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“And here lies Prince Sinadim. Savior of the masses.” Cruel laughter whispered through his brain, kissing his jagged edges with merciless derision. “Murderer of hope. You’ll be remembered for your failure. Hated for the slaughter of countless proud Anhur as you mixed them with peasants and slaves and promised them what was never yours to give.”
Hadim stood, then.
Turning to look at the fallen and the ruined. Pristine in his silks and finery, the Heir laughed and said, “This is your victory. This is your reward. He will be witness to your deaths,” Hadim said, and flung gold-tipped claws in Sinadim’s direction. “He, who was a prince. He, who will be banished beyond the wall for his crimes against the Silver City. He paid for his greed with your lives—but he will live.”
A sob splintered over Sinadim’s lips, then.
Wordless and desperate, a plea for oblivion.
Escape from a beast with a name he couldn’t bring himself to utter. A behemoth with two faces—one beautiful and pristine, the other born of horror. Monsterous.
It screamed in the dark.
Howling for war, but already defeated.
The memories were all that remained. Scattered across a battlefield. The pieces thrown to the desert winds as they landed with a blow that struck him somewhere deep and severed a piece of him he’d always cherished.
“They can’t kill you,” Balkazar said and gave him the courtesy of ignoring the ugly sounds clawing their way free of Sinadim’s chest. “Don’t want a martyr made of a prince. You’ll be banished,” he murmured, voice quiet in the dark. “Sent beyond the wall to survive or die amongst the hopeless lost.”
“Where are we?” Sinadim asked, his words a hideous scrape of syllables across tortured vocal cords.
For a time, Balkazar said nothing. As if he were afraid to admit how dire their situation had grown.
How truly hopeless.
And then, “The wall,” he said. “We’ve been imprisoned in the dungeons beneath the wall.”
Sinadim tried to sit, searching the dark with his only working eye—and realized what his memory wouldn’t show him.
What he couldn’t bear to recall.
Only when he tried to tuck his tail around his hip and seek a scrap of comfort did he understand what had been taken. What was lost and could never be found, because it had been severed at the base.
Docked.
His tail was gone.
20
Withdrawal.
It clawed and scraped at his insides. Leaving him hollow and raw. Desperate in a way he’d never known possible, for he’d been a prince. Enslaved to slick, addicted to the rut in a way few others would ever know. His harem the envy of all his brothers, his uncles, and every male from the wall to the coast.
All gone, now.
His females were scattered among the males of privilege, his army slaughtered or turned mercenary.
He was all that remained.
He, and a peasant he called brother.
Balkazar shuffled in the dark. Seeking comfort in a place where such a thing could not exist. Searching for any whisper of warmth that might remind him of the desert sun that heated Anhur blood.
But their cell was dank and cold.
Dark.
Moist filth marked every inch of the prison they’d inhabited for… too long. But here they would remain until the commoners forgot about the fallen prince who’d failed them. Hidden among criminals and rejects meant to serve at the wall.
