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Fenrir laughed. “I need to go see Daedra, see if she’s willing to talk yet.”

Vera seemed to approve and the tightness in Fenrir’s chest unraveled. They parted ways in the hallway outside his room—Vera going to collect the noble’s requests while Fenrir headed towards the courtyard.

It was there, at the northernmost tip of the Gilded Palace’s barracks, that Daedra’s tower prison pierced the sky.

Pale gray like the rest of the fortress, it cast a long shadow across the training yard below. Grunts and battle cries echoed up the ramparts alongside laughter and good-natured cajoling, all a tease Fenrir wanted to follow to the former life he had lived, that now felt out of reach in a way that had nothing to do with his sword arm. Instead, he ducked into one of the utility doors and headed for a staircase that would deposit him at the base of the prison tower.

“General Fen—Your Majesty—sire!”

Fenrir sighed. “Sir is fine.”

The soldier at the tower gate saluted instead of bowed, eyes steady past Fenrir’s ear instead of looking him in the eye or at his missing arm.

“Just here to make sure our prisoner is settled in.”

“Of course, Sir. Right this way.”

Fenrir made it two flights up before he was forced to take a break. “Sorry, just need a second.”

The guard stood awkwardly while Fenrir leaned his good shoulder against the wall, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth until his heart stopped feeling like it was hammering out of his chest. The rest of the climb went much the same. He’d make it two or three stories before needing increasingly longer breaks, until they finally reached the top where two guards stood at attention on either side of a heavy steel door.

Fenrir nodded when they saluted, hand to the wall while the guard who had escorted him retrieved an old folding chair that squeaked obnoxiously when Fenrir shook it out and dropped it to the ground.

He sat down heavily, clenching his hand into a fist so no one could see how it shook. The little guard room remained quiet, only his breath breaking the peaceful chirp of birds nesting in the ramparts beyond the window.

“You three all we’ve got on her?” For a human, it would have been enough. For a warrior elf from Hell, Fenrir found it woefully inadequate. But the room was as secure as it got at the palace, and he hadn’t heard a word about Daedra attempting to escape, yet.

“She’s been very cooperative, sir,” the guard who escorted him up said.

“She finally eating?”

The guard's face fell. “No, sir.”

“Drinking water?”

He shook his head.

Fenrir sighed. “Anything of note? Changes in behavior, energy level, speech?”

The guard flinched. “As acerbic as ever, sir. Although…”

Fenrir waited, eyebrow raised.

“She asked for some books.”

Well, if that didn’t pique his interest.

“What’s the situation inside?” He didn’t need to clarify what he meant. The guard went over the layout of the room. One cot, one window, solid steel ankle cuffs with a six-foot lead within a fourteen-by-fourteen-foot room. The few feet of dead zone buffering the door would be plenty room for Fenrir.

“I’m going in alone,” left no room for argument.

At least here, he was still Fenrir the General, not Fenrir the King.

The steel door groaned open on heavy hinges, the gate it revealed leaving a two-foot gap that Fenrir stepped into. Only once the door closed behind him did he open the gate and drop his little folding chair to the ground.

Across the room, Daedra sat stoically atop her cot reading a book. Legs crossed neatly, white hair loose to fall past her shoulders, someone had given her a change of clothes, and the simple linen shirt and gray pants seemed uncomfortably common on her. Fenrir didn’t know much about the Myrkur or what Daedra’s station was among them, but unlike the nobles filling the Gilded Palace’s halls, she held herself with far more esteem than anyone here was giving her credit for.

She looked pale, though. Smoky blue skin ashen despite the warm light, dark circles framing her bright, gold eyes.