4

I've been in the dark for hours.

The chain linking my manacles to the wall is too short for me to sit down, so I lean against the stone until I'm too exhausted to stand for another second. I try kneeling for a while, but that position tugs at the manacles, making them dig painfully into the backs of my hands. My full bladder is swollen, aching, and my stomach muscles continue cramping occasionally. Pain stabs through my injured foot every few seconds, and my shoulder hurts where I landed on it. Besides which, I'm starving.

The worst part is the need to relieve myself. My bowels are churning a bit from the process of birthing the eggs, and though I've been able to control it so far, I'm rapidly reaching my limit. If no one comes, I'm going to end up letting everything out right here, on the floor.

Things scurry through the pitch darkness occasionally. Now and then, a thin, jointed leg brushes against my bare foot, and I have to bite back a scream.

I can feel my sanity flaking away like shavings from a stick. Time is a merciless blade, carving me thinner and thinner .

Just as I think my bladder will burst, I hear footsteps in the hallway. They're faint, almost inaudible through the thick wood of the cell door.

"Please," I rasp. The act of trying to speak makes me realize how thirsty I am, how thick and dry my tongue is. "Please, I need the privy, or a chamber pot, or a bucket. Anything, please."

Something clinks in the lock, and the cell door opens with a groaning creak.

A burly figure enters and sets down the lantern he's carrying. By its glow I devour his appearance, eager for any clue about who he is and whether I can convince him to help me.

He's not as tall as Kyreagan is in human form, but he's taller than the average man. Black fur cloaks his broad shoulders. Gold jewelry glints in a bushy reddish beard, and thick brows bristle above deep-set eyes. There's a gold ring through his septum, a mark of Vohrainian nobility, and it's set with a single tiny ruby that identifies him as royalty.

This is Rahzien, King of Vohrain. I'm looking at the man who conquered my kingdom, the one who humiliated and executed my mother. The only being in the world whom I could kill without feeling a drop of regret.

"Serylla." His voice is gruff and low. He purposely omits my title and uses no honorifics.

"Rahzien," I reply.

"Master," he says.

"What?"

"You'll call me Master."

"Fuck you," I hiss.

He turns on his heel and heads for the door.

"Wait! I need the privy."

"‘I need the privy, Master .'"

Is he being serious? I let out a derisive laugh, but he only stands unmoving, waiting. Demanding that I verbally demean myself and acknowledge him as my superior .

I'm a woman with pride and a decent amount of inner strength, but I've never been as proud or steely as my mother. Even when I worked hard alongside the palace servants, I enjoyed my rest and my comforts, too. And what I'm requesting isn't even a comfort—it's a basic need. One I've resisted for so many hours that I'm desperate.

The last thing I want to do is piss and shit all over myself in front of the man who killed my mother.

It's just a word. One word, and then maybe he'll let me visit a privy or at least give me a bucket. "I need the privy… Master."

Immediately Rahzien returns, detaches my manacles from the wall, picks up the lantern, and motions for me to follow him.

A little way down the hall there's a rank-smelling privy, featuring a battered wooden toilet with metal pipes leading into the wall. A few rags lie near the toilet. There's no door.

Rahzien stands in the hall, watching me enter the privy.

"Could you turn around?" I ask.

"Say, ‘Turn around please, Master.'"

I grit my teeth, and through them I mutter, "Turn around, please, Master."

He turns his back, and he doesn't look my way until I've finished with everything. It's difficult to clean myself with my hands shackled, but I manage it.

For a second I consider fleeing down the hallway, but before I can make a move, the King grabs the back of my neck in his giant hand, steers me along the corridor, and shoves me back into my cell. He grabs the chain between my wrists and lifts it high, as if he's going to attach it to the wall again.

"Wait, please! Could I be allowed to sit?" I ask. "And may I have some water?"

He waits.

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck… He wants me to call him "master" again. What the hell am I doing? Why am I going along with this? I've been in his presence for less than an hour and I'm already caving to his wishes. It's weak, it's shameful. I should be stronger than this.

"You have to let me go." I lift my chin, straighten my spine, and try to look bold, but instead I wince and nearly cry out at the pain twitching through my muscles. I hold back the whimper and force myself to speak as steadily as I can. "I was stolen from the Prince of Dragons. He'll come to fetch me, and he'll make sure you rue the day that you took what's his."

"You think he'll come to fetch you?" Rahzien yanks my arms up and attaches the chain to the wall again. "What makes you believe that?"

"He—" I hesitate, reluctant to reveal Kyreagan's affection for me. "The dragon prince is very possessive. To him I'm a war prize, a valuable object. Part of his hoard. He will view this as the deepest insult." My voice thins and a cough barks through my dry, scratchy throat. "I need water."

"You are a war prize. A valuable object."

I frown. "Yes… that's what I said."

"You were his pet, and now you're mine."

"No—"

"You are my pet. You do as you're told. When you do as you're told, you receive good things."

I hate every word he just said, but I bite back a caustic response. Deep inside me resonates a warning, an instinct that being saucy will not have the same effect on Rahzien that it did on Kyreagan. From the day we met, I had a sense of Kyreagan's nobility, his reluctance to hurt me. I sense nothing of the kind from the King of Vohrain. In fact, when he's this close to me, my very bones tighten and my skin breaks into goosebumps, as if my body is silently screaming to get away from him.

"We can avoid further conflict," I say hoarsely. "You once promised to be lenient to my mother and me, if we surrendered. And though she refused to give in, I would have yielded for the sake of my people, if I'd had any authority to do so. We can come to an arrangement that spares you from Kyreagan's wrath and ensures a peaceful transition of power."

A peaceful transition… until I can persuade the Southern Kingdoms to help me overthrow this bastard.

"Interesting." The King stares at me, and another chill rushes along my spine because I've never seen eyes like his. There's a flatness to his stare, an impenetrable cruelty. His voice rises and falls like anyone else's, but it's almost as if he's forcing the cadence, as if beneath his normal human tones there lies a blank monotone—the true timbre of his voice.

"You would yield to me for the sake of your people," he says. "I wonder if they would do the same? Would they obey me, if it meant sparing you pain?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You are beloved among the citizens of Elekstan, in a way your mother never was. Perhaps you are not aware of their affection for you. I personally don't understand it. You seem rather soft and simple to me. You weren't made to rule or to think, only to open your sloppy mouth for cock."

His hand drops to his belt, and I shut my mouth tight.

He notices the clench of my jaws and smiles a little. "I thought you wanted a drink."

I shake my head.

"I'll make you a deal. Repeat these words five times, and you may have some water." He doesn't touch me, just keeps staring into my eyes with that soulless expression. "You are my pet. You do as you're told. When you do as you're told, you receive good things. Say it."

"Kyreagan will find me," I reply faintly, although I'm not quite sure of it. What if Ky thinks I made my own arrangements to leave Ouroskelle? What if he realizes I've been taken but doesn't care about my fate, since I was planning to leave him anyway? What if he cares, but he can't figure out where I am ?

"Kyreagan is no longer your master," repeats the King of Vohrain in that steady tone. "You are my pet. You do as you're told. When you do as you're told, you receive good things, like water. Say it ."

They're only words. And I'm so thirsty it's becoming difficult to think about anything except sweet, cold, clear liquid running down my throat, rehydrating the parched tissues, renewing my mind, clarifying my speech. I feel as if my brain itself has shriveled up. To have my faculties again—to survive—I must do this. I must yield a little more.

"Say it," urges the King quietly. "Five times. And you'll have all the water you can drink."

Just a few phrases. I don't have to believe them. Saying them doesn't make them true.

I form the mantra with my thirst-thick tongue, hating myself with every word. "I am your pet. I do as I'm told. When I do as I'm told, I receive good things."

I say it five times. After the fifth time, the King leaves the cell for a moment and returns with a pitcher and a ladle. He holds the ladle to my lips while I drink deeply of the fresh water within. When I ask for more, he refills it without demanding that I call him "Master."

With two basic needs taken care of, my body switches focus to the pain in my foot, my stomach, and my shoulder. I haven't been able to rest much since I birthed the eggs, and if I can't lie down soon, I think I might faint.

"Could you unhook me from the wall?" I ask. "I need to sit."

Rahzien pretends not to hear. He pours the remaining water from the pitcher over the floor, where it darkens the stone and pools in the cracks.

"You're a cruel bastard." My voice trembles. "Why are you doing this? Do you enjoy demeaning and humiliating women? I heard what you did to my mother, you heartless beast. "

"You call me a beast, and yet you wish to return to one who is truly a beast, in every sense of the word," he says calmly. "What does the Dragon Prince offer that I cannot?"

I chew my lip, unwilling to share my new, tender feelings for Kyreagan with this brutal king. Finally I settle on the simplest of responses. "He was good to me."

"I will be good to you as well. You are my pet. You do as you're told. When you do as you're told, you receive good things."

"Stop saying that." I shiver involuntarily.

"I'm offering you all the comfort and luxury you're accustomed to, as long as you submit. I will give you another lesson to repeat, and if you say it well, I will permit you to lie down."

Instead of refusing him outright, I wait, my good shoulder propped against the wall, my thighs trembling with weariness.

Rahzien sets down the pitcher and steps back, folding his arms. "You will say the following: ‘I did not save my people, nor can I save myself. I am worthless. I am foolish. I am alone. I have no value, and no one wants me.'"

The words echo in my head.

I did not save my people, nor can I save myself.

I am worthless. I am foolish. I am alone.

I have no value, and no one wants me.

Each phrase is a frozen dagger, a slim shard of poisoned ice piercing my heart, melting and spreading lethal venom. These words have greater power, because they're doubts I've battled ever since the conquest of Elekstan… and perhaps longer.

"Say it," says the King. "And you may lie down."

My whole frame quakes at his words. Tears slip down my cheeks, but I force myself to say one word. One small defiance. "No."

He takes the lantern and the pitcher. Slams my cell door, locks it .

Something chitters in the inky blackness, and tiny feet scamper near the ceiling. I shudder violently, then sag against the wall, my wrists spiking with pain. Tears flood my eyes, spilling the precious water from my body even as I try to hold them back.

"Kyreagan," I whisper brokenly. "Kyreagan, please."