The warehouse.
That’s the first thought that really hits.
The guards took me outside it. They never got through the door. Unless they went back after I blacked out. Unless they’re there right now, kicking through supplies and lifting trapdoors and asking the wrong questions of anyone too slow to run.
My stomach turns over hard enough that I swallow against it.
No.
Think.
If they’d found the tunnels, if they’d found any proof worth crowing about, I would not be waking up alone in a quiet cell, waiting politely to be questioned. They’d already be pulling people in. They’d be dragging names out through blood and fear. They’d want me awake to hear it.
So maybe they don’t know.
Maybe Garrick gave them me and only me. Maybe fear made him stupid rather than useful. Maybe the warehouse still looks like what it’s always looked like to anyone not paying attention: a run-down old building full of salvage, food, and one overly competent human who fixes pumps for bread.
I cling to that because there isn’t much else to cling to.
And then, because apparently my mind enjoys kicking me while I’m down, I think of Varek.
Will he know something’s wrong?
I know how bonds can work between fated mates. But I also know it’s different depending on the species and what bonds have formed.
Said bond pulls low in my chest, dull and uneasy.
He’s too far away… maybe. Or maybe I’m too far from where I’m supposed to be. It’s hard to tell with the thing. Half biology, half curse—all inconvenience.
I lean back against the wall and close my eyes briefly.
Don’t think about him being captured.
Don’t think about that huge body folded into a cell like this, silver eyes gone flat with pain while some crown loyalist tries to break him open for information about Dathanor, about the tunnels, about every Riftborn the rebellion has scraped out of the Queen’s reach over the years.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat so fast, I have to swallow twice.
No.
Absolutely not.
Whatever happens here, I do not give them the rebels. I do not give them Varek. I do not give them Dathanor, or Shanae, or the tunnel routes, or the names of the Glowranth who quietly keep the guards looking the wrong way. The city can burn me out of myself first.
The trick, I remind myself, is to decide that now. Before they bring tools into it. Before pain narrows the world down to one unbearable point and your body starts looking for any exit it can find.
I’ve had plenty of time to think about torture over the years. Hard not to, living in Terrafeara. The Queen’s people don’t even bother pretending they’re above it. Some days they treat suffering like administration. Efficient. Necessary. Beneath comment.
Back on Earth, I watched enough crime shows and bad action films to know the set dressing. Dark basements. Drains in the floor. Chairs with straps. Bright lights. The whole theatrical package.
Here? I’m less sure. Glowranth don’t need theatre. They have claws, strength, and a social order built around owning what they believe is useful. They don’t have to overperform cruelty to make it effective.
I rub my palms over my thighs and force myself to think clearly.
Questions will come first.
They’ll want names. Routes. Rebel contacts. Confirmation of rumours.
That’s the thing I keep circling back to.
