“I’m not.”
The air thickens as it fills, then thins as it drains, as if the prison itself is breathing.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” The prisoner’s voice is cracked and weak.
“I had no other choice.”
“There is always a choice.” He clicks his tongue.
“I think I’d rather take my advice from someone whose choices didn’t land them in here, if you don’t mind.”
He chuckles. It’s a smooth melody that swims through the air. I’m aching to turn and look at him, but the prison doesn’t want me to.
How can a prisonwantanything?
“I don’t have the answers you’re looking for,” the prisoner says.
Something sharp shoots up my side, and I wince.
“You’re hurt.” There’s no sympathy in the prisoner’s tone.
“You’re observant.”
He hums, and I swear I feel the vibrations through the thin magical wall that sits between us.
Footsteps rustle from somewhere in the darkness, and I feel him stiffen behind me. “You’re being followed.”
I try to nod but can’t. The prison is leading the rebels straight to me. Maybe it’s decided this is where I’ll meet my fate. Ahead, I watch as the darkness shifts. Tunnels change, and stairs twist, bending to guide them to us. Somehow, they’ve managed to stay right on my heels no matter how deep I’ve gone.
“How did they find me?” The question is more to myself, but the prisoner answers.
“How would they not? I smelled your blood the moment you stepped inside these walls. It’s a beacon for them.”
That’s an unsettling realization. How many others stir knowing I’m here?
“Many.”
“Over here.” A rebel’s voice cuts through, breaking the hold the prison has on me and allowing me to move.
I step back just once, realizing my mistake the second I do because my back strikes a bare chest. The prisoner’s deep inhale buzzes against my neck now that I’ve stepped into his cell. If the Fae who followed me in aren’t going to kill me, he certainly will.
Glancing down, I see my foot isn’t fully past the markings, but I’ve smudged one, breaking the barrier.
“Gods, the trouble you’ve awoken,” the prisoner whispers in my ear, and I shiver.
His voice should set me on edge. And while it does, it’s also calming.
Familiar.
A figure steps out of the darkness ahead of us. Two rebels dressed in blood-soaked white cloaks set their gazes on me before letting their attention drift over my shoulder.
“You’re not?—”
“Dead?” The prisoner finishes the rebel’s sentence. “Not yet.”
A rebel charges. His movements too quick for me to decide how to defend myself. Especially when I left my mother’s swordin the street, and I don’t have anything to fight back. I stay unmoving, certain he is going to kill me.
Until the prisoner moves faster than the rebel. He spins me around until he’s between us. And for the first time, I’m looking into his eyes. They’re golden, glowing like lightning against a black sky. They spear through strands of his messy golden-brown hair, stealing my breath. A deep scar cuts across his right eyebrow, trailing over the ridge of his nose and down his left cheek, where it webs out like a forked river at the end.