Chapter Thirty-Nine
My shoulders were on fire. My arms were numb. My chest ached from being stretched—it felt like my breastbone was going to cleave in two and everything would spill out of me.
There was pressure—so much pressure. My heart raced, beating too hard and fast, like it would explode at any moment. The cold sank deeper into my bones, making them stiff and heavy within my failing body.
It felt like I was going to die at any moment.
I didn’t know how long I’d been left here alone in the dark. In the freezing cold. Chained up and shivering uncontrollably.
I’d cried when the Carlin and her sons had left. For my dead parents. For their murder. For the fact that everything had been a game. Everything with Lonan had been a lie.
They’d done all of this for a bit more power. Just to keep the balance tipped in the Carlin’s favour, so she would be stronger than the other queen and wouldn’t have to succumb to the Mild Months. Just because the two queens were locked in a pathetic feud, and they both resented transferring the power back to the other for half the year.
They’d taken everything from me fornothing.
The Carlin had said she would eat me bit by bit if I survived this. I knew she meant that literally. She was going to keep me chained up here and consume me in chunks.
But it didn’t matter, because I wasn’t going to survive this. I could feel it. I was dying.
A shaft of light sliced through the darkness at the other end of the vast hall, making me lift my weak head and gaze through unfocused eyes as a small figure slipped inside before heaving the door shut behind them.
They held a lantern of cold unseelie fire in their hand, and its blue-white flames gave off enough light for me to recognize Lonan’s slinking gait as he crossed the hall.
I was too lifeless to pull my face into a sneer or grimace of loathing, so instead I simply averted my eyes when he got close, but I still caught the look of utter anguish tightening his already pale face. False. It was false. All of it had been.
He stopped in front of me. His hand trembled as he set down the lantern. In the echoing silence of the hall, I heard his breath shudder out of him.
“Ash.” His voice was low and hoarse with misery.
But it was too late for that. I wasn’t falling for it anymore. He had played me for a complete and utter fool, and I didn’t even understand why. I was desperate to ask him, to beg him to explain, but I wouldn’t let myself.
My frame jerked weakly when Lonan stepped closer and placed a trembling hand on my bare chest. His cool skin seemed to burn me, making me hiss and try to flinch back. The chains rattled with the stilted movement.
His breath hitched, but he didn’t remove his hand. He placed it over my heart, feeling its too-hard, too-fast thrum, and let out a low sound.
“You can make it through, Ash.” His voice was thick, his words hitching, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him to see if he really was crying. “You’ll survive this. You’re so strong. Just don’t—don’t fight it.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. And I didn’t care. It didn’t matter how strong I was if the Carlin left me here indefinitely. It wouldn’t take much longer for me to succumb. To the cold. To the strain on my body. To thirst or starvation.
To the total, abject misery that filled every inch of me from Lonan’s betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stepping closer and burying his face in my neck, even though I flinched and tried to squirm away from him. I couldn’t move even an inch.
“I’m sorry, Ash,” he repeated as wetness dripped onto my skin.
I finally parted my dry, cracked lips, resisting the urge to lick them. There was no moisture in my mouth.
“T-too late for th-that.”
My voice was nothing more than a croak, the words barely discernible. I tried to suppress my shivering, but couldn’t. I didn’t want him to feel the weakness. Even though I was visibly weak. I was visibly dying.
Lonan’s breath hitched, and he pulled back to fumble with something in his hand. In the lantern’s low light, my eyes snagged on the thick, gleaming blue glass of a flask. When he pulled out the stopper with fumbling fingers, I swore I could actuallysmellthe water within. My chest constricted, throat dry and aching.
I didn’t want to take anything from him, but the need to slake my thirst was too great. I let him lift the bottle to my mouth, his long fingers gently cradling my chin to hold my head steady as I drank.
My heavy gaze met his briefly before I flicked my eyes away, not wanting to look at him. Lonan’s black eyes glistened in the weak light.
“I—I know it’s too late for you to ever—”