Page 200 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“Make me understand,” Isander shot back, unable to contain the force behind the words. He glanced instinctively up at the grates, checking for movement.

Silence stretched long enough for him to regret speaking at all.

“The people of Kryovarre are starving,” Merrick said at last. His thumb traced the dagger’s edge. “He takes half their grain. He burns villages when they don’t pay their taxes. He hangs men for speaking against him. I couldn’t live comfortably in Lemierre while Valdir derDobroiov tightens his grip and grinds our homeland into dust.”

Isander blinked. “That’s what this is?”

“That’s all it’s ever been.” Merrick’s eyes hardened with conviction. Then, after a beat, “Mostly.”

“It was never going to be us,” Isander said flatly.

“There,” Merrick said softly. “That’s why you’ll never understand.”

Isander let out a breath that scraped on the way out. “You chose vengeance over your own blood,” he said. “All this running. This mischief you hide behind—what has it earned you? What has it left you but shadows? You call it freedom. I see isolation.”

Merrick’s mouth parted, ready with something sharp. The retort died before it formed. His jaw worked once, twice, then he looked away.

“Better alone than chained,” he muttered eventually, though the conviction lacked its usual certainty—like a truth he had hammered into himself until the steel began to bend.

“You are right,” Isander said, the heat gone from him now. His hands flexed in the water, ripples breaking against the tunnel walls. “I don’t understand.”

The dagger stilled entirely in Merrick’s hand. His grip tightened around the hilt until the tendons stood stark beneath the skin. He turned to respond just as a shuffle of boots and the clink of metal drifted from above. A low exchange of voices accompanied the movement.

“Shift change,” Merrick murmured. The easy grin that fooled half the empire and infuriated the other half returned, settling over whatever had surfaced a moment before.

Isander swallowed everything still lodged in his throat—questions, accusations, grief tangled with affection and betrayal. “This isn’t finished,” he said. Not a threat. A certainty.

“Nothing ever is,” Merrick replied, too quiet to be mocking. With an efficient flick of his wrist, the dagger vanished. He slipped ahead into the darker stretch of passage, the water barely stirring around him.

Isander followed, boots dragging through the cold current. The tunnel curved deeper into the darkness, yet his thoughts drifted elsewhere—to a sunlit valley and a glittering river, to two boys racing through rows of trees, to the brother he still loved with a ferocity that made the chasm between them feel devastatingly cruel.

Chapter 91

Koraleise

Kora’s eyes flew open.

She jerked upright.

Ropes at her wrists and ankles snapped her back against the cot, the jolt tearing the breath from her chest. Heat lingered on her face from tears, but her body shivered mercilessly. She wore only a slip against the brutal chill of the windowless room. A gag bit into her lips. Her head throbbed from the blow that had knocked her unconscious.

With a fresh wave of panic, she understood what had woken her.

The click of a lock turning.

At the far side of the chamber, the door groaned open, admitting a thin slice of light that cut into the darkness. Sabine stepped inside with it, a torch in one hand. His other wrist was wrapped in a thick bandage, the skin around it mottled and swollen.

“Duchess,” he said softly, easing the door nearly closed behind him. He set the torch into its bracket and stood there for a moment, taking her in. “Awake at last.”

Kora tried to scream. The gag crushed the sound into a strangled sob.

Sabine crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the cot. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, drawing her closer by inches she could not resist. “You wounded me,” he declared, lifting his bandaged wrist into view. “But you’ll make amends.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gentleness that turned her stomach. “I’ll see to it.”

He lowered his mouth to her throat, bringing the cloying stench of drink and cologne with him. The whimper that escaped her seemed to please him. “More beautiful when you cry,” he murmured, brushing his fingertips along the damp skin beneath her eyes.

His hand dropped abruptly to her breast while the other fumbled at the buttons of his breeches. Kora turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut as his hand slid lower across her abdomen toward her hip. She strained against the ropes, fighting the burn of the restraints and the rising dread to keep his fingers from slipping beneath her shift.

“Touch her,” a familiar voice said from the doorway, “and you die.”