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Quickly, due to the cold air in the room, I dashed for the large bed, slipping under the heavy duvet on the side I had hidden the dagger, and got myself comfortable. Pulling the quilt up to my chest and letting out a heavy breath before I called Cyrus back into the room.
He appeared at the door seconds later, a sleepy look on his face. Gone was his wedding suit, and instead he stood there in nothing but a pair of cotton sleep trousers, his chest entirely bare. I lifted an eyebrow at him, and he smirked, shrugging.
“You can stare as much as you like,” He chuckled, holding out his arms and spinning in a slow circle, as though I was choosing him at an antique auction, “It’s all yours.”
I smiled at him, alarm bells sounding in the back of my head as he moved across the room to the bed. There was not a single scar on his back. There was no sign of his accident with his father whatsoever.
I did not give away my fear as he slid under the heavy cover beside me, a groan leaving him as he did so. He scooted near to the middle of the bed, lifting one arm, and gesturing with his head for me to move closer. I did as he told me, letting myself slide up next to his body and resting my head on the warmth of his chest.
Running my fingers over his stomach, I listened to his chest as he breathed.
Neither of us spoke, and soon, Cyrus began to twitch under my fingers. His breathing slowed, and his eyes fluttered as though he was dreaming. I lifted my head, watching his face closely for any sign of forgery, and decided to move. I knew he would fall asleep quickly, because I had watched him down wine after wine all evening, but it seemed too good to be true.
It was now or never, I felt. Who knows what he was planning if I had fallen asleep first.
Slowly, slower than I had ever moved, I edged away from him. He took a sharp breath in, and I froze, looking up at him, but he just turned his head and resettled himself. The arm that had been around me was now lying flat across his stomach, and I let out a heavy breath of my own, my heart hammering in my ears.
I reached for the bedside table, wincing as the drawer squeaked loudly when I pulled it open. I fumbled in the darkness until my fingers wrapped themselves around the hilt of my dagger, and I pulled it out with shaking hands.
Sitting with it in my lap for a minute, I stared at it in the darkness. Was I about to kill my husband?
A million and one scenarios wound themselves through my head. Cyrus and I at ninety, watching our great-grandchild run wild around the castle gardens. Cyrus teaching our sons how to properly hold a sword. Travelling with him and our kids back to Earth, so I could show them where they came from.
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I shook the good scenarios out of my head. This is the man that had been trying to poison me since before the wedding. The man who claimed to have been in an accident with his father but showed no sign of the scars he had been landed with. The man who wanted nothing more than a marriage to gain him a title.
I looked over at him, watching his chest rise slowly, his hair splayed on the pillow at his head, and made my decision. Sliding myself back over the bed, I shifted myself, so I was sitting on top of his waist, a thigh at either side.
He did not move, and I held my breath until I was certain that I had not woken him.
If the room had been lighter, I may have seen his other hand reaching for the bedside table. I may have seen his fingers wrapping around the candlestick that sat on top of his bed side table.
I raised my arm above my head, taking a few slow, deliberate breaths and closing my eyes, before I plunged the dagger downwards.
Cyrus let out a roar, at the same time as something heavy connected with the back of my head. I screamed as I tumbled from the bed, landing on the old wooden floor painfully. I scrambled to try and stand, but Cyrus had reached over my side of the bed and grabbed my ankle, hauling me backwards enough that he could grab my hair and pull my upwards.
He sneered at me, my dagger sticking out of his shoulder. I cursed myself internally for missing his chest, seeing the hilt of my dagger shining at his collarbone in the moonlight coming through the windows.
“You think I didn’t know this was your plan all along?” He spat, his grip on my hair tight enough to make me wail, he pulled my head backwards against the wooden frame of the bed hard enough to make a wave of nausea run through me, and I fought desperately to try and reach my magic.
I had not had to chance to even glance at it before the candlestick he had been holding was reconnecting with the back of my skull, plunging me into darkness in the middle of the floor.
EPILOGUE
Kira
Nausea washed over me in heavy waves.
My head rolled where it lay on solid ground, and a whimper worked its way past my lips. A heaviness that I had not experienced before filled my limbs. Hazy memories of the night before filtered through the confusion, and I wondered for a second if I had drunk more wine than I thought.
Shifting my weight onto my side, I tried to move my hands underneath me to push myself up, but the clanking of chains against the floor stopped me. Forcing my eyes to open, I blinked into the darkness in front of me. Barred doors lit by a single torch, dust and dirt on the floor, and air that was too damp to breathe in properly… My heart leapt into my throat as I realised, I had woken on the floor of a dungeon cell.
Panicked, I tried again to push myself up, but the chainsthat were wound tightly around my wrists made it nearly impossible to move. A sob wracked out of my chest as I struggled myself up to my knees, the long chains that continued down the front of my body and attached to two cuffs around my ankles getting caught between my knees and sending me stumbling to ground again. Pain radiated through the side of my face as it made contact with the solid concrete.
Soft shuffling in the distance caught my attention for a second, and the realisation that I was not alone in the dark hit me. Using my shoulders to push myself back onto my side, I worked my way back up onto my knees, my breath leaving me in heavy pants as I did so. Once I had my knees under me, I sat for a second to catch my breath, my eyes running around the cell I was in quickly. A pile of straw against the back wall and a metal bucket were all I could see in the dim light.
Using all of the strength I could muster, I managed to haul one leg out from under me, so I was almost standing, and sending a silent prayer to Lides, pulled the other leg up behind it.
Vertigo hit hard, and I swayed on the spot for a second before I managed to stumble forward. My hands found substance on the metal bars of the door, and I peered down the long, dark hallway. An uncomfortable realisation hit me as I began to recognise where I was. I was in the dungeons of Cyrus’s castle.
