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“If you leave me locked in here and no one stops the necromancers, then it won’t only be Nolderan that falls. It will be the entire world!”
“I said step away from the bars, witch. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to leave without giving you this.” She uses her golden key to point at the water and stew on the tray.
“I’m not a witch,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “I’m a Mage of Nolderan. Your High Priestess has gotten this all wrong.”
“Do you deny summoning that wicked creature?” She nods to Natharius, who snarls in return.
“No, but I had my reasons—”
“Do you deny harming my fellow sisters only a few hours ago?”
“You make it sound as if I hurt them in cold blood. Is that what lies the High Priestess has been spewing?”
“Blasphemy! The High Priestess does not lie.”
“But she certainly tells half-truths. I needed to escape, to save the world, and they stood in my way. Tell me, which is the greater sin? One who fights for justice, or one who enables a monster to destroy the entire world? What is the wellbeing of one or two priestesses when, as it stands, the entire world will be destroyed and countless innocent lives will be lost—”
“Save it,” Yadira snaps. “I was instructed to come down here with food and water, not to debate what kind of monster you are. Whatever reasons you claim to have, they do not change the fact that you summoned this demon and harmed my sisters. Now, step away from the bars or I will leave without giving you water.”
I grit my teeth and do as she says, only because my words are falling on deaf ears and I’m so thirsty it’s as if my throat is filled with sand.
Yadira unlocks my cell and places the tray at the entrance and locks the cell behind her. She stares me down from the other side of the bars. “The High Priestess also instructed me to tell you your execution will be held later this afternoon. She already announced it to the citizens of Esterra this morning.”
Execution.
Myexecution.
My knees slacken and crumple beneath me.
“No,” I gasp. I shuffle forth on my knees and grasp the bars. “No, this can’t be true!”
But Yadira isn’t fazed by my protests. She deposits the golden key back into her robes.
“You can’t do this!” I shout after her. “If you kill me, you won’t know where those necromancers are! Nor what they intend to do! All of Imyria will suffer the consequences of your actions!”
Yadira doesn’t look back as she steps out of the dungeons. The doors close behind her, and with them the tiniest seed of hope I had—the hope I could convince Yadira to appeal to the High Priestess on my behalf—dies with it.
I scream, but the doors don’t open. The guards look over at me for a few moments and then resume their statuesque vigil. I scream until my throat is raw, until my voice breaks, and only when I can scream no more do I slump back onto my heels and stare uselessly at the golden manacles around my wrists.
Before the priestesses caught us, I joked to Natharius about divesting him of his wrists, since it was the only way I could think to free him and because he could conjure back his hands. My magic is incapable of growing back any body parts, save for as an illusion, and yet if I had a blade inside this cell, I would use it on my wrists without hesitation.
If I can’t find a way out of this cell, I’ll be executed before the day is up. It must be morning now, but I don’t know if it’s late or early morning. I don’t know how many hours I have left to live.
And even though I knew Yadira for less than a day and I’m the one who is indebted to her and not vice versa, her betrayal stings.
“Think of it this way,” Natharius’s silky voice comes from my right, pulling me from my thoughts. I almost forgot he could speak. His crimson eyes gleam. “Now you won’t have to spend the next three hundred years in here with me.”
“No, I will just get to spend an eternity being tortured by you before you grow bored and decide to consume my soul instead.”
“I will never grow bored of torturing you,” the demon purrs.
“Wonderful.”
I lie back on the floor and stare up at the stone ceiling, which has a crack running through it—perhaps from when I summoned that earthquake to shake the temple. Then I stay there for a long while and contemplate which is worse: having my soul eaten by the Void Prince or enduring endless torture. Probably the latter.
When I grow tired of staring at the ceiling, I haul myself up to a sitting position and stare at the tray Yadira brought. I don’t try eating the stew, knowing I’ll be unable to swallow a single mouthful, but I have a few sips of water. It does little to relieve my parched throat or the nausea washing over me, and it’s more difficult to swallow than I anticipate, so I cough most of it up. I don’t bother trying to drink again.
Time drags on, and I run out of things to stare at to stop my thoughts from spiraling out of control. A few times, I stand and pace around my cell, looking for any potential weaknesses in the walls or bars, but I find none. There is no way out of this cell, other than the key Yadira used. And that will have long been returned to the High Priestess.
