Dedicated to Miya Hikari for being generally amazing
(and also founding one of the best award communities on Wattpad)

We reach the antechamber of the dungeon, and only the wizard guarding the heavy door to the cells greets us. Quietly, I ask Reyan, "Where is the soldier that's supposed to be down here?"

He glances at me. "You already know all available forces are at the wall." I nod, but my lips twist. I don't like the idea of it being any less difficult for Amarris to escape.

The wizard casts, and the door swings open for us. I'm sure Reyan could force it open if he tried, but there's no point in testing it. The ringing of his footsteps and the whisper of mine follow us through the stone corridor.

We march down the long row of cells, most of which are empty. In the first occupied one, a man no more than a few years older than myself sits on his bench. He looks up as we pass, and with a start, I recognize him. I focus ahead.

Once we're a few feet past the cell, I murmur to Reyan, "That man is a soldier. What is he doing here?"

His jaw clenches, and through his teeth he says, "He tried to desert. Before the barbarians made it to the castle wall." Silence reigns between us for a moment before he growls to himself, "The coward."

I don't reply, but anger at the man rises in me as well. If he wasn't willing to withstand the trials of being a soldier, then he should never have joined. Pride in and loyalty to your country and people should be the reigning motto of anyone that works for her. And at least the soldiers had the decision when they joined whether they wanted to.

The hall ends abruptly with a thick blackwood wall. Three doors of the same dark wood decorate its face. No window peeks in, and the doors are made to sit as flush with the wall as possible.

Reyan steps forward and inserts his key into one of them. He pushes the door open with his shoulder and steps in. I hesitate. Agraund once brought me down here so I could see what it was like, and I've always hated the feeling of these cells.

Reyan glances back, annoyance splayed across his face. My lips press together, and I slip into the little antechamber. A second wooden wall stands just feet from the other. Reyan lets the door fall shut, a dull thud echoing down the way we came, and locks it. Standing here, there's a strange muteness in the room. Discomfort fills me. It is not so much like a buzzing in the air but the lack of a buzzing I never would have noticed except for its sudden absence. I force my expression neutral.

Blackwood. A blessing to certain spells, but in the wrong circumstances, it's like it sucks all the life out of the magic. Reyan, of course, doesn't seem to notice the deadness in the air and instead moves forward to slide back the eye-level slot in the door before us. He blocks my view of the cell, but I can't help but remember a different slot in a different cell and of being on the very different side of the situation.

He slides the slot shut and pushes his key into this lock. He glances at me before opening it. "Ready?"

I straighten at the challenge in the word and steel my expression. "Of course, brother." He shoves the door open, and we enter.

Amarris has no right to look as composed as she does.

She sits on the blackwood bench at the back of the cell. They must have made her change clothes when they searched her for materials and weapons because she wears a cheap muslin dress nothing like the sort she would normally don. Her hair is down, all the pins taken from her, and traces of improperly removed makeup stain her eyes. Her wrists are bound together and her fingers tied to prohibit her from casting.

Yet somehow she twists all this. Her posture is confident, regal almost, as if this is not a prison cell but an audience chamber and the bench her throne. Her skirt is gracefully splayed around her, and somehow she's pulled her hair over one shoulder. A confident smile rests easily on her face, and her bound hands center in her lap like the proper folded position of a Lady.

"Aster," she croons. "How sweet of you to visit me." Her smile gains the charm of a snake.

"Enough with the games, Amarris," Reyan says. "You said you'd talk to him. Now talk."

She feigns hurt. "Why, Captain, I'm only being polite. Don't you know that Aster and I got to know each other very well while he stayed at my manor?" Her eyes never move from mine, and despite—or perhaps because of—her smile, her gaze holds an unnerving edge. "Isn't that right, my dear?" I set my jaw. "Now, I don't think you need your guard dog just to talk to me. Send him out." She speaks with all the decorum of a Lady instructing her household servants.

Her arrogance grates on me, and I struggle not to let it show. "If the Captain needs to leave, I'll let him know."

She smiles, tightly lipped. She's not going to talk unless I play by her rules; if she insists on games, though, I'm determined to make my own.

I pace forward two steps and whisper. "Amarris, you're in my castle now." I let a smile play on my lips. "You have no power here."

She tilts her head. "Is that so?"

Mostly. I flip through different strategies, different scenarios to play out, different options for making her talk. I pace the width of the cell, straight-backed, imperial. The most important thing is for her not to have the upper hand. Even more than us getting information, she mustn't have the upper hand.

I could use the tactics on her she did on me. So long as she doesn't speak, she doesn't receive any food or water. I came so close, too close, to giving up secrets, and I was only in there a few days at that point. My tongue was dry, lips cracked, and I could barely move, hardly think. I can't do that to someone else. For the same reason, I refuse to have my illusionist torture her.

I could send Reyan out, but that would encourage the wrong kind of behavior. Simply giving in isn't good enough.

A better idea comes to me, and I smile faintly. Feet stopping, I look to Reyan. Let's just hope he's smart enough to go along with it. "Looks like I was right, brother. We'll have to prove it to her. Will you go get the artefact from Mage Solus now?"

His eyes narrow, as though he's dangerously close to asking a dumb question. Turned at an angle that Amarris can't see my face, I give him an insistent look. Go along with this.

"If we must." He leaves, locking the door behind him.

I turn back to Amarris, clapping my hands together. "Alright then. You have until he returns to cooperate before we must entertain less... pleasant measures." Please don't call my bluff.

She watches me with cold, wary eyes, but a smile is still frozen on her face and her tone is light. "How is Solus these days?"

"Perfectly none of your business." I smile at her. My facade is thankfully lending me some true confidence. "So, Amarris," I say, sobering. "Why were you working with the Kadranians?"

"Oh, dear, I'd thought you would have been smart enough to put that together by now. But Agraund did always say you were an incompetent little boy, didn't he?"

My insides freeze, shocked into stillness. The only ones that knew of my incompetence were him and Solus. Agraund wouldn't have said that to her.

My face is a lifetime polished mask, though, and I raise a self-assured eyebrow at her. "If you say so, maedame. Either way, that is not what we are here to discuss." I lean forward until I come eye-level with her. "Trust me when I say you'll want to answer legitimately."

She leans forward too. "Well, then, prince. Ask anything you want." Her eyes sparkle as she relaxes back, far too at ease for my comfort.

I already was asking anything I wanted. Anger solidifies in my chest like steel. Agraund never would have let me obfuscate and then mock him. My expression darkens. "You are only putting yourself in danger by keeping a smart tongue." My voice drops. "I can do whatever I want to you." I step forward. "You are no better than the Kadranian scum burning in front of my wall." I watch silently, eyes boring into her.

Finally, as if to escape my gaze, she stands and sweeps forward. Success shoots through me until she smiles. "Naive little thing."

My hand waves dismissively. "Sit down, Amarris." Everything in me fights to retain the appearance of calm, but the non-buzzing of the room and her serpentine simper unnerves me. It's like she doesn't believe she's been captured at all.

She stalks around me. "You give me so little room to start out with and mean to constrain me to the bench as well? Why. That's downright cruel."

I watch her coolly for a moment, letting her footfalls be the only sound between us. When I speak, my voice is just barely louder than her steps. "You haven't seen us be cruel." My lips twitch up mirthlessly on the edges. "You, Amarris, are at my mercy. And I haven't much reason to give you that."

She stops, her back to me. "Tables have turned before."

"I suggest you sit down," I repeat, voice soft with condescension, but nerves rattle in my chest.

"As you wish, dear prince." Her words are no louder than the swish of her skirt as she slides back to the bench, never looking at me.

"What do you know of their plan?"

Now she meets my eyes, a malevolent glimmer in her gaze. "Enough to know they win."

My voice hardens. "What does that mean?"

She easily shrugs one shoulder, and I narrow my eyes. "What use were you to them anyway? A Lady with no land, a noble with no title?"

For the first time, real emotion flashes across her face. Sneering, she says, "No matter what your mother stole from me, we will steal infinitely more from you."

"You couldn't take this castle if we threw its gates wide open."

"Just watch." She glowers, but sudden fear flashes in her eyes, as though she's realized she's said too much. So close.

I change tack. "What's the rock for?"

Confusion takes her. "What?"

If that was an act, it was a good one. I could give her more information, hoping she'll have at least heard something of it, but she'd more likely lie than offer anything helpful back. She mustn't have the upper hand. I cross my arms. "How many soldiers do they have?"

"How sweet. You think they consult me with their battle plans."

I smirk. "So you're just another useless pawn of theirs, then?"

"Sure." Her eyes hold a secret, though, and that scares me.

I wave my hand. "We'll see about that when Reyan returns." I lean against the door, arms crossed, waiting. Outwardly, I'm the picture of unconcern; inwardly, I'm begging the stars not to let her see through the threat. In the dead silence of the blackwood cell, time warps, and as the seconds stretch, she begins to fidget. She disguises it as smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in her dress, but I'm not fooled. She's a smart woman, a practiced torturer, and a wizard atop it. I'm sure her imagination has no trouble conjuring up all manner of nightmares Reyan could be retrieving.

For the first time, I'm sure I have the upper hand.

"Is that it then?" she says finally. "The boy-prince can't muster any more words? How disappointed your uncle must be." She pouts in faux-compassion, but for once, the bite of her words doesn't penetrate my skin.

I shrug. "Well, if you've told me all you think you know, then I might as well leave the artefact to do its work. No?"

Our eyes lock, each of us daring the other to call our bluff, and worry builds within me that she will. She knows I'm lying.

Then that smile of hers fractures the tiniest amount. There.

"Prince?" she says.

My head inclines as an invitation to continue, and I try not to let my relief show.

"Do you believe in the old stories?"

I narrow my eyes. "Go on."

"The Kadranians haven't marched for no reason. The shamans, they never said... but a smart Lady always reads between the lines." Her eyes are shadowed, and for the first time, she looks uneasy. "They're following something. Something dark. Something powerful."

As I ingest that comment and what it could possibly mean, a heavy knock sounds at the door. My head snaps toward it. That must be Reyan.

I turn back to Amarris. "Well. I think you've earned yourself a little time. If you start feeling helpful again, feel free to inform the guard that you have information for us. Perhaps then you'll be able to buy yourself something better than time. The castle can be very accommodating."

She watches me cautiously.

"We won't be needing the artefact after all, brother," I say through the wood.

The lock clicks, door opening, and I slip through. Reyan pushes it closed with a definitive thud and locks it again. Once we're out of the blackwood area completely, he demands, "What was that Stellry-forsaken hunt of an artefact for?"

I flick a glance at him as we walk. "To get you out of the room yet provide a threat to her."

He turns to me with murder in his eyes. "I went and asked Solus about it. He thought you were an idiot. Worse, he thought I was an idiot."

"Well, I couldn't exactly tell you it was a sham, now could I? It's hardly my fault you actually talked to him about it. And he thinks I'm an idiot anyway, so that changes nothing."

"Next time you plan on engaging in subterfuge, you think you could at least alert me before we get into the prisoner's cell?"

I start walking again. "If the plan occurs to me before we walk in, of course. But that's beside the point; I did get some information out of her."

He catches up with me. "Honestly?"

"Yes, Reyan."

He scowls. "Well, out with it."

My head shakes. "Not here."

He seems to understand, or at least doesn't question me, and as we walk to a more private location, Amarris's words circle in my mind. Her easy confidence was unnerving enough, but her last comment leaves me rattled. It feels like thunderclouds rolling in.