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“Where are you going?” I asked after him.
Lucien didn’t turn around as he answered, “I’m going to go live my life while I still can, brother,” he said. “War is coming. I don’t know when, but I can feel it. And I have a feeling Fynn was not the last of us to die.”
* * *
Isaiah didn’t react as I stepped into his cell. He had stopped reacting after the first few days—once he realized protesting wasn’t going to help him.
Most of the blood on his body had dried. I stepped forward and unscrewed my flask of water.
“Open your mouth,” I demanded. He twitched lightly, but didn’t move any more.
I grabbed the back of his head and pulled his hair before drizzling the liquid over his face. If he didn’t want to drink, that was fine by me.
After a few seconds, he began licking his lips. I drizzled a small amount more before letting go of his head and screwing the top of the flask back on. “Are you ready to talk?” I asked.
Isaiah only shook his head.
“Tell me what Esther really wants,” I demanded. “Tell me why you turned on Jade.”
The smallest hint of a smile betrayed him.
He opened his mouth to speak, making a couple of attempts to use his voice before finally saying, “She would have been safer with me.”
A laugh escaped me. Isaiah must have been more delusional than I gave him credit for. “How, exactly? Considering you were the one who conspired to kill her, I have a hard time understanding how you could have kept her safe.”
Isaiah tried to look at me, barely able to open his swollen eyes. “I asked her to leave you, you know. I begged her to leave you and come with me back to Fearford.” Every muscle in my body stiffened. “She refused, of course. Jade surprised me—she really did. She wasn’t the…” A coughing fit interrupted him. “She wasn’t the helpless human girl enslaved to you. She wanted to be with you.”
Anger flooded my senses. Dripping water in the distance was the only sound in the cell. Why was he telling me this? Why now?
“She knows I will protect her,” I admitted. “Something you could have never done.”
Isaiah’s breath became labored as he slowly struggled against the heavy chains. “You will be the end of her. You will try to protect her, but you will fail.”
“You know nothing,” I hissed. “You are a traitor and a liar. Why should I trust anything you say?”
“I never wanted to hurt Jade. I only wanted her to see the truth.” I clenched my jaw as I waited for him to say more. Isaiah’s eyelids began drooping once again, “We can all see it,” he whispered. His voice was barely audible in the dungeons as he continued, “We can all see that you will be Jade’s downfall.”
His bloodied head sagged against his chest.
I threw the flask into his lap and stormed out of the tunnels, ignoring the angry shadows that lapped at my dwindling consciousness.
CHAPTER6
Malachi
Seconds after I dressed in clean clothes, Jade marched into my bedroom without a single knock.
And she looked pissed.
“Were you going to tell me you practically kidnapped my family and dragged them here?”
“What?” I asked, sitting up in my tall bed. “I thought you would enjoy the surprise!”
“You can’t make decisions about my family without me,” she demanded. Fury swarmed her dark eyes. I loved the wildness in Jade. I always had. She was a strong, powerful woman and she was as complicated as anyone. “I should have had a say in the matter!”
“You’re not happy about it?” I asked, tip-toeing with every word.
Jade shook her head, running her hands through her long, black hair. “No, I–It's fine. I just would have liked some sort of warning. I could have prepared, I could have–”
