"Joseph Zaria," the voice sounded out in the dark, the sound startling after days alone in the cell. She did not answer. Time passed, and her eyes began to shut as she started to drift off, but she hauled them back open when she heard movement from the other side of the small room.

"Stop moving," she whispered, licking her lips to try and keep them from cracking due to the dry skin and all the talking she had done that evening.

There was a pained groan and a sound of something dragging across stone.

"Please, stop," she said again. "I don't know who you are, or how you look so much like him, but if you touch me, then I will cancel out the magic. We can't get away, and I can't move, so he will just open the door in the morning and kill you when he sees that you are free."

After such a long speech, her throat was aching, and she concentrated as well as she could on breathing.

"What did he mean, that you have done this to yourself?"

Zaria sighed, rolling her head against the wall to her right. A hoarse chuckle scraped from her throat. "Is this another trap? Get me to talk crap about the duke so that he can punish me more?" She licked her lips again. "Maybe if I had taken more breaks and eaten or drank more, I would have had the energy and made it far enough that he wouldn't catch me."

She grew quiet again, her brain trying to latch onto the thought that was rolling through her brain. "I get it. It was the bracelet. He tracked me with the bracelet." A hysterical giggle filled the room, broken off by a hacking cough. "I never had a chance, did I? He knew all along that I was going to get away, that's why he refused to give it back to me."

*****

Gu Cheng listened to her breathing after she stopped talking. He wanted to ask her more questions. He wanted to hold her. But he had to think of another way to console her, to keep her safe. His own body was beginning to listen to him again, and he worked his arms as much as he could beneath the constricting strands of...whatever it was that was holding him. His fingers could not reach any of his weapons while stuck in his current position, and the bands were not moving in the slightest. He stopped when he heard the breathy whisper again from so close that he knew he could stretch his arms out and touch her.

"How do you look like that? It is not an illusion, and I could feel it was not a mask. How do you look so much like him-" Her voice cut off with a pained whimper. Gu Cheng fought with every bit of control that he had to keep from rolling himself against her to comfort her. It was obvious someone had hit her, and there looked to be bruises along her neck that he could see when she was trying to swallow the water.

He wanted to kill that man almost more than anything else he had ever wanted in his life. The only thing that he wanted more was to hold her, but if he did so and she was right, then he would die, and she would be hurt worse. He couldn't fight magic... at least not yet. He clenched his eyes closed against the dark. He needed to make her understand that he was not some imposter.

Gu Cheng cleared his throat, pushing down the rage and fear for her and steadying his voice.

"Joseph Zaria," he started, listening as her breath caught for a second. "Before I left to find you, Grandpa told me to bring you back. He wants to go to that cake cafe again, the one with all the cartoon characters on the dishes? He won't eat cake with me, he wants to eat it with you."

A strange sound was coming from her corner, and his ears strained to figure out what it was. She was crying, her sobs coming out as rattling pants. He did not speak anymore, just laid back as far against the opposite wall as he could, and listened to the woman that he loved cry through her exhaustion and pain. Eventually the sounds died off, and when she did not respond again he realized that she had fallen asleep.

When the door to the cell opened again, Gu Cheng was certain that it had been a full day, not just the night. "You said that you would come for her in the morning, she needs food and water and medical assist-"

Duke Berber frowned and sent lightning surging through the loud man, his frown changing to a smile when a scream was ripped from the man's lips. He stopped the current and walked toward the woman laying against the wall. "I see that you did not try to help him, even though I left you both alone for a whole day, and I didn't bother to rebind your hands. I think I can believe you for now."

Zaria did not respond and he frowned and leaned closer. From behind him Gu Cheng gasped out, "She hasn't woken again for hours, she is going to die if you don't help her."

Stolen story; please report.

"And you didn't try to help her? She must not be that special to you." The duke lightly slapped her face until her eyes fluttered open. "Did you hear that, my concubine? This man was willing to let you die because he didn't want me to kill him for helping you."

"No, that's-" The room filled with bright light and groans once more. Zaria's lips moved but no sound came out. The duke leaned in closer, his ear almost to her lips.

"Stop hurting him, I won't fight you anymore." She breathed out before her eyes closed again.

"Good," he said as he stood back up. He removed his cape and wrapped it around the unconscious woman, then lifted her and carried her to the door. The bands around Gu Cheng's body disappeared and he stumbled to his feet as the sound of the lock engaging echoed around the room. He felt for the handle and tried to force the door open with all the strength he had, but the wood was thick and as hard as the stone surrounding him, and it did not budge an inch.

*****

Zaria awoke to the sound of running water. Light seared her eyes when she opened them, but after a moment they adjusted and she could see that she was sitting on the ground in the Duke's bathroom and he was sitting on the edge of the tub frowning down at her. She opened her mouth and tried to ask 'what are you doing' but all that came out was a gasping croak.

"You are filthy," the man said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I am not putting you on any of the furniture in my room like that. You need a bath."

He laughed darkly at her frightened look. "I have no interest in seeing you naked. I will call Matron Teague to do it. She can bring someone to help her move you around." He crouched down in front of her and grasped her jaw to keep her attention. "You will say nothing to either of them. They will not help you get away."

He let go of her jaw and her head fell forward until her chin rested against her chest. Before the tub finished filling with water, the old woman and a mute young girl entered the bathroom. The duke told them that the door must remain open,but he did not choose to stand in the doorway and sat down instead in a chair by the fireplace to read.

Even if she had wanted to fight them, she had no energy to do so. Zaria closed her eyes tightly and let the women undress her before moving her into the water. Steady hands scrubbed at her skin and hair with a soft smelling soap before draining the tub and pouring clean, fresh water over her to rinse off. Oils were applied to soften her skin, and the silent child tapped at her head to indicate they should do her damaged hair as well.

By the time she was assisted to the bed wearing her lavender night dress, she was the cleanest she had been in weeks, and felt alive and not just in pain from the reminders that her injuries were healing. Zaria was propped up into bed and Matron Teague dismissed the young girl before sitting in a chair by the bedside to help spoon some thin soup into Zaria's mouth.

The old woman could not speak to her. Duke Berber had not found out that Matron Teague looked the other way the night that Zaria escaped. She mouthed 'I'm sorry' when Zaria looked at her after taking in a spoon of the broth. The young woman swallowed with a grimace, the finger shaped bruises on her neck standing out as her throat moved. She met the Matron's eyes and managed a small smile.

Zaria did not blame the old woman for anything. She had helped by not calling the guards immediately that night. Any more and she would have been caught and punished for helping. None of this was her fault.

Less than half of the bowl made it into Zaria that night. Her stomach clenched and tried to reject what she had managed to get in, and nobody forced her to eat more. She was asleep before the matron left the room, and did not feel as she was pulled downward on the comforter until her head was firmly on the pillow, or when one manacle went onto her left wrist and another on to her ankle, securing her to the bed frame.

She awoke the next morning, groggy but able to respond when spoken to, her voice a little stronger than the day before. The manacles were not removed until a moment before Matron Teague arrived with some thin gruel to feed her for breakfast. Her kidneys appeared to be working again and the old woman supported her while she went to the bathroom.

The duke stayed in the room with her all day the first two days. Matron made clear she thought it a sure sign that he truly cared for her and everything had been a misunderstanding.

Really, he just didn't trust Zaria not to try and run the second he was out the door. He sat in his chair by the fire, his paperwork spread across a low table in front of him. Zaria ignored him unless he spoke to her, trying her best to not make him angry. Although she didn't know how, that was really Gu Cheng down in the dungeon. She was sure of it. He was an amazing man, and in any other situation she had no doubt he would be fine, but he had been captured so quickly by the duke's magic. She couldn't risk him being hurt more because of her.

At night she lay quietly as the duke secured her to the bed once she was done in the bathroom. By the second day she had enough energy to slowly make it to there herself, and Matron Teague was told that she was not needed anymore. Any time she needed to go she had to ask to be released, and then the duke stood nearby in case she tried to run.

Not that she could run, but she understood why he didn't trust her not to try. She herself was not even sure that she wouldn't do so if she had the energy. The third day she was left alone, but with one leg still chained to the bed. A chamber pot was left close enough that she could reach it, but nothing else was within arms reach except the pillows and sheets.

She leaned against the headboard and looked out the windows at the rain that was gently falling against the glass. Once again, she had to figure out a way to escape. The only things that were different were that she was exhausted, malnourished, injured, all of her supplies and weapons were gone, and somehow she had to figure out a way to save Gu Cheng in the dungeons before he was killed. So, maybe it would be a little more difficult.