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It wasn’t comfortable accommodation. There’d been some nights, even with the sheepskin they’d thrown over him, on the coldest days of the winter, when he was sure his blood would freeze.

But it hadn’t. His brother had known just how far to take things, it seemed.

“You won’t find a way out in death, Darach,” Niall replied eventually. “I won’t let you.”

“You didn’t have a problem with killing me before. What’s changed?”

Niall’s lips curved into a half-smile. “Let’s just say your resourcefulness impressed me. I’ve decided to give you another chance.”

Darach wanted to laugh. Or better, spit in his face. Knives in the dark, years of living as a hunted man, and now Niall was speaking as though he’d merely been waiting for his little brother to prove himself worthy. His arrogance was both outrageous and galling.

Niall stepped closer. “Join me, and your suffering ends. We’ll take Duncrag. I’ll take the throne, and you’ll rule beside me. Together, we’ll be unstoppable.”

Darach sneered, ignoring the stabbing pain in his face. Sometimes, when Niall talked like this, he thought his brother must be deranged. Yet, the glimmer in his eyes gave him pause. Aye, Niall had sent cutthroats after him, had wanted him dead. However, now that they were face-to-face once more, something had shifted in him.

It suddenly mattered that Darach joined him, that the two brothers took on the world together.

It was like stepping back in time. Niall had always wanted Darach to look up to him, to mind him—but he never had. Even when they were bairns.

Darach inhaled slowly, trying to ignore the pain flaring in his ribs.

Perhaps if he were clever, perhaps if he thought hard about his next move in the days to come, he could use that weakness to his advantage.

Niall was sly and not easily fooled, but Darach was just as sharp.

Not only that, he had desperation on his side.

3: NO GOING BACK

THE WARRIOR GRUNTED. “Gods, woman … could you go any slower?”

Ailsa ignored him. Bent over his arm, making a row of cuts with her tiny blade, she then reached for a small earthen cup and a brush and dipped the bristles into the pungent dark-blue paste. Peering close, she pressed woad into the cuts. She then murmured the words of the sain that would weave in earth magic. And as she did so, the rose tattoo on her right calf started to burn.

Earlier that morning, she’d worked on a different man. He’d been younger, barely bearded, his knuckles bone-white in his lap the whole session. When she’d pressed the needle in for the axe she was tattooing on his right bicep, his breath had hitched, and he’d whispered—so low she’d nearly missed it— “I don’t want this … any of it.” He hadn’t looked at her as he’d spoken, not even when she’d wiped the blood from his arm and told him she was done.

Ailsa hadn’t replied to his whisper. There was nothing she could say that could change this.

However, if she ever got out of this place, she’d do everything she could to free these people. No one should be forced to live like this.

She remembered wishing someone would come to her aid as a young lass, once when she’d been trapped behind the Reek’s smithy by a pack of local bairns who’d cornered her for sport. No one had rescued her, even if Kayla had gone out looking for blood afterward when she’d returned home with a scratched face and ripped clothes.

Maybe that was why this young warrior’s desperation touched her—or maybe it was because they were both prisoners here.

Nech here didn’t stir such pity in her though.

“Did you hear me?” His voice was louder now.

Ailsa’s chin kicked up, her attention settling on the scowling face of the warrior she’d just spent the afternoon working on. “You wanted a serpent wrapping the length of your arm,” she pointed out scornfully. “How long did you think it would take me?” Ironically, she’d noticed recently how much her tattooing skills had improved since her arrival at the fort. Just the day before, Kayla had remarked that she’d have made a fine sacrificer—unsurprising now that she knew who her father was. The serpent had been progressing fast for such a large, complex design—just not quickly enough for Nech.

Ignoring his narrowed gaze, she motioned to the half-finished snake. “You’ll need at least one more session before it’s done.”

His lip curled before he cut a glance over at where Kayla stood behind another seated man. The tattooist was inking a crescent moon design upon the man’s shoulder. “Why couldn’t I get the bitch who knows what she’s doing?”

The warrior Kayla was working on snorted, while Kayla ignored them both.

A pulse beat hard at the base of Ailsa’s throat. The urge to wipe that sneer from Nech’s face followed, swift and sharp.

Some of the men she worked on didn’t give her any trouble—they were too focused on what had been done to them, too churned up with impotent rage, to pay much attention to her—but others pushed boundaries, as if their enslavement had merely brought latent cruelty and coarseness to the surface.