring to my eyes, and I’m sick to my soul as I realize the only reason Kit is alive is so Caledon can use him against me.

“Ana?” His voice breaks as he says my name. His eyes are shining too. There’s no telling whether he’s more shocked to see me at all or to see me like this: splayed out and bloody on the altar.

At least seeing so much of me exposed wouldn’t throw him. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. There was a time when he knew every inch of me. And I knew every inch of him. It wasn’t a passionate affair, but it was a loving one all the same. He was my first lover .

I have no idea how much of that Caledon knows. But he knows enough to have a glint of triumph in his eyes, along with something more. He can see my terror—and he’s enjoying this already.

“It’s okay, Kit,” I say, trying to force a weak smile. “It’ll be alright, I promise.”

“More lies, Miss Angevire,” Caledon says chidingly, tsk ing like a disapproving schoolmaster. “Because of you and your wickedness, this boy has been corrupted. And now he must be cleansed.”

“No!” I shout and buck against my bindings as Caledon lays his hand on Kit’s head.

“It’s in your power to stop this, Morgana,” Caledon says, his grip tightening. “Whatever agony he’s in is because of you .”

The thrum of magic fills the air, deep and powerful, and Kit starts to scream—a high shriek that pierces my ears like a knife.

“I can’t, Kit,” I shout, tears spilling down my face as I meet his panicked eyes. “I’m sorry, I can’t .”

Even if I told Caledon everything I know, today would still be the day Kit dies—there’s no way around that. Even if I could buy his life at the price of my brother and his comrades, I know, I know , Kit wouldn’t want that. But it doesn’t make it any easier to hear his agony.

Kit’s screams become more ragged as he spasms uncontrollably under Caledon’s touch. Caledon looks toward me, waiting to see when I’ll crack—when watching Kit’s suffering will become too much for me to take. He’s insane and sadistic…but he’s also patient.

“I can keep him like this for days, Miss Angevire,” Caledon says. “No respite, no relief for either one of you. He’ll hover between life and death, a gibbering shell who has forgotten anything in the world exists except for pain—until you repent and tell us what you know.”

I can’t look away, but when blood starts to pour from Kit’s mouth and his eyes roll back into his head, I know I also can’t watch this any longer. After mere seconds of the cleansing, I already wished for death. How can I leave Kit in this state? But what can I do to help him?

“Stop, stop please!” I beg .

Caledon doesn’t lift his hand, but the screams ease off into whimpers as Kit slumps against the ground.

“Tell me what I want to know,” Caledon states—calm, cold, and implacable.

My blood beats in my ears. I need something—anything—to give Caledon. A bargaining chip that won’t cost me more of the people I love.

“I’ll tell you about my power,” I say quickly. “I’ll tell you how I became so powerful, and what I can do with my magic, if you just let me go to him. Let me hold him. Please .”

Kit has started to convulse now, limbs violently smashing against the marble. I try not to lose focus, even as tears roll down my cheeks at the sight of it.

Hold on Kit, I’m coming.

“Talk,” Caledon says. “Then perhaps I’ll grant your request.”

“I can orbit objects and produce sun beams and…I can read someone’s inner flame, telling me if they’re close to death—” I gasp, flinching as something inside Kit cracks—a bone breaking under the force of his convulsions, I think.

Caledon pays him no mind, his eyes narrowed onto me as he takes in the extent of my abilities.

Not one power, but three. It must seem so tantalizing to him.

“There, I told you something. Now let me go to him, please .”

Impatiently, Caledon raises his hand from Kit and gestures to the clerics to undo my bindings.

Desperate relief floods through me. Once I’m unbound, I stumble down off the altar, my legs almost giving out under me. However, I muster my strength and limp toward Kit, my hands clenched down by my sides.

When I’m a few feet away, Caledon steps between me and my friend, his eyes bright with greed.

“And how is it that you can do those things?”

I glance over his shoulder at Kit. I’m so close, but I need to feed the beast just a little more .

“When I was growing up, a dryad gave me a potion to hide my power,” I say.

“It worked, but my magic fought back against it, and she had to keep increasing the dose as I built up a resistance. The stronger the potion got, the stronger my power grew to fight it. That’s the source of untold power the prophecy is talking about. That’s why I’m so strong.”

Caledon’s expression is thoughtful, his dark eyes glinting as he lets me step around him so I can drop to the floor beside Kit.

The moment I touch my friend, something inside me collapses.

I remember the way his skin felt under my fingertips when I first held his hand in Otscold.

I recall admiring the color of his hair as I ran my fingers through it.

So many intimate, innocent moments, belonging to a girl who is lost to me now.

After today, Kit will be lost to me too, but I can’t let him die the way Caledon is planning—thrashing helplessly in a living agony as his pain is wielded as a tool to pull every last secret from me.

I have to save him from that. He’s still shaking, and I draw him into my lap, holding him tight to stop the more violent convulsions.

Blood drips from his nose onto the floor.

His head shifts slightly, nestling against me, taking the tiniest bit of comfort from my nearness.

My heart twists so hard in my chest that I can’t breathe for a second. How could it have come to this?

“Kit,” I whisper into his ear. “Should I help you? Should I end this?”

Something squeezes my leg, and I look down to see Kit’s fingers wrapped around it.

“Please,” he wheezes, the word so faint it could almost be a sigh.

My eyes blurring with tears, I bend over him and open my hand, revealing a bloody scalpel.

One of my torturers had been careless enough to leave it by my hand on the altar, and I’d felt it brush against me when I struggled with my bindings.

Caledon had been watching me, drinking up my pain, but his eyes had been on my face…

not my hands. It had been easy to palm the scalpel without anyone noticing.

Now with one swift movement, I draw it across Kit’s throat .

His eyelids droop as blood wells fresh and thick from the wound.

The grip on my leg loosens, and I swallow hard, stifling a sob.

There’s so much more I wish I could have done for my friend, but at least I was able to give him this: a quick death, as painless as I could make it, in the arms of a friend.

Go join your parents, Kit , I think as I press one last kiss to his forehead. And may the gods watch over you.

I don’t bother asking for them to watch over me. It’s already clear that they won’t.

Caledon has been pacing the sanctuary, ignoring Kit and me. I don’t think he even saw me use the knife, nor do I think the two clerics spotted it from the edge of the room. I’m still bending protectively over Kit, holding him to me, and I drop my hand to my side as Caledon spins around.

“How long did you take this potion?” he demands. “What was in it?”

“Twenty-one years,” I say calmly. “Give or take a few months. And I don’t know what was in it. Like I said, a dryad made it, not me.”

“It worked because you were young,” Caledon guesses, his voice pensive, calculating. “Your magic was still developing, and it adapted to combat the potion.”

I know he’s worked it out—why I’d been willing to tell him this in the first place.

It’s of no use to him. There’s no way he can replicate what I did to boost his own power.

He can drain mine…but Respen said the fae scholars reckon that only gives him a temporary boost. When that’s gone, he’ll be back to being the same old Caledon, knowing he’ll never achieve power like mine that he can keep.

I see it all unfold on his face, his skin going pale with rage.

I seize my moment, leaping up with the scalpel and diving toward Caledon. He jumps back, but not before I’ve slashed the blade upward across his face, leaving a perfect cut from chin to ear.

He shrieks in pain and shock, blood dripping onto his perfectly white robes.

“Disarm her!” he shouts at the clerics. As they close in around me, his eyes fall on Kit’s lifeless body on the floor, and he realizes what I’ve done. I’ve taken the control from him, outsmarted him at his own game. All that talk of being superior, and he’s been bested by a stupid little bitch.

He releases a snarl of frustration and snatches Kit’s body up, throwing it across the floor so that it slides and limply hits the base of the altar.

I force one of the clerics back with my blade, but aesteri magic hits my shoulders, building a pressure that forces me to the ground.

I keep trying to fight, swinging my arm around wildly as the clerics advance on me, but I know it’s not a fight I can win.

More are already pouring in through the doorway.

I have no magic, and there’s just too many of them.

The blade glints in the light of the incendi lamps, and for one, brief moment, I consider burying it in my own neck. That way, Caledon couldn’t force me to betray any more of my friends. He couldn’t steal my power and use it to hurt more people before it ultimately faded from him.

And I’d be free.

The thought flashes through my mind, but just as quickly, a cleric is grabbing my arm and snapping it backward. I feel something break, ripping a scream from me as my fingers open and the scalpel clatters to the marble floor. It lands in the spreading pool of Kit’s blood.