“Forgive me,” I said, my voice breathy from his ministrations, “but you have not seemed all that intent on fostering peace between the two of you. Your every action, your every word, has been inflammatory. Why did you truly come here in the first place?”
His jaw tensed and he finished checking his work. The wound had become a thin white seam across the mound of old scars in my palm. His warm hands remained on mine. “As you guessed, I came to see the state of this place for myself. To see Seraf’s horrors. To see just how cruel Nemea had become.” The calluses on his fingers scratched as he finally, slowly, let me go. “I have a deep hatred for the man.”
“Then take me from him.”
His gaze shot to mine.
My words tumbled forth in one desperate breath. “Nothing would hurt him more than to lose what he considers his.”
“That’s my fear.” He shook his head, and he gave me that strange,lingering look once more. “I have a kingdom to protect. A war would put it in jeopardy.”
“You came to witness his cruelty firsthand and then do nothing about it? If there is any person in Leucosia who has the power to alter the awful things that happen here, it’s you.”
Theodore ran a hand through his dark hair. He seemed to grapple with something, shut his eyes for a long moment. When he looked at me again it was with something akin to anguish. Pity coated his unsettlingly soft words. “He’s done such a thorough job of diminishing you.”
That hollowed me out. I stood before him, feeling bare and ill and embarrassed, and fighting to keep it hidden.
He moved back to the small window. “I will send you help. I leave tomorrow—I have no desire to stay for your wedding. When I’m back home, I’ll make a plan to get you off Seraf. But it will take me time. It can’t look like I was involved.”
“I don’t have time.” I curled my healed hand, my nails cutting into my palm. “The wedding is tomorrow night. By the time you send me help, Captain Ianto will have already bound us. How will I leave him then?”
He straightened his bloodstained coat, and it was as if he’d donned a suit of armor. He looked at me down the line of his nose. “There are draughts to sever such bonds.” His features smoothed into kingly austerity. “The appropriate response to my generosity is ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’”
I reeled back. “If you expect me to thank you for giving me the opportunity to suffer, then you are no better than King Nemea,Your Majesty.” His flinch filled me with satisfaction.
I wrenched the door open, letting it crash into the wall. “Move,” I yelled to one of the guards who blocked my path. Panic scurried up my throat, blocked my breath. Agatha’s chamber was on thelower floor. I could keep myself together until I reached her, but as I made my way down the hall from King Theodore’s chamber, I faltered.
Two of Nemea’s guards, clad in their ominous black armor, stood before my chamber door. They wore helmets that only showed their lower faces. One guard, whose jaw was covered in red spots and pock scars, shoved the other with a gangly elbow when he saw me. “She’s there.”
The older guard offered me a quick half bow. “Into your chamber, my lady.”
“You have no right ordering me around.” I spoke with authority, even as my heart plummeted. “I’m the king’s ward.”
“You’re the captain’s lady now,” the pock-faced boy-soldier mumbled. “And he’ll make my life hell if you’re not in that room when he’s back.”
“I’ll not be a prisoner in my own home.” I trudged onward, but he reached out a single wiry arm and scooped me up. I yelled as he hefted me toward my open door. I thrashed and clawed before I was unceremoniously dropped to my rug and shut in. “I’ll have the king skin you for this.” The door rattled in its frame as I beat against it.
“Forgive me, my lady.” The guard sounded unrepentant through the heavy oak. “Captain’s orders.”
The entire afternoon passed with guards barring my door. No one entered. Not Agatha, nor Evander.
I scrubbed my face with frigid water. Washed my hair and slipped on a clean chemise and dressing gown. All the while I thought on how I might escape. Perhaps there were passages I’d failed to discover when I’d been a curious girl exploring the fort. Dark and winding tunnels I’d missed that might lead me to the base of the mountain. But unsurprisingly, I found no secret doors behind the tapestries in my room. There were no cobwebbed halls behind my hanging gowns.
As the sun began to set, I sprawled over my mattress, staring up at the ceiling while a horrific maw widened in my stomach. My hope slowly slipped inside it, swallowed up.
Three quick knocks came. I sat bolt upright. The pock-faced soldier swung my door open, and Agatha walked in. Her hair was loose and wild, black curls haloing her wan face. She held a single lit candle. “I’m allowed to stay until it burns out.”
My throat shut at the sight of her, so I nodded and patted the mattress beside me. Her gown was creased, and her knit wrap was pulled tightly around her narrow shoulders. She walked silently, grabbed a book from my table, and set it at the foot of my bed. Sheplaced the candle atop it, then drew all the bedcurtains shut. She climbed onto the bed and propped herself up beside me. We both waited until the door snicked closed to talk.
“King Theodore came to speak with me,” Agatha whispered.
Angry tears sprang to my eyes. “Did he tell you I was an imbecile? That I was a coward and that all of this is my fault—”
“Shhh.” Agatha moved closer, wove her fingers through mine. “No. He came to tell me of your conversation. And that he would work on a plan to get you out.”
I shook my head. “He said it would take him time. Time I don’t have.”
“He’ll get you out,” Agatha said, with assuredness. “I trust him.”
