“Eight, at present.”
Her pulse stuttered. “All of them are sick?”
“To varying degrees.”
She looked down at the woman before her, needles bristling from fragile limbs, then lifted her gaze to the dim cells beyond—pale faces watching from the shadows, eyes and cheeks sunken. The sight pressed against her skull until her pulse pounded behind her eyes.
She stepped out to face him. “You are a monster.”
Tedric laughed. “All the men who ever tried to change the world are called that.”
He tilted his head toward the corridor leading away from the central clearing. “Come eat with me. You must be starving.”
The thought of sharing a meal with him curdled her gut. Every instinct screamed to spit in his face, claw the smirk from his lips, but her training insisted on a harsher truth: a healer who collapsed couldn’t save anyone.
JingYi picked up her medicine chest and followed. Tedric’s stride was relaxed, hands clasped loosely behind his back, as though they were strolling some nobleman’s terrace instead of walking the gallery above a pit of cages.
A sharp clang echoed from the second-floor gallery halted their steps.
“You vile, gutless bastard!” The voice rang with the authority of someone who’d been raised to command. “Release me at once, or I’ll see you swing from the palace gates before the week is out!”
Her gaze lifted. A woman gripped the bars of her cell—generously curved, auburn hair loosened from its braid, green velvet riding dress torn at the shoulder. Captivity hadn’t seemed to dim her spirit. If anything, her eyes burned brighter for it.
JingYi’s eyes widened.
Didn’t Tedric say the king’s sister was taken during her morning ride? Then, could this woman be . . . Princess Adelise?
Their eyes met. For a heartbeat, the princess’s lips parted in surprise. “You—” she began, then stopped, frowning as though in recognition.
Tedric’s low chuckle cut through the charged air. “Your Highness,” he drawled, “such language from a future empress. Imagine what your betrothed will think.”
The princess scowled, fingers curling around the bars. “You’re not worthy of talking about him!” she shot back. “He’ll have your head on a spike before long, you maggot.”
Tedric tipped his head back to look at her, grinning wider. “Save your thunder, Highness. Stones make a poor audience.”
The woman pressed her cheeks against the bars and hissed with pristine enunciation, “Rot in hell,prick.”
Tedric only laughed and led JingYi through a groaning door into a hollowed chamber of damp air and rough stone. At its center stood a scarred wooden table, its surface warped with age but laid with silver goblets, porcelain plates, and gleaming cutlery—plunder from a softer world. The chairs’ upholstery had faded and frayed, the floor gritty with sand and stone dust, yet everything on the table gleamed with civility. It jarred against the gloom.
He poured the wine without asking. She didn’t touch it.
“I won’t heal another Omega,” she insisted, “until you tell me what you’re doing here.”
Tedric carved a slice of meat. “We’re cutting the leash.”
Her stomach twisted. “By poisoning them with purple limyerite?”
“By stripping away the instincts that keep them bent to an Alpha’s will.” His tone was maddeningly calm. “Heat. Scent. That reflex to surrender when an Alpha enters a room.”
Her pulse hammered. “But . . . those traits are part of who they are. You’re cutting pieces out of people and expecting them to still be whole?”
He scrunched up his nose, and for a moment, he looked like the careless, playful, humorous old Tedric again. “Do theyhaveto be whole?”
Jing Yi opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She couldn’t find a single word that wouldn’t crack under the weight of her fury.
He took a sip of wine, watching her over the rim of the goblet. A distant clang of metal echoed down the tunnel, followed by a muffled shout. JingYi’s eyes darted toward the sound. Tedric didn’t even glance away.
“Tell me, Princess. Your so-called goddess didn’t intervene when Alphas tore your kind apart in their most defenceless moments. Why insist on a system that protects Alphas yet sacrifices the rest?”