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Rythos, Galon, Marth…it was strange how quickly they’d begun to feel like family. As if they’d always been there waiting and we were always supposed to find each other.
I let my gaze drift to Cavis. His face was so still. Almost peaceful. I’d closed his eyes, and the web had faded from his skin—as if now that he was dead, his purpose was complete.
He was supposed to make it. He was supposed to go home to his wife and daughter.
I shuddered. My eyes burned with the need to cry. Sobs had collected in my throat, my lungs tight. But I’d suppressed it for so long… I couldn’t cry now. My body had turned numb.
“Eat, bitch,” one of the guards laughed, shoving the tray beneath the bars. A small cup of water, a few pieces of chicken still on the bone, and a half-rotten apple.
Ignoring them, I turned away.
“Promise me, Pris. You get out, and you don’t let them break you. You don’t let this break you.”
I’d promised. I’d promised, and the thought of that promise hurt so much, I would have given anything to make it all end.
For the first time in a long time, I loathed Lorian. I hated that he’d taken that disk from me. That he’d refused to allow me the choice.
My head felt as if it were floating above the rest of my body. As if I were staring down at it from the stone ceiling.
And yet, Lorian’s voice cut through the dull whine in my ears.
“When it comes to your survival, you cheat. You cheat and you lie. You fight dirty. And you do whatever else it takes to stay alive.”
I could practically hear him snarling at me, urging me to think. To plan.
“What have I told you, Prisca? You never give up. Not you.”
Attempting to block him out, attempting to ignore the memory of Cavis’s steady gaze, urging me to keep my promise, I closed my eyes.
In the end, it wasn’t Lorian’s voice in my head that made me open them once more. It wasn’t the will to survive burning through me.
No, that fire was little more than a spark.
I needed something far more important than survival.
I needed vengeance.
My gaze fell to the manacles keeping me confined. Each cuff was a single piece of metal encircling my wrist, fastened together by a crude hinge on one side. The lock was a simple keyhole, the wear on the keyhole…
I was guessing the internal mechanisms of these locks were just as old and worn.
Shuffling close to the bars of my cell, I picked up the chicken. Slowly, carefully, I began peeling off the meat.
Eating seemed like a commitment to survival I wasn’t sure I could stand behind, but I had to eat some of the chicken or it would be suspicious. Forcing it in my mouth was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything except curl up in this cell and be left alone.
I gagged.
“You don’t let this break you.”
Time dragged on. But I’d meant what I’d said. Soltor and Eadric were going to die slowly and painfully.
And Regner?
He was going to suffer before he died.
I lost myself in thoughts of what I was going to do to all of the men who had caused such horror. The ways I was going to make them beg.
When all the chicken meat had been removed, I studied the bones—the discarded bits of calcium and marrow my only hope of freedom. After long moments of deliberation, I chose the sturdiest bone, its smooth surface slick with residual grease. The next bone was more difficult. It needed to be thinner, more flexible, but unlikely to snap. I pressed my finger against the most likely choice, breaking it from the others and tucking it into my boot.
