Prim stood still long enough that Kallia and Bristol had lost their smiles and were looking at her with concern. Tuck, one of the guards she knew, took a step toward her. Only then did she look away from the assassin, instead focusing on Tuck.
“Seize him,” she commanded, pointing a finger at the imposter.
Tuck furrowed his brows, glancing between Prim and her accused. “This is your escort. He was assigned to you by Kern Hollon himself.”
“Roan assigned him to me?” Prim asked disbelievingly.
The man smiled at her now, his blue-violet eyes crinkling. “Hello, darling.”
Everybody in the room was now watching her. She sucked in a breath, collecting herself. “Where is he?” she asked Blukke.
“He’s out in the hall,” Bristol answered, thinking Prim was asking about Roan.
Prim kept her gaze locked with Blukke, who only winked at her.
The doors opened, commanding Prim’s attention. Roan strode in, stopping in the middle of the doorway to bow to Kallia then stood straight with his hands behind his back. He made no attempt to embrace Prim--he wouldn’t in front of all these witnesses--but his eyes slid over her assessingly.
“I’m fine, Roan,” she said to alleviate his worries. “And I’m sorry,” she added to alleviate her guilt.
Roan dipped his head once in acknowledgement, all he would allow in front of his subordinates. “I think there’s someone you’re going to want to see.”
Prim exchanged glances with Kallia and Bristol, then walked past them to Roan. Blukke casually pushed himself off the wall to join her. She looked him up and down. “What happened to Sarasha?”
It was again Bristol who answered. “I know it’s hard to believe given Roan never takes one, but most guards do get a day off every now and then.”
Kallia rose to stand next to Prim, her attention on Roan. “I shall come, too.”
Roan bowed again before answering. “I beg your pardon, Princess, but where we are going is not for you.”
Kallia smiled softly, nearly the same quiet yet commanding smile her mother used. “You must have my permission to commandeer my handmaiden. Tell me where it is you wish to take her that is not for me so I may decide if it is for her or not.”
It was a game, Prim knew. Kallia didn’t give a shit where she went, though Roan probably had pissed her off by saying she couldn’t come. If they hadn’t been assigned these escorts to watch their every move, the princess would likely just be pinching him until he gave in.
Roan looked between Kallia and Prim before answering, his voice much stronger than his conflicted eyes. “The dungeons.”
Prim’s heart hammered. Roan’s face revealed nothing, so she flicked her gaze to Blukke. He smiled at her mischievously, but Prim couldn’t interpret it having still not decided if he was friend or foe.
“You were working together?” she asked, remembering the nod Blukke had given Roan back in Pregg. They’d come after Dante together. And she’d abandoned him, letting the two men capture him. She looked to Kallia when neither man answered. “Please. Please let me go with him.”
Kallia dropped the act immediately, seeing the gravity on Prim’s face. She brushed her fingers down Prim’s arm in comfort. “Of course. We’ll remain here until you return.”
Prim squeezed Kallia’s hands and was out the door and bounding toward the dungeons without waiting for Roan or Blukke. Once they descended the three stairwells and crossed to the opposite side of the castle where the dungeons were located, however, Roan took a few running steps to catch her and grasped her arm, holding her back.
“Stay between me and your escort at all times.”
Prim nodded, though if Dante wanted to embrace her, she was definitely going to break that promise.
Roan nodded to the guards at the entrance to the dungeons. One pulled a key out of his breast pocket to unlock the door that led to a dark, musty stone hallway. Prim followed the leopard shifter, choking on the thick, putrid air. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been down here, though she knew Roan came often to use his gift on prisoners who needed to be persuaded to talk or behave.
Their footsteps echoed as they walked down the dark windowless hall lit by torches along the wall that were spaced too far apart to be of much help, passing several iron-barred empty cells. They passed a few with occupants, though the prisoners only stared with hollow eyes from their cots or the floor. Prim swallowed as she made eye contact with a boy younger than Marnie, wondering if he was one who had attempted to hurt Kallia.
Roan paused in front of a cell, turning to face it, placing a protective hand on Prim’s waist. Prim’s eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that she could make out the hunched form of an older man in plain, loose clothing, stringy light-colored hair falling to his shoulders as he sat on his cot, his arms resting on his knees. He didn’t turn to face them as the other prisoners had.
“Who is this?” Not Dante, that was certain.
“Somanti,” Roan answered. “I wanted you to know he was apprehended. I’ll be interrogating him later today, but I’d thought you’d like to see him for yourself before that happens.”
Prim was having trouble breathing in the dank dungeon, but she forced herself to speak calmly and steadily. “Do it now.”
Blukke breathed a laugh from her other side as Roan shook his head. “You don’t need to see what happens down here.”
Prim peeled her eyes off the man who had ordered the princess’s kidnapping, who’d caused the deaths of kids, who’d turned Dante into an assassin. She would have no problem watching him being tortured. She squeezed Roan’s arm. “Do it now, Roan.”
A shadow in the hall past Roan moved, a figure emerging from the darkness. Prim sucked in a breath, releasing the guard’s arm, taking a step toward him, intending to walk past him. But Roan’s grip on her waist tightened and he held out his other arm to block her.
“Dante,” Prim breathed, relief flooding her to see him alive and well and free. He, too, was wearing a navy guard uniform, though no standard sword was strapped across his back, his face smoothed over and his hair tied back.
Dante didn’t look at her, but at the man in the cell. “Might as well get on with it.”
Prim glanced between him and Roan, then Blukke behind her. “What’s going on?”
Roan ignored her—as did the others—responding to Dante instead. “She doesn’t need to see this.”
Prim flared her nostrils, ready to demand they proceed, when Dante answered before she could. “She seems to think differently, and I’m sure she’s more aware of her own limitations than you are.”
“Stop speaking about me as if I’m not here!” Prim barked. Blukke breathed that laugh again and Roan clenched his jaw. Dante made no reaction.
Movement in the cell called their attention and all four of them turned to look at Somanti. He had twisted himself toward them to aim a serpentine smile at Dante. “Must not be too bad what you plan on doing with me then, if you’d be willing to do it in front of the woman you threw away three hundred thousand golds for.”
Dante took another step forward. “You forget I had no problem killing the vermin you sent after us in front of her,” Dante said softly.
Somanti’s smile didn’t fade. “It was only a matter of time before Arnal got himself killed. He never understood how to play the game. He didn’t understand it was an art. Not like you two.” He flicked his eyes between Dante and Blukke. “My prized disciples.”
A look of pure hatred passed over Dante’s face, then he turned his attention to Roan. “Do it, or I’ll do it myself.”
Roan looked at Prim hesitantly. She only glared at him. Sighing, he pulled a set of keys from his breast pocket. “Return my gifts and immobilize him,” he commanded Blukke.
Blukke and Dante shared a look before Dante nodded subtly. Somanti’s body went rigid and Roan took a deep breath from his nose, testing his gift. Satisfied, Roan inserted the key into the lock with a clang, and a rusty creaking noise bounced off the damp stone walls as the iron-barred door opened.
The leopard shifter stepped inside and Prim immediately sidled closer to Dante, who took identical retreating steps to maintain their distance. She looked at him, but his eyes were still locked on Somanti, his face blank. Now wasn’t the time to talk, explain, apologize. But she’d thought she could at least brush his hand, do something to indicate she was sorry and what they’d shared was real. She was wrong.
“I’m going to explain what we’re doing here,” Roan said, approaching the prisoner. “You made a fatal mistake in aiming your activities at the princess. You will not be leaving these dungeons alive. However, you can still help yourself by giving me the information I seek. If you cooperate, I will allow you a quick, painless death. If you do not, I will make you wish for death until you crack.”
Roan crouched in front of the man, coming eye level to him as Somanti sat straight-backed on his cot. “Who ordered her assassination?”
Somanti stared at him with pale eyes, watery with age yet sharp. He no longer smiled, but he certainly didn’t seem intimidated. Dante shuffled next to Prim, but she didn’t take her eyes off the men in the cell.
Roan put a hand on the man’s bare neck. “I’m going to give you one last warning. No one has ever been able to hold out once I get started on them. You can avoid finding out why that is if you tell me now.”
Somanti lazily let his eyes drift toward the three witnesses, lingering the longest on Prim. Her blood ran cold under his gaze in a way that had her questioning if he was just a perfect human creep. He focused again on Roan, but still didn’t answer.
Roan made no indication that he was about to begin. Somanti simply started convulsing, even within Blukke’s magic grip, his eyes rolling back in his head. Prim involuntarily clapped her hands over her ears as a loud shriek escaped his lips, echoing off the walls.
Roan removed his hand and it all stopped. Panting breaths replaced Somanti’s scream. “That was five seconds. For each minute you don’t answer, I’ll add another five until you pass out. When you wake up, we’ll start over. Who ordered the princess’s assassination?”
Somanti said nothing, still panting.
Dante took a step forward. “Who was waiting in Kensut?”
Roan turned to face them as if he was going to tell Dante to stay out of it, but his features tightened as he looked at Prim, and she knew her face must have paled at seeing the effects of Roan’s gift in person for the first time. He looked at Dante. “I have this under control. Why don’t you get her out of here?”
Prim readied herself to protest, but Dante made no move toward her. Roan stood as if he was going to remove her himself when Somanti gulped in one last giant breath in preparation to speak.
“No one was waiting in Kensut.”
Roan and Dante shared a look, the latter raising his brows as if to say he knew what he was doing.
Roan ran his tongue over his teeth and slowly turned away from Dante, back to the prisoner. “What would have happened to them had they made it to the drop-off location?”
Somanti hesitated, and Roan placed his hand back on the man’s neck. He flinched, but nothing more. It was only a warning. “They would have found a letter with instructions to take her to another location.”
“Where?”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
The prisoner’s neck twitched as if he could escape Roan’s grasp. Of course, he couldn’t. “I don’t know. There were to be six total destinations, scattered all across the continent.”
Prim thought it seemed a bit excessive. Surely the identity of the mastermind could have been secured without such extreme demands. And a journey of that caliber would have likely taken months, depending on where the cities were. Whoever wanted Kallia must not be in a hurry to obtain her.
“Funny how you failed to mention that when offering me the job,” Dante growled.
Somanti’s smile returned. “What difference does it make now? You couldn’t even manage one destination.” The smile was replaced by a grimace, but Prim knew it was from something Dante was doing with his magic. Roan’s gift would have elicited a far more ardent response.
“Who ordered it?” Roan asked again.
Somanti gritted his teeth in preparation for the pain. Roan gave him a minute of suspense before unleashing his gift again to more convulsing, eye rolling, screaming--and again Prim covering her ears. Blukke and Dante didn’t seem affected, though she knew Dante’s sensitive ears must be bleeding with the noise. As promised, it lasted ten seconds this time, though it seemed to drag on. When it ended, Somanti’s head fell forward.
“Who ordered the assassination of Princess Kallia?” Roan asked calmly.
Somanti’s heavy breathing filled the air, each breath becoming more and more rasping. There was a shift, and the breaths became shorter, shallower, wilder. He lifted his head up, his eyes wide as he looked between the four visitors, his gaze fixing on Dante. Those wild breaths came faster, more labored, his chest heaving in irregular movements.
He was dying.
Roan realized it at the same moment Prim did and whirled around to Dante, grabbing his neck. Dante had been so focused on his master, he didn’t even attempt to stop the guard, and he fell to his knees, his face contorting in pain, a loud groan releasing as Roan used his gift.
Prim acted on instinct to grasp Roan’s arm in an attempt to pull him off. She hooked a hand around his elbow, but as she wrapped the other around his wrist, her pinkie landed past the cuff of his shirt, onto his skin, and pain like she’d never imagined rushed through her.
There wasn’t an inch of her body that didn’t hurt. Her insides felt as if they were melting, her muscles felt as if they were being ripped apart, her skin felt as though needles were being pressed into every single pore. She heard screaming but she couldn’t tell if it was Dante’s or her own. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t release her grip on Roan’s arm to end it. She could only endure the agony and wish for oblivion.
Prim was on the ground when the pain stopped, her blue skirts fanned around her. She could once again recognize she was a person in a dungeon trying to get answers about who would want to harm the future of Wassalia, and not the embodiment of anguish trapped in a sea of blades and fire. Roan’s stiff posture told Prim that Blukke had been the one to stop it, using his gift to immobilize Roan and take his power.
Dante was on the ground, too, but he was inching toward her using his hands and elbows to hook into the rough stones and pull his body along. In one final pull, he was beside her and pushed himself up with a grunt to kneel on his hands and knees, his face over hers. Dante looked Prim in the eyes, but it was too dark for her to make out the beautiful green and brown rings.
“Speak,” he rasped.
She couldn’t. She was panting just as Somanti had, and she couldn’t spare the air for words as she was recovering. Instead, she raised her hand to cup his face. His eyes fluttered shut at the touch. She had so much to say, she needed to speak. Not just to tell him she was okay, but to tell him everything. She forced a great breath down then spoke, her voice strained but clear. “My name is Prim.”
Dante’s eyes flew open and he pushed himself backward to lean his back against the wall, away from her outstretched hand, stretching his legs out, apparently no longer worried about her well-being.
Prim turned her head to look at the other men. Roan was staring between her and Dante, obviously trying to decide if he should be apologizing to her or yelling at him. Blukke was padding into the cell to examine the now silent and limp Somanti.
Roan made his choice. “I’m sorry, Prim. But why did you do that? Gods, I’m so sorry.”
Having caught her breath, Prim pushed herself to standing. She wobbled a bit, and Dante was on his feet instantly, as if he would steady her as he’d always done. But he didn’t place that hand on her waist. “Because you attacked him, Roan. Obviously,” she said, gesturing toward Dante.
Roan bared his elongated fangs. “He was killing Somanti! We are far from getting the answers we need. Maybe he did it because he already knows and didn’t want us to find out.”
“That wasn’t me,” Dante said. “I only squeezed him a little, and that was before your last pain session. Maybe you killed him.”
“Killed?” Roan attempted to look into the cell, but he couldn’t twist his neck far enough in his immobilized state.
“Killed,” Blukke confirmed from the cell. “He’s dead.”
Prim took a deep breath, looking at Dante. She knew he hated the man, but their relationship had to be complex if he had once been like a father-figure to him. But Dante didn’t seem at all bothered by the news.
She, however, was. “What are we going to do now? We have no more leads.”
Roan cursed, licking his lips. He was silent for a moment, thinking, then announced, “I’ll send a pair of my fastest avian shifters to the location in Kensut to find that letter. They’ll follow the trail to the other locations and see what’s at the end. That’s all we have left to go on.”
It would have to be good enough. With Somanti gone, the threat from the Cavs was eliminated, but whoever ordered it would likely attempt a new route to get to Kallia.
“Release me,” Roan commanded.
Blukke remained in the cell, roughly twisting the corpse’s head to look at it from different angles. He paused to look at Prim. “Should I?”
Prim blinked, not understanding why he’d be asking her. She glanced between Dante and Roan, then focused on Dante. “Did you kill him?”
Dante met her gaze, though she couldn’t read anything on his face. “No.”
She returned her attention to Roan. “Did you?”
The guard huffed through his nose. “No.”
She looked at Blukke, who answered before she could ask. “My gift can’t kill.”
Dante took a step toward her and she whipped her head back to him. “What about your gifts?” he asked. “Did you kill him?”
Prim stuck her chin up. “If it was me, you would know it.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly for half a heartbeat, then looked away.
“Okay, none of us killed him. None of us have a reason to attack one another. Right?” Prim stared at each man until they nodded their agreement. “Release him, please.”
Roan sagged. “What about my gifts?”
Blukke was crouching in front of the body, scraping a dagger across Somanti’s chin just under his lip. He stood up, then twisted the dagger in the weak firelight, examining it. He flicked his gaze to Roan. “With him dead, you don’t really need them right now, do you?”
His gift of incapacitation must work the same as Dante's in that once aimed, it remained until released or the shifter's cache ran out, even when separated from the mark.
Blukke walked out of the cell, angling the dagger toward Dante’s face, who scanned the glistening green substance on the blade then flared his nostrils. “He was poisoned.”
Blukke nodded, turning to Roan. “You might want to question who brought him breakfast this morning.”
Roan shook his head. “He was captured late yesterday afternoon. He wouldn’t have been fed at all since then.”
“Water?” Dante asked.
Roan shook his head again.
“Who had access to him?” Prim asked.
Roan licked his lips again. “Nobody should have been here since they threw him in. I’ll question the guards posted at the door, but I was told they were going to isolate and starve him a few days before getting started. Until they realized I was back, that is.” He shot an apologetic look at Prim before adding softly, “My gift works well enough they don’t need to be prepped like that.”
She could certainly see that was true. She would never forget that pain.
“Maybe he did it himself? Stashed some poison on his person in case he found himself in this scenario?” Prim suggested.
Blukke and Dante shared a look. The former offered, “Maybe.”
But the latter said more confidently, “I doubt it. He made a lot of plans, but none of them involved him ever having to face the consequences of his actions.”
“Maybe he just didn’t tell you about those plans,” Roan said accusingly.
Prim groaned at this new mystery they’d need to solve. “Can we discuss this somewhere else? I can’t breathe and I don’t want to look at that dead body anymore.”
Blukke smiled at her. “As your escort, your wish is my command, Princess.”
Prim’s chest clenched at being called that again. “Don’t call me that.” She took two steps down the hall before whirling back around. “Don’t call me darling either. It’s highly inappropriate for a guard to address a woman of the court as such.”
Blukke laughed, dipping into the cell to wipe his dagger on Somanti’s shirt to clean off the remnants of the poison foam before resheathing it at his waist. Dante, watching her watching Blukke, approached and silently handed her a dagger. Her dagger with the blue stone on the hilt he’d taken from her in the alley and she’d never attempted to steal back, knowing she didn’t need it with him around.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. He kept his gaze averted and didn’t reply.
Blukke stepped between them, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to guide her back down the hall. Prim shrugged away. “You don’t have to touch me, either.”
“Have to? No, of course not. Get to? I think being assigned your escort comes with perks.”
The two other men were following and Roan let out a warning growl as Dante said, “Don’t get used to it. Our job in the castle is done. We’ll head to the Cavs to settle up there and be gone in a day or two.”
Prim stopped, turning around. “You’re leaving?”
Blukke stopped and turned around as well. They’d paused in front of one of the torches and Prim could clearly see his confused look. “Hogard is my home, brother.”
Dante ignored Prim. “What’s here? Come to Pregg. There are just as many loose women there, I can assure you.”
Prim scoffed at Dante’s announcement that he was familiar with the loose women of Pregg. He ignored that, too.
Roan shook his head. “Neither of you are going anywhere. You swore to protect the princess. That means seeing this through until the threat has been found and neutralized.”
Dante turned to the guard, his voice low. “That is not what that meant. We eliminated Sol. We’re going to straighten up the Cavs to leave it in good hands that won’t cause trouble. That was the agreement.”
Roan didn’t back down. “You’re not just playing guards. You are guards. And you will follow my command until I see fit to release you. Which will be when you’ve held up your end of the bargain by helping to uncover who ordered the assassination and eliminating them. If you don’t, I won’t hold up my end of the bargain and you’ll be in these cells.”
Dante took a step toward Roan, but Prim slid between them, pressing a hand to each chest. She turned her attention to Dante. “Can I talk to you?”
He kept his eyes on Roan as he answered. “No.”
Gods, that hurt.
“I’m not going to trouble your family,” Roan added. “With Somanti gone, I’m sure they’re safe. But you will have to pay for your crimes if you don’t work off your debt to the crown. Surely you can see this is a generous offer.”
Dante stared at the leopard shifter a moment longer, then released a breath and continued down the hall, pushing past Prim then Blukke, who followed him speaking words too soft for Prim to hear.
Prim stood watching them walk away, a hand still on Roan’s chest.
Roan grasped her wrist, raising her hand to brush a kiss on her knuckles. “I’m sorry for hurting you. I would never do that on purpose. I stopped as soon as I realized.”
Prim pulled her hand away. “Before Blukke stopped you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You shouldn’t have been doing it to Dante, either. You never would have hurt me if you hadn’t.”
Roan furrowed his brows. “What is it with you? He’s a murderer. He abducted you. Why are you defending him?”
Prim shook her head, breathing a dark laugh. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over your hypocrisy,” she said sarcastically.
Roan blinked his big feline eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You torture and kill people all the time. Abduct them, too. Did you think I was under the impression these prisoners just waltz in here of their own accord?”
Roan growled. “I should’ve never let you stay for this.” He took a step back. “Prim, they’re criminals. That’s my job.”
“It was his job, too. And maybe he thought the people he targeted deserved it, just like you do. The only difference I see is that he realized he was in the wrong. That maybe people aren’t so black and white.”
Roan scoffed. “You’re comparing me to an assassin from the Cavs?”
Prim pressed her lips together. That wasn’t who Dante was. “Maybe if you stopped thinking of him as an assassin from the Cavs and started accepting he’s a person, you’d realize why I tried to stop you from hurting him.”
Prim didn’t wait for Roan’s response before continuing her walk down the hallway, ignoring the stares of the prisoners she’d just defended without knowing if they were worth defending or not--surely some of them were guilty.
Roan caught up easily, taking great strides with his long legs. “What were you doing with him when his niece walked in on you? She mentioned something about a nightgown?”
Prim stopped again. They were nearly at the end of the hall with only empty cells around, Dante and Blukke already having disappeared behind the door.
Alone. Perfect for what she needed to tell him.
She swallowed, taking Roan’s hand.
“I lied when I left you that night. Not just about going back to my room, but about coming back to your room the next day. Even if I hadn’t left Hogard, that would have been our last time. Together. Like that.”
Roan’s breathing became irregular. “What do you mean?”
Prim squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it before. I wouldn’t have pursued you if I knew it meant what it did to you.”
Roan shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. I know it scared you. I know we’ll never be more than this. I know we’ll always be a kern in the royal guard and a princess’s handmaiden. I know that. But we can still be those things together.” He raised a hand to cup her neck. “I love you, Prim.”
Roan pulled his hand away so he could wrap his arms around her. His body was nearly as suffocating as the dungeon air. Roan tilted his head down, intending to kiss her, but Prim dropped her face, pushing him away.
“I know. That’s why I wasn’t going to come back. I can’t give you what you want. What you deserve.” Prim looked up at him, reaching a hand out to bunch the fabric over his chest. “You are a good man and a good friend and I love you in that way.”
“I don’t understand.” The pain in his voice was heart-wrenching.
Prim pressed her lips between her teeth. “I don’t either,” she admitted.
Roan didn’t meet her gaze, only looked off to the side, his eyes unfocused. She didn’t move. She would stay with him until he was ready. She owed him that much.
He flicked his eyes to her. “Why are you telling me this now? When I asked you about the nightgown?”
Prim walked to the door, knocking in a request to the guards on the other side.
She turned back to Roan, frowning in remorse.
“You know why.”