Another part of me flinches. Humans in labor camps? Thorne had told me that there were none being harmed.
He dips his chin, as if he is thinking of just that.
“Surely you could’ve just waited and Mrath would’ve done the same,” Vann says.
Thorne laughs. “Then you don’t know Mrath very well. She puts on a good enough face for your people and your king. But she is far from noble.”
“I heard that the humans were being subjected to more than just labor,” Vann says, and my stomach churns.
“I have heard that as well.” Thorne sounds grim.
“Does Arlet know?”
Thorne hesitates. “No. I didn’t want her to worry. The past two weeks have been brutal, and one more thing would have sent her spiraling. She already looks like a skeleton.” He says the next thing directly to me. “For that, I am deeply sorry.”
My cheeks heat, partially out of anger, partially out of embarrassment. I hate being lied to. But I suppose that matters little now.
Vann doesn’t respond to that, and Thorne doesn’t offer any more information.
Instead, he packs up his things. He stands, nods to me again, and goes to the iron door.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” he says, looking at me but clearly directing his comments to Vann.
Then he leaves, and I wait for something to happen—for my head to clear or the throbbing in my chest to lessen.
Cursed One?I say gently.
I’m here, she responds.Just…observing. I think I’m remembering something from my life.
I hum in response.
“Arlet?” Vann says again. “Gods on their stony thrones,” he murmurs. “I thought you wouldn’t wake.”
I consider responding, feeling torn. A part of me wishes to remain hidden.
“I’m…awake.” My throat feels flayed.
A shaky breath leaks through the hole. It sounds half like a laugh, half like he’s swallowing back a sob.
It makes my stomach twist. I have seen Vann tender and vulnerable before, but those memories are strange. I remember when we stayed the night in Mrath’s Enclave and he told me that he wished I would find a softer, gentler life.
My head buzzes with pain, and there is nothing patching me back up to make it all better. The lack of the Fuegorra is harder than I expected. I’d gotten so used to it in the last year being there to help, to cure, to mend. Now, my own body feels inadequate.
That feeling…it brings back all the years I hid in shame when they pulled out rosters for the breeding pens. There’s something deeply painful about not being able to trust my own body to do what it should. It makes me feel like my life—my essence—is too much for it to handle.
I wished desperately that feeling would leave.
Vann’s quiet for a moment. “You lost a lot of blood. I tried to get them to help you. They told me it is forbidden. Fucking bastards.”
I try to shift upright, but pain rips through my side. My fingers graze the bandages at my ribs—though Thorne had changed some recently, there is still cloth torn from a shirt wrapped around my wounds. Vann’s shirt, I recognize. “What…happened?”
“I was trying to help you,” he says. “They left us alone for a bit, and I tried to burn the wound closed and wrap it. They separated us for a while, but then Thorne came and got me, wearing someone else’s face. He said he would help you. Do you feel…better?”
The air is too heavy to breathe. Thorne is helping me again. Even here, in the dungeon. What is he playing at?
“Hardly. And…tomorrow,” I whisper. “There’s no way I will make it through another fight like that.”
Vann is silent, and while he had been so quiet in Enduvida, there’s something about his silence now that enrages me.