"True. But since I brought her here for you, she is your responsibility. If you don't take her, then she stays here. In the dungeon."
"All right."
A moment of silence. Then, Alvar said, "You'll leave her here, in the dark and the cold?"
"Certainly." Gavril turned to go.
"Daigo?" Moria said. The name came unbidden, and she hated herself for her weakness. Yet that did not stop her from following with, "My wildcat. Is he . . . ?"
Gavril did not turn. He kept his back to her, stiff and still.
"Well?" Alvar said. "The girl asks after her bond-beast."
"Then tell her," Gavril said.
"She's your responsibility. Any question she asks is for you."
"I don't have time to chase down answers, so she'll have to do without."
Gavril walked out without a backward glance. His father paused there, watching him go, studying him with that hawkish stare Moria knew well from his son. Then he turned it on Moria.
"You don't look surprised, girl."
"I'm not. If you were expecting anything different from your son, then I'd suggest that you do not know him very well."
"Oh, we'll see about that."
He gave a humorless smile and the door clanged shut behind him, pitching her into darkness.
TWENTY-THREE
Moria lay in the dark for at least half a day. Or half a night. She had no idea which it was, no way to tell. Darkness. Silence. Cold. That's all she had.
A few times, she rose and tried to pace, but she couldn't see the leg iron and kept tripping against it, and with each stumble, the metal bit into her leg, which was already tender from rubbing against the iron. When she felt blood dripping down her ankle, she stopped and curled into a ball on the floor.
Daigo. Tyrus.
Was Daigo alive? If not, she should feel it. Same
with Ashyn.
But Tyrus . . . ?
They'd parted in anger. When he hadn't heard her, she should have gone after him, but at the time, she'd only thought, I'll do that later. What if there was no later?
And Gavril . . .
Given what may have befallen Tyrus, she ought not to spend a moment thinking of Gavril. He had betrayed her nearly a fortnight ago.
So why did it still hurt so much?
And what of Edgewood's and Fairview's children? Did they still live? Had Ronan and Ashyn found them? Or could they be here, wherever here was?
When the door clanged open, she scrambled up. In walked an elderly woman, her face so lined it seemed lost in its nut-brown folds. A guard followed at her heels. From his bearing she could tell he was not a mercenary, but a warrior of the empire. Sworn to protect the emperor. Now he'd sworn loyalty to a traitor who murdered innocents.
Rage filled Moria, like a flash fire that ignited all her tamped-down anger. She dug her fingers into the dirt floor to keep from launching herself at the traitor.
"This is the healer," the guard said. "She does not speak the common language, so there is no sense attempting to converse with her. She has been sent by Lord Gavril to tend to your wounds. If you raise a hand against her, she will be taken away and will not return, and your injuries will be left to fester."