The dungeon smelled of damp stone and iron, the air pressing against her lungs.
Prince Lucarion descended without announcement, Kael pacing one step behind, the echo of their boots scattering rats into shadow. Torches burned low, yet when he passed, the flame seemed to steady, drawn to the silver in his hair as if light itself deferred to him. A gleam of cold fire marked him apart from stone and shadow.
They walked in silence until the cell door loomed before them—iron bars framing only darkness within.
The healer rose at once from his crouch beside the pallet, bowing low. "My prince."
Lucarion did not answer. His gaze had already found the figure bound to the rough cot. Throat swathed in bandages, wrists splinted and strapped. Her fiery eyes opened as though she had sensed him in the dark. Fever-bright, but steady. Even like this—broken, rasping on shallow breath—she met him without lowering her gaze.
Lucarion's lips curved faintly. "She lives."
"Yes, my lord," the healer said carefully. "For now."
Lucarion shifted his stance, eyes narrowing. "She must be fit to travel. How long?"
The healer stiffened, composure almost cracking. "Travel, my prince? In her state? The throat wound alone—she cannot risk strain for three weeks at least, or the stitches will tear and she will drown in her own blood. Her wrists are reset, but the smallest shock could undo the mending. To move her now is to invite her death."
"Three weeks," Lucarion repeated, voice edged with faint amusement. "No. You will have one."
The healer bowed low, but desperation threaded his words. "Then grant me what is needed. If she must be moved so soon, she cannot remain here. The damp, the filth—this dungeon breeds infection faster than a rat's mouth. She needs a chamber. Light, warmth, clean air. And supplies, if you wish her to reach the road alive."
Lucarion regarded him in silence, torchlight kindling the faint red hues of his eyes. Then, slowly, he inclined his head. "A week. And a chamber." His gaze slid toward Kael. "See the healer has everything he asks for. If she dies, the fault will not be his."
Kael bowed stiffly. "As you command."
Lucarion's eyes lingered once more on Eva. She had not looked away.
From the moment Lucarion walked in the cell, her gaze locked on him. Fever dragged at her mind, pulling her down, but the sight of him—the monster, eyes cold as the iron bars—snapped her upright on the inside.
She wanted to spit, to snarl, to fling herself at him with teeth and broken bones if nothing else. I'll kill you. The thought burned, sharp and jagged. I'll carve your throat, watch you bleed.
But her body betrayed her. Her wrists ached beneath their bindings, her chest shuddered with each ragged breath. Words would not come—her throat was fire and silence. The voices around her blurred, muffled through the fever, strange as echoes through water. She caught fragments—travel… week… chamber—but the meaning slipped from her grasp.
Still she held his gaze. If her voice was gone, if her body was bound, her eyes would speak for her: hatred, defiance, the vow of blood she could not yet spill.
She would not bow.
The last image she registered was the silver haired fiend leaving the cell, before darkness claimed her again.
—
The first thing Eva noticed was the light.
Thin and silver daylight, spilling through a high narrow window. The air carried no stench of rot or mildew, only the faint chill of stone washed clean. She drew breath—cool and bright, it filled her chest with something almost like sweetness. For a heartbeat she let it settle inside her, eyes half-shut, as though she might drink the light itself.
Then the purity turned against her. The rawness of her throat caught, scraped, every swallow like glass. What had begun as relief twisted to ache, and her body reminded her that even air could wound.
The ceiling above her blurred, shifting between stone and white haze. She could not tell if minutes or days had passed since the dungeon. Alone in the stillness, she closed her eyes again, and sleep dragged her under.
—
Quiet movement.
The healer bent over the table, arranging jars in neat rows. Sunlight struck the glass, turning their contents into gleaming amber and green. He murmured to himself, crushing roots with careful pressure. His long pale hands moved like giant albino spiders over the vials. The candlelight threw his shadow high up the wall, stretched long and claw-like, as if the room itself shrank from his presence.
Her mouth was dry as ash. She wanted to ask—how long?—but her throat gave only a rasp of air that tore like glass.
The healer's wide gray eyes flicked to her. "You must not strain," he said softly. His voice, gentle and smooth, seemed all the more grotesque in a frame so tall, so looming. "Breathe carefully."
He turned back to his work, murmuring again, unblinking.
She blinked. The room tilted.
—
When her eyes opened again, it was dark.
The chamber was silent, the shadows deep. A candle guttered low on the far table. She lay still, every sense straining.
Someone was watching.
She searched the dark with fever-bright eyes. The corners yielded nothing but shadow.
Her throat tightened. Her body gave her no strength to rise, no voice to call out. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to steady.
When she woke again, the candle was gone, and daylight washed the walls pale.
—
The days blurred.
At times, the healer hovered, coaxing broth to her lips, changing dressings with hands that were firm and careful. Sometimes, she fought him—turning her head, glaring through half-lidded eyes—but the effort drained her, and she slipped back into dreams before defiance could become action.
Other times, she woke alone, staring at the ceiling until the weight of her own exhaustion dragged her under. And yet—never truly alone.
Sometimes, in the stillness between waking and sleep, she felt it again: a weightless gaze, vast and steady, pressing against her soul the way sunlight presses against closed eyes. It was not a person. This watching held no malice or hunger—only patience.
She tried once to lift her lips in a whisper, a prayer she could not voice. Her throat gave only a rasp of pain, but the silence felt answered all the same.
Whether fever, madness, or the god whose spear she bore in her blood, she could not tell. But in those moments, she endured.
—
The morning of departure broke pale and cold, light spilling thinly across the fortress courtyard where the wagons were readied.
The healer stood stiff before Lucarion, his hands faintly stained with tinctures, the hollows beneath his eyes darker from a week without sleep.
"She is stronger than I expected, Your Highness," he admitted, though his voice carried no triumph. "The fever has broken. She can stand, even take a few steps. But the wounds are still young. A jolt, a fall, a careless pull on the throat—any one of these could undo the healing and kill her before you ever reach the capital."
For a long moment Lucarion only studied him. "She will live. You will see to it."
The healer opened his mouth again, but Kael's shadow loomed behind the prince, his expression carved in stone. "You have been given your supplies. See to your charge. The road waits."
The healer bowed, but his jaw clenched as he turned away.
Across the courtyard, Eva was being helped into the carriage. Pale, bandaged, a shadow of herself—but her gaze found Lucarion across the distance. Hatred burned there still, too fierce to be dimmed by bandages and pain.
Lucarion inclined his head faintly, as if acknowledging a private vow. Then he stepped into the saddle.