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She writhed. “You’re hurting me.”
I let go and staggered, unbalanced and adrift. “Arin? Please, tell me.” Acrid panic burned my throat. “Tell me. Is he here, in one of these cells?” These horrible, dark holes with bars. No, he couldn’t be here, not my honey and sunshine prince. Alone, in the darkness. Lost.Please let it be a lie, please let Razak be wrong.
Her lips clamped closed.
She nodded.
“No, no, no, no.” I reeled, falling but standing still. Arin was here. Arin had been arrested, made out to be a traitor. Alone, captured, lost in the cold. How long?
I’d sent him away, I’d abandoned him. I shouldn’t have. I should have stayed with him. I paced while my whole world fell apart around me. If Arin was here, then everything had changed. Razak had won.
We could have run together. But I’d pushed him away, sent him to the Overlook Inn alone… straight into Draven’s arms.
Draven.Whose name had been on the documents.Draven, who had been at our sides this whole time. Draven, a benefit to the Court of Pain,to my brother.
Draven… ourmutual friend? No, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. But I’d sent Arin to him, and Arin was now here…
Draven was Razak’s man. Draven had betrayed us, betrayed Arin.
This was Draven’s doing. He’d played us this whole time. He’d always been Razak’s man, from the very beginning. The memories tumbled, one after another, unraveling truths I’d been so sure of. Draven’s smirk at Love’s ball, his singling me out, the letter he’d supposedly received alerting him to my identity.You’re him, the traitor’s son.He’d known exactly who I was when he’d had his cock down my throat. Razak had told him everything he’d needed to know, including how to catch my eye. He’d been at our sides this whole time—he’d married Arin.
“That cocksucking bastard!”
He’d fucked my throat knowing Razak had sent him. I scrunched my hands into fists. Therehadbeen a third man in Arin’s court, another imposter, and I hadn’t seen it. Bumbling, heroic, passionate Warlord Draven.
I coughed a bitter, crazed laugh. The son of a sandworm had played me.
When I got my hands on him, I’d make him pay, make him wish for death. But before that, I had to see Arin, to know he was all right.
Sonya had watched me pace and rant, warily backing away, but as my gaze fixed on her, she froze with her back pressed against the wall.
“Arin’s not here,” she blurted. “He’s in the eastern wing. Please, Zayan, please don’t hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” I snarled, and slammed a hand against the wall beside her head. “Take me.”
“I’m not supposed to reveal—”
“Do not test me, Sonya. You will not like the result.Take me to Arin.”
CHAPTER30
Arin
I measuredtime by the deliveries of slop in the bowl they slid through a locked flap in the door and when they came to take the bucket I used to relieve myself in. It had been long enough that the single chain and cuff had rubbed my wrist raw, and my eyes had become so accustomed to the gloom that every time the door opened, light flooded in and my tears squeezed free.
I had hoped for a chance to voice my defense, at least make a plea of innocence, but after the wagon had arrived in Justice’s icy castle and I’d been unceremoniously marched down to the cells, nobody had come.
Behind a door again. Alone again. Pacing back and forth, eating their slop, pissing in a bucket, pacing back and forth… My feet were raw too. They’d taken my boots. So silly a thing. Why take my boots?
I’d stopped jumping at every door slam, every yell or howl from those in the neighboring cells. It wasn’t days. I was certain of that much. It had to be weeks. I paced and ate and relived myself, and paced and ate and sometimes half slept, when the cold floor didn’t gnaw on my bones. Over and over, day and night and day.
Alone.
Again.
Alone with the guilt of my mother’s suicide, my father’s murder, the blaze that had destroyed my court. Alone with the knowledge I should have done more, been better, stopped Razak. Alone with broken dreams of Lark on a clifftop, playing until his music died, and so did he.
A man could lose his mind in the dark. Alone. Locked behind a door.
