When the carriage pulled up to the keep, I closed my eyes.
Finn was safe. Or at least… safer.
But me?
What happens to me now?
A warm hand brushed against my knee. I flinched instinctively, eyes snapping open to find Phoenix watching me with something like concern etched into his tired face.
“You’ll be okay,” he said softly.
A bitter laugh caught in my throat.
“Sure,” I murmured. “I’ll be just dandy.”
Phoenix didn’t reply. He only sat back, folding his hands in his lap, his jaw tense and unreadable. The quiet between us settledlike fog—thick, uncertain, laced with the weight of too much unsaid.
Then the carriage door creaked open.
A shadow filled the doorway.
Thorne.
“Come on. Time to go.” His voice was sharp, no patience in it. He reached for me without ceremony, gripping my arm hard enough to bruise and yanking me to my feet. He pulled me across the square towards the castle with his bruising grip. My thin legs shook as they struggled to keep up with his long strides.
I stumbled, legs barely catching beneath me. I hadn’t eaten properly in days, and the adrenalin was long gone. My body was a hollow thing running on fumes. My head spun. My fingers tingled.
Without Finn beside me, I felt the collapse begin.
“What’s wrong with her?” Thorne barked, still gripping my arm.
“Elira—” Phoenix surged forward, catching me just before I hit the ground. “She’s not breathing right—something’s wrong!”
His hands were on me, checking, steadying. “We need a healer. Now!”
The world tilted.
My knees gave way, and I crashed to the cobblestones. Pain burst through me as my palms scraped the ground. Then bile surged, and I vomited what little remained in my gut—acid and misery and exhaustion all spilling out together.
Voices shouted around me. Hands reached. But I barely felt them.
The world faded as I slipped into the darkness.
Chapter 8
Elira
I woke on something soft—but not comforting.
The blanket scratched at my skin. The pillow was thin, and the air had the faint, sterile chill of a place that was never meant to be warm.
My body ached. My mouth was dry. For a moment I thought I was still in the ruins, Finn curled into me, his skin fever-hot against mine. But when I opened my eyes, reality set in.
Stone walls. A narrow slit of a window. A heavy door of dark ironwood reinforced with metal bars.
I was in a cell. A veryclean, very deliberate cell.
I pushed myself up slowly, every muscle protesting. The cot creaked beneath me. My boots had been removed, but my clothes—dirtied from days of running—remained. A folded blanket sat neatly on the end of the bed, like they expected me to be grateful for it.
