“A girl is given the blessing of the silvertree when she becomes a woman. It’s a privilege we grant only to the best of us. She must be bright, competent, and in possession of an iron will.”

Interview with Queen Shikra III, as told to Master Anwen

It was Valerie’s first time in a dungeon, so she didn’t have anything to compare to, but she thought this one must be particularly dark and dank. Her breath billowed out in small chilly puffs. The torches hanging in brackets on the walls cast flickering shadows. Chained by the ankle, dirt sticking to her bare feet, she paced around the cell as far as she could, reluctant to sit down in case of scorpions. They liked to lurk in dark corners.

Still, scorpions were the least of her concerns. Her head snapped up when footsteps descended the steps into the dungeon. She swallowed her fear. Hands clasped behind his back, her interrogator moved with a slow, deliberate stride, shoulders bent, and once his eyes settled on her, they did not look away. He was dressed in the fine clothes of a Drakonian nobleman, the waistcoat embroidered with dark green thread, and a silk cape that caught the dancing firelight. His long hair was tied back and streaked with grey.

“Valerie,” he said.

She stopped pacing and faced him, refusing to tremble.

“What’s your full name?”

They didn’t know who she was. Good. She didn’t answer.

He touched the silver brooch clasped to his waistcoat. “I am Lord Gideon, Master of Justice. Your family must be worried about you. We need your name if we’re to let them know where you are.”

His nostrils were oddly large. Perhaps he liked to sniff at anyone he considered beneath him, she thought. That would explain their exceptional size.

“Then again, you Maskamery do everything as a family. Perhaps they’re traitors too. Are you related to the prince?”

“No.”

There was a pause as he regarded her, eyes narrowed. The Drakonian justice system was a peculiar one. They didn’t hang their criminals like any decent society would. They put them to work, man, woman or child. Except, of course, for witches.

“The Empire always offers mercy before justice. All you have to do is swear your allegiance.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

No hesitation. She was cold and unblinking. A small smile spread over Gideon’s face, deepening the wrinkles on his cheeks.

“Well, I expected nothing less.”

He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the water trough standing in the middle of the cell, the iron chain cutting into her ankle. She screamed and thrashed but his grip was powerful, and then he plunged her head into the trough and the icy cold engulfed her–

She couldn’t breathe–

The rest of her body jerked like a puppet. The force on the back of her skull was inescapable, the water dulling all sensation except for panic, desperate, clawing panic.

Then, just as darkness crept into the edge of her vision, just as her muscles burned and her limbs ached and she could fight no longer, the force pushing her down became a pull instead. Gideon yanked her by the hair, and she gulped in much-needed air, her entire body shuddering, coughing, gasping–

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He pushed her down again. She closed her eyes and shut her mouth, and the water filled her.

There was no time to think. She was not a rational person in this moment; she had no sense of time or place or self. She was a drowning animal.

“Is that enough?” Gideon’s lips were at her ear. He pulled her back after the third, perhaps the fourth, round, and she was a trembling mess, barely standing. Gideon held her upright against him. “Speak.”

“Yes,” she choked out.

He turned her around, pinning her against the trough.

She became aware that her hair was dripping wet and that the water had seeped through the upper half of her shift so that it clung against her skin. He lifted her hair up and over her shoulder and looked her up and down, a foul smirk playing on his lips. She shuddered in disgust—how dare he.

“This can stop as soon as you acquiesce. Where is the prince?”

By force did the Empire demand obedience from all those it conquered. This was no different. Did he think she would give in so easily?

“You’re a very ugly man.”

She caught a flicker of disquiet. Then he leaned in close enough to smell his revolting breath. The stone trough dug into her back.

“You’ll fetch an excellent price at auction. I’m half-tempted to keep you myself.”

“Maska curse you!”

His hand went to her throat and squeezed, and this time as her body gasped for air, she could look her enemy in the eye. His gaze was implacable. Rage seemed to radiate out from him and into his hand, the fingers clenched tight around her neck. The rest of him was poised with an awful control, lips thin, nostrils flared. He had done this before.

Black spots danced in front of her eyes. The pain blotted out everything else. Her limbs dulled. Her lungs burned. How long? One last stray thought wormed its way through her head. How long could she take this?

“My lord!”

He let go, and she collapsed, gasping, against the stone. She was dimly aware of air wafting through the dungeon. A new source of light came from above.

“What?” Gideon snapped, looking up.

“Lord Avon requests your presence at once, my lord. He wants to see the traitors.”

“Now?”

“Yes, my lord.”

It was a young voice, she thought. A boy from Jairah they had conscripted into the Drakonian army. She recognised the accent.

“Hmph,” said Gideon.

He didn’t look happy to be interrupted, but he had no choice. He took a bronze key from the pouch at his waist and bent down to release her. She got to her feet, careful of her sore ankle, but didn’t dare heal it in case he noticed. Gideon took her arm.

“Move!”

Fear had a saturation point. She could hold no more. And so it was with a strange kind of detachment that she climbed the steps with the young soldier ahead of her and Gideon behind, walked past the upper cells, and then another flight of stairs, and then, finally, into the mess hall of the fortress. Here she glimpsed the night sky through the thin arrow-slits that served as windows.

Drakonian soldiers guarded every entrance, muskets in hand. They wore black. She and Markus had mocked those uniforms, so badly designed for summer climes where the sun beat down and the black soaked it all up. And black was the colour of evil, the colour of death. It was as if they wanted to be hated.

The room was dominated by a long wooden table where the officers would take their meals. It was empty now. Gideon shoved her forward, placing her in front of the table.

“Give me your hands.”

She lifted her hands silently and did not object to them being cuffed.

“Do not move,” he told her. “Do not speak. Answer only when you are addressed directly.”

He stepped away, clasping his hands behind his back. Footsteps approached from the other staircase. Heavy footsteps, those of men in armour, and lighter steps too. Two Drakonian soldiers.

Then— her heart leapt—Markus! She had just been thinking of him, and there he was, with his distinctive thatch of straw-coloured hair, his tunic dirty and torn but no worse than when she had last seen him. Markus’s eyes lit up when he saw her. She wanted badly to call out to him, to run to him. But she remembered Gideon’s warning. Don’t move.

The soldiers placed them side by side. She glanced at Markus, who was radiating guilt and barely concealed rage, and tried a small smile. It soon faded, however, as the hall fell silent, and a new set of footsteps echoed between the pillars. The young soldier had given his order. She shouldn’t be surprised. But there was something about seeing him in the flesh, close up...

Lord James Avon stopped in the middle of the hall to face them, and every soldier stood at attention. Gideon bowed deeply. It was as if the room held its breath.

“At ease,” said Avon, and she felt the tension ebb. But not in herself, nor in her companion.

Because this was the man they had tried to kill.