Bruno

"Hello?" says a vaguely familiar voice. "Are you awake?"

I keep my eyes closed. I don't want to move. The coldness of the floor gets to me despite the thin straw mattress. Dying just takes so damn long.

Something clangs against the bars of my cell.

"I brought you a potion for your wounds."

Now I recognize the voice. Philto. The new royal doctor and adviser. Offering me potions on the night before my execution. Explaining to him how stupid that is would demand too much effort, so I keep my mouth shut.

"They beat you up good," he says after a pause. "Your whole face is swollen. Had we used leeches immediately after the beating, the swelling could have been avoided. But, well, there were too many other matters to attend to. I thought I'd at least give you something for pain relief."

"Why bother?" My lips barely move, all cracked, covered in dried blood. I try to open my good eye, but the swelling around it allows just a little slit. I can vaguely make out Philto's red robes on the other side of the bars. Behind him, down the corridor, two torches burn on the wall, and a couple of guards sit by a wooden table, playing cards.

"I can't help you," Philto says quietly. "Neither of you, sadly. But I thought I could at least make you suffer less."

"Why bother?" I repeat.

He shrugs. "Because of Hadrian. Because you tried to save him."

"Little good it did to either of us."

"Still, you tried." He lowers his voice even more, although the guards are too far away to hear anything. "I wanted to thank you for trying. I can...understand the obsession. He's amazing, isn't he?" He sighs dreamily. "I would have thrown my life away for him, too. I would have given anything for just one night, but that was not destined to happen."

I let out a half chuckle, half sigh. Here's another victim of Hadrian's charms. Except that unlike me, he hasn't had a chance to encounter Hadrian's less-than-perfect sides. For Philto, he will forever remain an untainted fantasy.

A door opens and closes somewhere, and I hear footsteps. I make an effort and open my slit of an eye again. A female figure is approaching my cell. I can make out the long skirts, the fair hair. The rest is vague due to the distance and my damaged vision. As the woman gets closer, the guards get up and then bow deeply. The woman walks past them and stops before my cell.

"Philto?" Her voice is so quiet it's almost a whisper. "Won't you show respect to your queen?"

Philto stands still, staring at her; then, he jerks as if awakening from a dream, and bows hastily .

"Of course." He clears his throat. "Excuse me, my queen, I've forgotten myself. I wasn't expecting to see you in such a place."

"That's all right." Aurelia's voice is still light as breeze and I have to strain my ears to hear anything. "We're all not ourselves after the events of today. I have cried so hard for my late husband I have lost my voice."

"Uhm...how unfortunate, my queen."

"How's the prisoner?" She comes closer and touches the bars. With the light behind her back, her expression is indistinguishable. "Is he...alive?"

I stir, and she steps back in surprise. My whole body hurts, but I manage to gather enough strength to sit up. Getting to my feet, though, seems impossible. Yet I want to face her standing, to look her in the eye, to ask her if she ever cared about Oliver or planned to get rid of him from the start.

"It's...good that he's alive," she says after a pause. "There has been a mistake. He needs to be freed." She turns to the guards and raises her voice a little. "Let this man out. He's been falsely accused. He's not the killer."

I frown. This doesn't make any sense.

"But..." one of the guards mutters. "We can't. He's to be executed tom--"

"How dare you?" Philto snaps. "This is your queen! She gave the order to imprison this man, and she can order to set him free."

There's a pause, and then one of the guards shuffles hesitantly towards my cell. The key clangs, entering the lock. I get slowly to my feet, my stiff muscles and bruises screaming in protest. My blood rushes down, causing my head to spin, so I'm forced to grab the wall for balance. The man opens the door, and suddenly there's nothing between me and Oliver's murderess.

The guard enters the cell and removes my handcuffs and then my foot cuffs.

"Follow me," Aurelia says, turning away. She pauses to glance at Philto. "Thank you for your service."

He only nods, and then she starts walking away, past the other kneeling guard. I let go of the wall and take a step, then another, and finally stumble after her on my stiff, unsteady feet.

"Should we escort you, my lady?" asks one of the guards. "Make sure this brute behaves himself?"

"No," she throws over her shoulder. "He won't hurt me."

The corridor is a blur before my eyes, and Aurelia's vague figure is moving in front of me like a ghost. With fog clouding my vision and my thoughts, I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. I'm closing the distance. I just need to get close enough. I'm weak, but I can manage one final effort. For Oliver, for Hadrian, for everyone she's betrayed. I don't care what kind of game she's playing now. I must crush this snake even if that would be the last thing I do.

She opens a door and exists to a stairway. I follow. It's darker here and I can barely distinguish the spiraling staircase going up, out of the dungeons. The door closes behind us, cutting off what little light was getting in from the corridor. We're alone now.

Aurelia turns to me. "Bruno --"

"Shut up," I growl, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her against the wall. "You're done talking, bitch."

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