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Icame to in a cell. I didn’t recognize it, but judging by the biting cold of the dark, stone walls I could only have been in the palace. There were solid iron manacles around my hands and feet. The chain attached to them ran along the ground to a solid, metal platform that looked like it was bolted down. I tried to tug on the chains, but there wasn’t much give.
The sound made my brother stir. He was also chained to the ground, like I was, but he was on the opposite side of the room. There wasn’t anything else in here besides us, our chains, and the only door leading into or out of this place.
Radulf blinked hard as he awoke, then he tried the chains, but they wouldn’t budge. There just wasn’t enough room for him to be able to get a decent pull at them.
“It’s no use,” I said.
He suddenly grimaced as if in pain. Runes that had been invisible a moment ago flashed around the manacles keeping him chained to the ground. He breathed through the pain, then stared at the iron shackles around his hands. “I can’t shapeshift,” he said.
“I’ve never seen this kind of magic before. We have to assume she’s thought of everything.”
“How did we get here so fast?”
“Also magic. I told you, she’s powerful.”
Radulf scanned the cell. “We have to get out of here.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you get it? It’s useless. Malys is never letting us get away… and I don’t think I want to, anyway.”
My brother’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I’m sick of running, Radulf. I got us all into this, I got mother and father exiled, and then I led her right to you. I keep trying to do the right thing, but I’m only messing things up further.”
“So, what, you’re going to give up?”
I shook my head. “I don’t see another way out of this. Maybe I can convince her to leave you and the others alone if I give myself up.”
“You know she won’t.”
“What’s the alternative, then? We keep fighting, and running, and fighting, and running… we don’t have time, Radulf.”
“Fate’s hunter doesn’t scare me.”
“Well, it should. It chased me across worlds, it has the power to manipulate its surroundings to make you feel like you’re running around inside of a labyrinth. It can probably do so much more I haven’t seen yet. It would be pointless to try to keep running from something that knows where you are at all times. I can’t keep doing this.”
“Giving yourself up is worse. Far, far worse. Think of all the people of Arcadia… do you really think Malys will stop at the Winter Kingdom?”
I looked up at him, the question bouncing around in my head. “Someone will stop her.”
“Yes.You.”
“Radulf—”
“—listen to me. You would not have come all the way out to the mountains to find me if you didn’t want to fight her. You would’ve given up long ago, but you didn’t. You came to me, and now I’m here.”
“In a cell, bound to the floor.”
“Fine, but I would rather be here, fighting against her with you than out there on some mountain, alone for the rest of my long life.” He paused. “Were you really going to do it?”
I looked down at the ground. “It seemed like the only card I had left to play,” I said, remembering the weight of the dagger in my hand. “Malys wants her reign. I’m the one who can give it to her… or take it away for good.”
“I wouldn’t have let you do it. I’m faster than you. I would’ve stopped you.”
“I know. I didn’t want to do it either, but if it means life here goes back to the way it was, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Radulf settled against the wall and looked over at the door to our cell. “I should never have left.”
“Left?”
