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“We’ll use that to our advantage. As soon as we can,” he answered, for himself as much as her.
His gaze trailed, shifting through the bars to the next occupied cell,two over from Sigil, leaving an empty space between them. Ten feet of open floor at least.
Sorasa still lay where she fell, thrown to the ground in a discarded pile. She faced away from them, toward the wall, one arm hanging oddly, the other beneath her body. Her short, ragged hair fanned out around her head in a black halo. They took her weapons, Dom knew, as they took his own. She looked strange without half a dozen daggers and poisons belted to her. The jailers left her in her leathers at least, and her old, well-worn boots.
Dom still smelled dried blood and his heartbeat rammed, drumming against his ribs. She was wounded at some point. In Gidastern, or afterward. It was too difficult to think about, knowing she was here. Knowing she had been in Ronin’s hands, and Taristan’s, for however long.
He sniffed again.No fresh blood, at least.
“If she’s here with us—” Sigil’s voice broke off.
“Then she isn’t with Corayne,” Dom finished for her. He squeezed his eyes shut. It was scarcely darker than the dungeons. “She didn’t make it out of the city.”
Corayne is in grave danger, worse than I ever let myself imagine.
“There’s still Valtik. Trelland. And what a surprise, Charlie escapes the noose again.” Sigil leaned heavily against the bars, bound hands behind her head. “Wily little priest.”
Any words of assurance died in his throat. As much as he wanted to, Dom wouldn’t lie. There was no point in it.
Without Sorasa, they are doomed.
Sigil’s sigh sounded ragged in the darkness.
“Her heart still beats?”
“It does,” he said.
“Fine,” Sigil muttered.
Then she cupped her hands, opened her mouth, and shouted anythingand everything in Sorasa’s direction. The cells rattled with the sound of her voice, until it was almost deafening.
But nothing Sigil did could rouse the Amhara assassin. Even Dom did his best, calling her every curse and foul name he knew, every insult he’d ever dreamed up for the hateful Sorasa Sarn. It was a welcome distraction from the sinking feeling in his chest. He felt chained to an anchor, dropping through an endless sea.
Two days passed.
Plates piled at the gap in Sorasa’s bars, cups of water left untouched. And the Amhara was just a shadow, left to rot like her food.
“Her heart still beats?”
Sigil yawned like a lion and sat up, her chain clinking.
Dom didn’t bother to listen for the low, steady beat. It was already in his head, second nature, keeping rhythm with his own pulse.
“It does,” he answered, teeth gritted.
Using the bars, Sigil heaved herself up against the cell wall.
“Her heart won’t be beating much longer if she doesn’t get some water,” she muttered. For once, Sigil of the Temurijon sounded subdued. Even worried.
Dom craned his neck. “What?”
Her scoff echoed across the cells. “Mortals can die of thirst, Elder.”
Immortal as he was, Dom could ignore such things if he chose. He licked his dry lips, trying to imagine what it was to waste away in a mortal body. He eyed Sorasa again. She was always small and lean. But against the shadows, she seemed skeletal.
He narrowed his eyes, squinting for a better look. “How long does she have?”
“Who knows what the Amhara trained into her, but—” Sigil hesitated, weighing her response. “A few days. Three or four, maybe.”
