‘You must be absolutely exhausted, darling.’ The sound of her voice was really starting to irritate Roland.

She was sat there on that stupid high-backed throne as if nothing had happened. He watched her hands affectionately stroking the cat’s fur while she watched him through indifferent eyes. Love was all the more a devil in that moment, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine that fiendish heritage coursing through her veins.

The guards keeping him held threw Roland at her feet. It would be impossible to escape now, but at least he had tried.

‘I’m afraid you still have something I want, so now I’m going to have to change tactics in order to get it.’

Love gently shooed the cat away. Roland watched the feline cross the room until they collapsed into a lavish cat bed in the corner. He darted his eyes back just in time to see Love rise.

‘You don’t care about the city. I get the message. There’s nothing you would want to save here, and you’re not particularly fond of the people either. Simply put, they’re not your problem.’

Roland didn’t speak, but he did reply with an honest shrug.

He hadn’t noticed the chest sitting near the throne. That was a new addition. Love padded the space between her throne and the wooden box, idly playing with a few of the rings on her fingers, twisting and turning them out of habit.

‘You’re a thief, which means you enjoy gold.’ Love stopped behind the ornate chest, a smile on her lips. ‘That’s something I can provide.’

She placed a heeled foot on top of it and gave it a quick shove. The heavy wooden box flopped over instantly with a rattling bang, spilling its contents down the steps and all along the floor. Crowns, hundreds, perhaps thousands of gold crowns, scattered before him, rolling beneath his knees, the legs of guards, the tables, chairs, and every space in between.

‘Ten thousand gold crowns and your life,’ said Love. ‘In exchange for what you know.’

It was awfully tempting. It was just about the most potent argument she had come up with so far.

That was the second most gold he had ever seen in his life, certainly more than he’d ever had on his best day. There was no end to the possibilities it could bring. He could start a business, buy a ship, purchase a horse and never have to stop running. It was just enough money to pick a direction in life and stick to that heading.

It still was not enough.

‘You’re thinking about turning it down, darling.’ Love had caught the apprehension on his face. ‘May I remind you, however, that the alternative is death. Quick, cold, hard death. There’s no escaping it either, dear. You can certainly attest to that by now. Whatever plans you have for that information lurking somewhere in that skull of yours will be useless. Why not use it to save your life instead?’

Roland thought about it. He hated to admit it, but the tiefling monarch did have a point. For a moment, the very briefest of moments, he thought he might do it, but then he looked across the room and found Kythos.

The tiefling was now sporting a rather nasty-looking bruise on his cheek that had swollen one of his eyes shut. Roland knew the aftermath of an open-handed strike when he saw one.

He was disgusted at himself.

How dare he even consider simply handing over everything he knew after everything he had been through to get it — the blood, sweat, tears, and pain — especially the pain. It all had to mean something; if he relinquished the information, it would just mean the last three years of suffering counted for nothing.

Roland swivelled his eyes to the other side of the room, to where the tiefling had been, the one whose head had been turned to stone. He hadn’t forgotten her. The woman wasn’t there, which meant she was probably suffering in the dungeons. He reminded himself that this is what Love Ravenpeak did to thieves.

This is what she did to people like him.

‘Well?’ Love asked after three moments had passed.

‘No.’

Around him, Roland noticed the tubheads shift uncomfortably. Something was about to happen to him, but he didn’t care. Like every other bit of pain that he’d ever received, he’d take it stoically. There was nothing she could do to him that he hadn’t already experienced in some way or other over the past half a decade.

‘Kythos.’ Love didn’t turn her eyes away from Roland. ‘Walk him with me.’

Roland heard the rattling of the tiefling’s armour approach. He was then crudely brought to his feet and forced to follow Love as they crossed the room towards the still-broken window. She didn’t say a word as they did this. Instead, she looked over the sprawling cityscape beyond the fractured glass.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

They stopped short of the mannequins. Each was still outfitted in fabulous dresses, riddled with glitter and sequences, and fabricated in the strangest fashions. One had a high collar, another an oversized gown, some wore corsets, while others were low cut and flirty. Beyond looking nice, though, Roland didn’t care much for them.

‘Do you like fashion, darling?’ Love asked, affectionately stroking the closest dress. It was red, and that was as much as Roland knew about it.

‘I like stealing it,’ Roland offered.

‘I’ve heard,’ replied Love. ‘When I turned fifteen, my grandfather gave me a ring. It was unlike any other gift I had ever been given before. It was magic, you see. The ring could produce sizeable flames that I found I could use to defend myself when in trouble. My grandfather had given it to me from his personal collection as a way to protect myself from danger.’

‘Does this story go anywhere?’

Kythos struck Roland hard in the back of the head with a gauntleted hand, nearly knocking the consciousness right out of him. When he straightened back up, dizzier than he had been a few seconds ago, Love looked at him again with those indifferent eyes as if she hadn’t noticed his head had just been rung like a bell.

‘I loved the gift, Roland, but I had a problem.’ Love stepped towards the next dress, and Roland was forced to follow. ‘It didn’t go with any of my clothes. It was a gaudy thing with a large ruby eye, and no matter what I wore, it looked out of place. That’s when I decided to fabricate my own fashion, and, through that, discovered I was rather talented at it.’

Roland didn’t know what to say, but he couldn’t help noticing that they were steadily moving closer to that broken window.

‘I began to collect other magical jewellery. Necklaces, bracelets, rings, and more. For each one, I created a new fashion, but I never followed that passion, not really,’ Love said this with a distinct lull in her voice. ‘Instead, a group of strangers brought me to the forefront of danger. We founded the city together, and I had to take a step back from my tailoring. I still create, though. Passionately. And I still collect magical jewellery. I have so many of those now, including your rapier, actually. I know it isn’t a piece of jewellery, but I’ve decided to branch out to magical swords and build a new gown based around it. I’ll discover what it does in time.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Roland asked, squirming inside of Kythos’s grip. ‘Why do you think I would care?’

‘Oh, I know you don’t, darling.’ Love turned to him and smiled. ‘You should, though.’

She gave Kythos a slight nod. The tiefling’s grip tightened around him, almost suffocating him, and Roland could do very little to get free. They had reached the window now. Tressa rolled out before them. He couldn’t see the appeal, even from this high. The city had a distinct appearance that made him think of a giant dropping houses down from high above, leaving the people to tidy it up themselves.

‘Why do you think we don’t indulge in more horrendous acts of torture?’ Love asked but didn’t ask. Roland knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, so he simply stared back at her. ‘It’s because, for one thing, it often leads to misinformation. Blatant lies are told under duress. For another, we don’t want to mutilate our prisoners. People don’t like that. They see a man with two missing legs hobbling out to their hanging, and they consider it cruel. There’s suddenly an uproar.’

Roland didn’t reply.

‘You can’t be reasoned with, darling. You’d rather leap to certain death than reveal your secrets to me, and I can’t torture it out of you, either. I can’t even give you gold, which, I assume, is the only reason you’re hiding your secrets in the first place.’ Love stepped a little closer. Kythos’s grip got a little tighter. ‘Congratulations. You’ve finally convinced me. No matter what I do, I cannot retrieve what you know. Unfortunately, that means you’re dangerous to me, and you’ve left me with only one option. As High Warden of Tressa, it is my authority and right to move up your death sentence to a more appropriate date—’

‘If you toss me out of that window, I’ll just survive,’ Roland promised. ‘I can do it twice.’

‘The arrogance.’ Love laughed. ‘Toss you out of the window? Where on earth did you get that idea?’

‘Then, what?’

‘I’m moving up your hanging to tomorrow morning.’ Roland’s breath caught in his throat. ‘Naturally, I can’t have you running off again. So, I will leave you with something to remember what happens when you try to escape.’

Love grabbed his hand so suddenly that Roland had almost thought he’d imagined it. He certainly didn’t guess what came next. A pain like nothing he’d ever felt before shot across his left hand, originating from one of Love’s fingers — the one with the black ring. He let out a yelp but didn’t say anything further than that.

Then he saw it.

Spreading out like a rash, his fingers became grey and cracked — like stone. The disease flourished across his palm, making it heavier, as the ice-hot pain continued to assault him. By the end of it, he couldn’t move his hand. He couldn’t even twitch his fingers. They were stuck in that position, and just as it seemed like the stone curse would spread up his arm, Love stopped and stepped away.

‘I wonder how effective a thief is with a stone hand?’ she remarked. ‘No picking locks, climbing walls, or utilising improvised weapons.’

Kythos loosened his grip, and Roland fell to the floor, clutching his new stone appendage. It felt real. It felt like stone, like the kind you got on old statues or the walls around a garden. His hand was solid all the way through, and no matter how he willed it to move, the limb refused to obey him.

‘I would have personally taken the gold,’ said Love, returning to her throne. ‘You overplayed your hand, Roland. You’ll be executed tomorrow before you have a chance to share what you know with anyone else.’ She looked up at Kythos. ‘Take him back to his cell.’

‘Why not just kill me now!?’ he demanded.

She sneered at him. ‘Because no one would get to see it.’

Roland leered at her as he was forced to move. Although his thoughts dwindled on his rigid hand, he still couldn’t help noticing something. Roland had always been good at catching the small details, even in dire situations. It’s a talent that made him a good thief, even if what he caught eye of didn’t make sense.

As he was dragged out of the room, he once again noticed the string around Love’s neck. The strange bit of twine that didn’t blend with her fabulous attire. For unknown reasons, he saw a part of it blacken and smoulder in the same way something blackens in a fire before it turns to ash.

Just a section of it, though.

He was the only one who noticed and didn’t say anything as he was dragged out of the doors.