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I locked eyes with him across the room, swallowing thickly when I saw the long talons of the creature curl over his shoulders, his hands wrapped around Sebastian’s throat.
Every moment we shared hovered between us, and I suddenly realized I couldn’t leave him here, in the depths of a castle awaiting his execution date. The creature closed the door, leaving the candle melting in an alcove of the wall.
“Sebastian,” I whispered, crawling as far as my chains would allow, dragging them across the uneven ground.
He raised his face to meet mine, untamed power hidden behind those deep-blue eyes. His blood-smeared lips parted, a cough escaping between them. He’d healed from whatever injuries that thing had caused him, but the reminiscence of them lingered on the ash covering his crumpled shirt with missing buttons and crimson-soaked pants.
“What did they do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He dragged himself against the wall, resting his head back on the stone, his eyes rolling up to the gray ceiling. “You have to tell them.”
“No.” I prepared myself another argument, wishing I had Erianna here to back me up, but she was stuck in a distant cell with Zach. They were charged with interfering with an arrest and, fortunately, hadn’t been implicated in the plot to kill the princess and frame Kalon, a crime Sebastian had taken full responsibility for to save them.
The king was going to kill him that night until I said I was involved too, and Sargon was forced to open a trial. I was a sorceress, and killing me meant him giving up a slice of potential power. It was enough to pause him, to keep us down here. It had been two days since we’d been caught, and we’d been housed in the lowest level of the dungeon meant for the worst of the worst prisoners.
“They will kill you.” Sebastian rolled his shoulders back. They’d sent him cups of blood at first but laced it with some slow-acting poison that weakened his body so he couldn’t break out. The latest of his food sat cold in a cup in the center of the cell.
“You should drink,” I said, ignoring his statement, one I’d thought over a hundred times since being in here. Lightheaded, I attempted to stand, but my legs buckled under my weight. “Drink from my wrist.”
He side-eyed me. “You’re already weak. I won’t take what little life is left in you.”
“I can take it,” I urged, although I had to wonder if he was right.
They hadn’t given me a scrap of food since my arrest and very little water. Parting my parched lips, I dropped back against the wall, exhaustion pulling the strings of my consciousness.
“No, you can’t.”
I whispered a touch against the poppy bruise on my temple, left over from one of the soul vampires who’d knocked me out once Azia’s spell to keep me subdued wore off. My magic was suppressed by the heavy chain around my neck, throbbing aches into my shoulder blades and top of my neck.
“I wish I could heal you.” He winced as I touched the purple around one eye. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror since they’d beaten me to bring me here, only catching a half-glance in the reflection of Sebastian’s cup, but going by Sebastian’s expressions, I guessed I looked like hell.
“Your blood is laced with poison,” I spluttered.
“I know.” He blew out a tense breath. “You must reconsider.” He continued his plight. “Only one of us has to die.”
“I’m not leaving you to be killed,” I whispered, my knees knocking together as I huddled my arms around them, pulling my legs to my chest.
“Do you plan on dying by my side? That’s not smart, Olivia. You still have a chance here.”
“I’m not leaving.” I thought about my mom and the way she’d looked at me before I was made unconscious and dragged away. She would try to find a way out of this for me, and I only hoped it wouldn’t cost her too much, like her life. “We underestimated Kalon.”
He shook his head. “No, I underestimated you. I should have listened when you said he knew.”
I fell silent, hating seeing him beat himself up like this. The life glistening behind his smirks and playful glances was gone, replaced with a constant look of regret. When I lowered my barrier, I only felt the same emptiness that came with my depression. I wanted to take it away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“If you drink from me,” I said slowly, “you can break out of here.”
“It would take a lot more blood than you can give to give me the strength for that.”
“Then change me.”
He narrowed his eyes, sitting straight for the first time since being stuck in this cell. “I don’t think—”
“It’s my destiny anyway. You said it yourself, and the plan was always for me to become queen and turn anyway.”
He averted his gaze, sliding it to a dark corner. “I know it’s not what you really want.”
“Since when do you care what I want?”
