I jolted awake to a girl’s screaming, but the dungeon was silent except for the drip of water and a few men mumbling to themselves in the distance. How long had I been out? How long did I have left?

I pushed myself off the damp stone, sweating and shaking, but I didn’t make it farther than just leaning against the cot.

This was not how I’d expected to die. I figured I’d meet my end on someone’s sword one day, not by capture, torture, and execution. If I even made it to my execution. Nal obviously hadn’t reached Gradis yet, or I never would have woken up. At least all this kept me guessing. Who would manage to kill me first?

“I’m guessing you’ve seen better days,” the man across the aisle said.

“You could say that.”

“How about worse ones?”

“I don’t know, this one’s up there with the worst.”

He chuckled. “Not going to lie, Lenan deserved what he got. But I don’t know how you thought you were making any difference. The next emperor won’t be any better, neither will the next. That’s just how this shit goes.”

“Maybe. Wasn’t my call.”

“Some big conspiracy, then, huh? That’s how it goes, too. Never does anyone any good.”

“Quite a pessimist over there.”

He gestured to the walls around him. “Look where I am. How do you think I got here? I had high hopes for Lenan, you know. Back in the day. Went to university with the guy. Seemed like he had great ideas, so I pulled some less than legal strings to help him gain the Council’s favor. All it got me was this cell, while he turned his back on the rest of us. So yeah, call me a pessimist. But I’m a realist. Maybe if everyone pulled their heads out of the sand, then we’d see some real change. But people still hold onto their little scraps of hope that someone will help them, save them. Bunch of idiot sheep.”

“Shut up, old man!” someone shouted. “Nobody gives a shit about your lectures!”

Something didn’t add up. “You said you went to university with Lenan?”

“I’m younger than I look. These cells’ll do that to you. Not that you’ll live to find out.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“Just stating the obvious.”

***

What seemed like another hour passed, and I managed to climb onto my cot before someone entered the dungeon and stopped by my cell, glaring daggers with silver eyes. Eujia’s twin? Now things were getting interesting.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and even in this dim lighting I could tell she’d been crying. Unlike the ball where she’d worn a very prominently low-cut neckline, she now wore a simple, conservative black dress and black cloak, as if she was mourning. Mourning for the emperor.

Wow. Maybe she’d beat both Gradis and the executioner. I guessed there was something hidden under that cloak.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I heard you wouldn’t talk,” she said. “That the Spymaster’s people couldn’t get much of anything out of you, even with their serum. But there are some things even they didn’t try.” She drew a knife from under her cloak.

“And what are you going to do with that? Throw it? How good is your aim?”

She smiled as smoke swallowed her up, then in an instant she was standing over me with the knife’s point hovering over my dick. My sense of humor vanished.

“Fucking hell,” my neighbor mumbled.

“Everyone thinks only Eujia can do that,” the twin said. “I let them believe it. They all think I wish I was her, so why add fuel to the fire? Like hell I’d want her life. All I wanted was Lenan. And you took him from me.”

She raised the knife to drive it back down, but I was faster. I grabbed her wrist and pulled to the side, throwing her face-first into the wall. Then I wrenched her arm behind her back to loosen her grip, plucked the knife from her hand, and drove it into her shoulder. She screamed, and I wrapped my right arm around her waist to keep her from wriggling free. As long as I kept the knife in her shoulder, she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“I did,” I said. “I might regret a lot of things in life, but that sure isn’t one of them. Now. You’re going to take me to Eujia.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

I pushed the blade a little deeper, and she held back another scream. “You’re not in a position to be giving orders, my lady. Take me to your sister.”

She roared, then the scenery shifted several times, making my head spin. Finally, we stopped in a huge bedroom where Eujia lay fast asleep on her side. She hadn’t even gotten under the sheets and still wore a day dress. And a dark blotch marked her left wrist, matching the one on mine.

Gods, they’d tortured their own Chosen?

“Eujia,” the twin hissed.

The girl sprang awake with wild eyes, staring at us for several seconds before she slowly slid out of bed. “What do you want?”

“You’re known as the Breaker of Curses, aren’t you?” I asked. “So break a curse.”

She scowled. “It isn’t that simple.”

“I don’t care if it’s simple. Do it.”

“I need a knife.”

“Find your own.”

“You’ll need to follow me.”

“If you try to pull something, your sister dies.”

“I know.” She walked to one end of her room and pointed up, then vanished in a puff of smoke.

Her twin took us up after her, then we were standing in a wide office with books and files stuffed into shelves built into the walls. A dark-skinned man in a black uniform sat at the desk with a file in hand and looked us over calmly. “I wasn’t expecting you to bring guests, Lady Eujia.”

“I need a knife,” Eujia said. Straight to the point. I could appreciate that.

The man—the Spymaster General, I realized—slowly opened a drawer and set a sheathed knife on the desk.

“How did you get that?” Eujia asked, snatching it up.

The Spymaster fished a few other blades from the drawer. “I acquired all of your confiscated items.”

Her eyes went wide, but she turned back to me. “Stand still.”

“What are you planning on doing with that?” I asked.

“It’s for me, not you.”

That was disturbing, but I held the high ground here, so I let her step behind me. “The mark is on my neck,” I said.

“I see that.” She drew the blade, and a moment later, she pressed something warm and wet to the back of my neck, where my damned curse marked my skin with a black, jagged pattern.

Finally. Finally, I’d have a real chance.

I felt something snap and blacked out.