I moved to walk away, but his hand found mine and tugged me back. My lungs seized. Logic told me to put more space between us, but my heart demanded I stay perfectly still so as not to risk our skin separating.

“I’ve heard you. I want you to know that.” He held my gaze, his expression intense and determined. “I know you’re trying to get to the Well.”

My mouth snapped shut. Winter’s breath, how much else had he noticed about me and my motives? Did he want me to explain? I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell him of my darkness—it would break me. Especially in this moment. “I can’t tell you why.”

“I don’t need to know why. I don’t have a map, but I know the way.” His hand tightened around mine, almost protectively. Promising. “When Runt is safe again, I’ll take you to the Well myself.”

Chapter 22
Coralythe

The boy hung from the chains like a soiled, torn garment. Coralythe could not take her eyes off him, even as the dungeon master—Kravin—chained her beside the boy. Even as she spit blood from a mouth that, mere hours ago, had been guiding the young new king as a parent would a blindfolded child.

The boy lifted his head with a grimace at the noise of chains clanking against Coralythe’s bony wrists. His toes hardly brushed the dungeon floor.

“We’ll see which one of you rots first,” Kravin said with a dark chuckle. Then he departed, leaving behind the creaks of metal on stone and drip drip of wastewater in the gutter along the wall.

The dungeon stank. Her senses would adapt eventually. After all, she’d been here before. For much longer than she planned to be here this time. Mattias promised it’d be no more than a few days.

He had faith she could complete her task.

Since she had a Bane—and he was able to command her—she didn’t really have a choice. Already the oh-too-recent memories of torn flesh, ridicule, and bone-splitting cold returned full force. She wanted out. She needed out.

But she couldn’t do it alone.

The boy eyed her through tired lids and attempted a smile. To comfort her? “Welcome to my home,” he joked. “Sorry my manservant treated you so harshly. I’ll dismiss him.”

Despite the darkness of the humor, she chuckled. He and her younger son would have gotten along. “What atrocity could a boy your age commit to land you in here? You must be pretty important.”

The boy swallowed several times before he spoke. “I can do plenty.”

Defiant even after two days of imprisonment. “What’s your name?”

“Runt.”

Hardly a real name. A canal rat, then. “I’m Coralythe.”

“What atrocity does a lady have to commit to be chained up beside such an important prisoner like me?”