The smell of sewerage and mildew burned Gray’s nostrils. His pulse thundered in his head. Nearby, there was a thick drip, drip, drip.

He tried to move – straw stuck through his sweater and trousers and prickled his skin – but his body was too heavy to obey. The aftertaste of the medicine from earlier lingered on his tongue. Slimy damp clung to his skin.

Finally, his eyelids responded, and he stared at the dark cell. Panic instantly fluttered in his chest. The room spun.

Breathe. In. Out.

Gray focused hard on the dark window, breathing shallowly. Outside, the yellow light from a lamp flickered.

He pressed his hand over his eyes. It was night, then.

He’d missed it. Alistair’s funeral.

His hand trembled. In a rush, he remembered Barin and Harriette were in big trouble because of him.

But he - the Major - said he wouldn’t execute them. Gray clung to this thought, a single thread he could clutch.

In. Out.

Pain flared in his ankle and he bit down on his lip, drawing blood. His jaw was stiff and his cheek was swollen. He pushed the pain away, his gaze darting from one dark corner of the cell to the next.

No Branbright. But Sorena, with her platinum hair twisted back and her threadbare clothes, who was crumpled in the corner again, stared at the ceiling as though it had personally offended her.

Something hardened in Gray’s chest at the sight of her.

Her words from earlier ‘let him have Griffin’ replayed in his mind.

She was supposed to be in her own cell.

Gray sat up, hissing as he jostled his foot.

Sorena started and pinned Gray with her cold hazel stare. ‘Sshh.’

Gray ignored her, attempting to stand, but crumpled hard onto the cold ground. He cried out as his ankle bent underneath him.

‘Will you shut up?’ Sorena wedged herself more tightly into the corner. She seemed to be attempting to hide herself in a patch of darkness, but her platinum hair and pale skin weren’t doing her any favours.

Gray screwed his eyes up, his vision a hazy red with pain, and eased himself back onto the pallet.

For a second he thought he saw Branbright in the corner of the cell.

But it wasn’t him. Only shadows.

Branbright had been released. And Gray’d been left in here to … what? Be questioned?

And Longwark, what had he done?

He’d brought the soldiers here.

Gray swallowed back rising bile that had nothing to do with the throbbing pain in his head and ankle.

He’d barely hoisted himself back onto the pallet, when a soldier pressed his face to the barred window on the door.

‘Oh, perfect,’ said Sorena.

‘Want some attention, do you?’ he said.

Gray shivered. Tried to remember how to speak.

‘No,’ said Sorena. ‘Piss off.’

He was different to the soldiers Gray’d seen earlier – not mouth-breathing Codder, not straight-backed Pickering – though he shared the same southern accent.

‘Didn’t sound that way to me,' said the soldier. 'You cried out.’

He wrapped his hairy fists around the bars in the window.

His gaze crawled over Sorena.

Sorena stayed silent, resuming her glaring at the ceiling.

The soldier was breathing too heavily.

’She’s,’ said Gray, ‘off limits.’

This only increased the intensity of the soldier’s breathing.

‘Aren’t you just a pale glass of milk,’ drawled the soldier. Keys jangled, out of sight.

Gray tensed. This man was suicidal. The King had once pulled out the innards of a man while he was still alive because he’d written a love note to one of the royal consorts. Gray couldn’t imagine what the King would do to a man interfering with his daughter.

The keys kept jangling. They jangled faster.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The soldier was doing something with his belt.

Gray realised what, feeling sick.

At the same time, Sorena snapped, ‘You’re right. I am. But, to come in here, and get to me, you have to get past that.’

She pointed at Gray.

‘You know what that is?’ she said.

‘That’s what I’ll have a go at,’ heaved the soldier, ‘once I’ve had a go at you.’

‘That,’ she said, ‘is the son of D’Oncray.’

Gray’s breath caught in his throat.

The jangling stopped.

The soldier stilled.

‘It is not,’ he said.

Gray desperately pushed down the panic at Sorena blithely telling this random man that’s the son of D’Oncray.

That’s Sorena Auguste, Gray wanted to say. Touch her and the king will kill you. Then, he’ll bring you back to life to kill you again.

Gray turned to Sorena. ‘When did you say the Major was going to check on you?’

Sorena didn’t miss a beat. ‘Any time now.’

‘Major’s busy,’ said the soldier. ‘He’s always busy.’

Gray loathed to engage with this guy at all. But, he fixed his gaze on the soldier’s sweaty face and started muttering. He imitated what Branbright had been chanting only hours earlier.

Quietly.

‘You know what the sorceress Faye D’Oncray did to those who didn’t manage to flee, during the palace massacre?’ said Sorena to the soldier coldly, over Gray’s mutterings.

The soldier stepped back.

‘I know what she did,’ said the soldier, a rough edge to his voice. He spat, and it landed inches from Gray’s foot. ‘None of that, eh.’

Gray shoved down the urge to flinch. Forced himself to raise his voice.

His words were slurring. His words were nonsense. Gray could barely work his tongue over the influence of the sedative Killian had poured down his throat. The soldier would see through him. He’d come in, he’d -

The soldier stepped back again.

He hovered.

He snarled out some choice slurs, and then his footsteps faded as he walked away.

Gray shut the heck up, his chest heaving.

Sorena refused to meet Gray’s eye. She fisted her trembling hands.

Gray swallowed hard. Pushed down his firm dislike of the girl. Used the softest voice he could. ‘Where’s Branbright?’

The question hung between them for so long, just with the drip of the pipe counting the time passing, that Gray thought she wouldn’t answer at all. He closed his eyes, fighting against the grogginess overwhelming him.

‘Branbright’s been executed.’

Her whisper was so quiet, and it was masked under the drip of the pipe and the sounds of the soldiers outside, that Gray could have imagined it. Her gaze was cold.

Gray’s stomach twisted and dropped. ‘What?’

‘As of half an hour ago. That’s when Killian put me in here with you. He’s imprisoned the entire Krydon guard. The place is full.’

Gray’s heart clenched inside his chest, certain this must’ve all been some kind of perverse joke. His throat tightened as the words sunk in, and he pushed this feeling down, knowing it was the worst thing for him to do right now - to be seen upset over Branbright.

‘Why?’ said Gray.

‘Why what?’

‘Why’d they execute him?’

‘Seriously?' said Sorena. 'You don’t know what that old sorcerer’s done?’

Gray shook his head, curling his freezing fingers.

‘The General himself ordered him beheaded before he could do any more wandless,’ she said. ‘They’ve been hunting him for years. Branbright was Wilde’s assassin.’

Wilde’s assassin.

Cold shot through Gray.

He swallowed and lay back on the pallet, careful of his ankle, rolling to face the wall. The walls of the cell loomed over him, shrouded in shadows. Unseasonable rain fell in torrents outside - the first rain Krydon had had in a month - and somewhere outside the cell someone wailed in a language he’d never heard.

Gray shivered. His heart wouldn’t slow.

Branbright, there, in Krydon, where nothing ever happened, and only five thousand people scratched out a living in a mess of scribbled alleyways.

Branbright, an assassin for Wilde.

Gray pressed his hands over his chest. The pallet he lay on was in full view from the door. Totally exposed. He eyed Sorena, who was tightly curled up and determinedly not looking at Gray. Then, Gray glanced at the corner by the door.

Pressing his lips tightly together, he very slowly and carefully manoeuvred his legs off the pallet. He gritted his teeth to stop himself from making a sound as pain flared in his ankle the moment he tried to move it.

He unlaced his boot, and slowly, agonisingly, pulled it off.

He didn’t know if it was broken. It was swollen, and when he tried to move his toes, barbs of pain shot up his leg.

Gray rested his head in his hands. Dug his fingernails into his scalp.

A rat scurried past on the far side of the cell. It burrowed through an impossibly small space between the rocks on the wall and disappeared.

There was a shudder of a whisper. The girl must’ve said something. For a moment, they locked gazes.

She wrapped her arms around her knees.

The sound of heavy rain settled around them, filling the silence.

Then, ‘Can’t you do wandless?’ Gray whispered. He pointed at the sliver of a window on the outside wall. Moss sprawled down from it. ‘If you got rid of the bars, I could fit through.’

She lowered her gaze. Gray couldn’t read her expression.

‘Branbright left his wand at the tavern,’ Gray said, after a long pause. ‘I could bring it to you. I know where Barin stored the extra money, from your payment. There are horses in the stable. Spare coats. I promise if you do wandless -’

‘I can’t. Not yet. Not properly. Father never had time - to teach …’

This was the closest she’d gotten to admitting she was Sorena Auguste.

‘Can you try?’ whispered Gray, his throat dusty dry.

Her lips parted as she let out a quiet breath. ‘No, I … I’ve not eaten in almost a day. I can’t.’ She resumed her glaring at the ceiling. ‘And I wouldn’t free you, sorcerer, and leave myself rotting in here, if I could.’

Gray dropped his gaze away from her, his jaw tight.

Slowly, Gray slipped his boot back onto his sore ankle, figuring it was better to have it on, acting like a cast.

Inch by inch Gray lowered himself onto the cold floor. He pressed down the agony in his ankle and dragged himself backwards. He wedged himself into the corner by the door, hoping his olive skin would blend him into the darkness.

A shadow moved by the window.

A crow.

It poked its beak in, its eyes sharp and intelligent.

Then, it was gone.