Blood Oath (Darkest Drae #1)(26)

Not only was I warm and unrestrained, but nothing hurt. Nothing. Not my face, my skin, or my left hand. I clenched my left hand, it was heavily bandaged, but I could feel my fingers. Someone had tended to me.

I opened my eyes just enough to see I was no longer on the table in the torture room but on a stained mattress on a stone floor, buried in a mound of blankets.

I was alone. At last. The words flashed through my mind before I remembered them as the dying lament of the girl, Madeline. I rested back on the lumpy mattress, staring at the ceiling and wondering how much time had passed since Jotun injected me with . . . Horrible shakes raked my body at the memory of the bugs under my skin. They continued for an indiscriminate amount of time in the destitute darkness of my new home.

I was alone.

Mum was gone, and the bit of fight left in me before Jotun strapped me to the table was non-existent now. I could hardly recall I’d had the notion, and I couldn’t remember what it felt like. That piece of myself the girl told me to keep, the place that separated survivors from victims. I didn’t know how to find it or if I had one to begin with.

A tear leaked from the corner of one eye and ran into my hairline and around my skull onto the mattress.

Another followed.

And more, until I was sobbing, face pressed into the filthy mattress to conceal my breaking point as best I could from the other prisoners.

My mother was gone, and I might have killed her.

My mother was gone.

My mother was gone.

Each time the thought circled around, it was more frantic and higher pitched. My chest clenched so tight it hurt as I cried for my mother, and my guilt over leaving her, for the girl Madeline who might’ve been me. For myself because I was not the innocent girl I was before and knew I could never return.

I’d heard stories of Irdelron’s cruelty, but I had no comprehension of his brand of evil. I had no idea such brutality could even exist.

The girl I’d been couldn’t understand it.

Had been.

The girl I was now . . .

I saw the way Irdelron clutched his vial of blood. I now understood the king’s determination for power, no matter the cost or depravity. He’d slaughtered the Drae and the Phaetyn to secure his throne. He drank the blood of the Phaetyn. He enslaved his own people, and reigned with brutality.

But that one person would do such things; that knowledge threatened to overwhelm me. My heart could not accept it.

Staring blankly out of the thick metal bars into the darkness, I sobbed until every ounce of my waking strength was gone.



The next time I awoke, it was to the clang of metal.

I jerked up, pushing my hands into the bed to lift myself. No more sound came, and I slowly relaxed. I lifted my hand. The bandage had been removed since the last time I awoke, and I stared at my hand in awe in the dim dungeon light.

My jaw dropped. Whoever bandaged me had to be a magician, because my hand was whole, completely unmarred from the stake. I pushed the blankets aside and looked at my legs. I felt . . . so much better.

I glanced around the room, taking it in for the first time. The damp square space was mostly empty. A chamber pot sat in one corner with straw scattered around. The rough floor was dark stone, uneven and jagged. Three of the walls were solid, no windows or breaks to allow for light or ventilation. The air carried the weighty dank stench of wet rock and rat droppings. There was space to take three large steps in each direction. I turned in my bed and faced the last wall. Bars spanned from the rock ceiling to the floor and from wall to wall. On the other side of the bars was a narrow, stone hall.

I stood, my tender bare feet protesting the uneven surface, and my knees buckled as I straightened. The room spun, and I put my hand on the wall beside the mattress to stop my collapse.

Balance restored, I gingerly inched my way toward the front of my cell. As I approached, I noticed a bundle on the ground, a dark rag holding a hunk of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a flask I prayed was water. I unstopped the cork and sniffed. The sweet smell was foreign to me. The food and water could be a trap, or poison, but neither of those mattered anymore. I took a sip, and a glorious sweetness danced across my tongue, encouraging my thirst to flee.

I had no idea how long I’d been out, but my stomach didn’t even rumble at the food, so I knew I had to be well down the path of starvation. It wasn’t like I’d had fat stores beforehand.

My tummy churned when the fluid hit, but instead of protesting, I craved more. I sipped the fluid and nibbled on the bread, relieved when I kept it down. I stashed the remaining food back in the cloth and wrapped the cloth and flagon in a blanket before depositing it on the corner of my mattress.

I returned to the wall of bars and peered left and right down the hall. I could only see a few feet in either direction. The dark and narrow hall outside my cell extended past my limited vision. If there were other cells, or other prisoners, I couldn’t see them, and I wasn’t foolish enough to call out.

I sighed, both disappointed and relieved to be alone.

“Who’s there?” a scratchy voice whispered from my right. “Is there someone else here?”

I froze, dropping into a crouch.

Who was that?

I inched away from the bars. On tiptoes, I returned to my bed and lay down as quietly as I could.

I waited, tense, ears straining for a long while after. Maybe I hadn’t heard a voice at all. My mind was on edge and probably playing tricks on me. Though, if someone else was down here, they could be one of the three prisoners Irrik mentioned to the king.