“Anethesis!” I scream, my voice a ragged echo in the silence, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even glance back. “You promised!” I shout, but the words are swallowed by the emptiness.
Slowly, the heat drains from my limbs, and I collapse, sliding down the bars to crumple upon the floor. My body trembles with the weight of exhaustion, the anger, the confusion. My hands still grip the bars, my knuckles aching with the pressure, as if holding on to something, anything, will keep me from losing myself entirely.
Have I truly been such a fool?
Falling for another Fae bargain.
I press my forehead to the bars, closing my eyes as I try to stifle the bitter laugh that rises in my throat. This will never be over. It can’t be. Not with him. Not with any of them. They take what they want, they break you, and then they disappear into the shadows until they’re ready to take more.
I feel it deep in my bones, knowing that Anethesis will take far more than I ever imagined. My freedom, my soul, maybe even my child. And I... I will have no choice but to give it to him.
I don’t know how many days pass in the cage. The world outside is a blur of darkness, no sunlight to mark the passage of time, no moonlight to guide me. The only certainty is the stillness, and the occasional drip of water, echoing through the vast emptiness. It is haunting, relentless, as if the very air is too heavy to breathe.
The food they give me is delivered with the same cold detachment. I never see their faces, not that I care to. The wind carries it to me, like scraps tossed to a wild animal, meant to keep me alive but never treated as anything more and yet, I devour it with a hunger that feels beyond me, a gnawing need that has nothing to do with my own body. The baby inside me demands it.
When I ask for more, they never refuse me. They may view me as nothing more than a means to an end, but they need me alive, need me well. I know this. I feel it in the weight of their eyes, watching from the shadows.
But food doesn’t satisfy Ashen.
I feel him weakening. Each passing day carves something out of him, and my heart aches with every breath he struggles to draw. Sometimes, when he's too tired to hold himself together, my hand slips right through him. There’s a cruel comfort in the certainty that, if nothing else, we’ll go together. All of us.
A soft kick presses against the inside of my belly and despite the weight of dread anchoring me, a smile tugs at my lips.
On another day or another night, I’m not sure which, I sit in my cage, the hours stretching on in a dull, endless haze, when I hear a sudden crack from below. I jerk upright, and my gaze drops to the darkness beneath me. There’s nothing there at first, just the glimmer of the water's surface, reflecting the faintest hint of light.
Then, a hand grips the bar, sending a jolt through my chest.
Another hand appears, followed by a shimmer of bronze.
“You,” I snap as I meet the blue eyes of the Golden Son. “What are you doing here?”
I glance down through the bars and see the air pooling at his feet as he levitates next to the cage, the ink of his Ithranor rune peeking from beneath his sleeve.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says.
I let out a dry laugh. “Are you now?”
He nods slowly, seeming equal parts confused and offended by my response.
I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. “I do not need your help.”
“I know, but you will receive it, anyway.”
I scoff. “For someone so eager to help, you have taken your time. Where was this help when they threw me in this cage?”
“I couldn’t stop them. If they hadn’t dragged me away from you when they did, I’d be ash like the rest of them.”
I glare at him. “What a shame.”
He exhales harder this time, shoulders rising and falling. “I’m trying to make this easier.”
“Why?” I snap.
“Because we shared a past. A torment. A memory, you and I,” he says, low. “And I thought…”
“Don’t think,” I cut him off. “Not for a second. You and I arenotthe same. You’re a murderer.”
My gaze drops to the red ribbon around my wrist. The memory bites.
