Some of the amusement had disappeared from the prisoner’s eyes at the threat when he glanced at Cleo. Less amusement, but still no fear.
“I don’t know where Lord Kurtis is,” he said slowly. “So why don’t you be on your way now, little girl?”
“I know you were present when Prince Magnus disappeared.” Cleo had to speak slowly to keep her voice from trembling with her growing frustration. “Nerissa Florens has confirmed that you were there. That you knocked him unconscious and dragged him away. This isn’t up for debate or denial; it’s a fact. Tell me where you took him.”
Nerissa had told Cleo not to come here—to let others search for Magnus and Kurtis. She wanted Cleo to rest.
It was an impossible request.
Nerissa had wanted to stay with Cleo today, but Cleo had insisted she join the search for Magnus.
Despite the bruises and cuts on the prisoner’s face, his hateful smirk had returned. “Very well. You really want to know? Lord Kurtis had us bring the prince to this very room. Right here.” He looked up at the thick iron chains. “These exact restraints. But then Lord Kurtis dismissed me, told me to go back to work. So that’s exactly what I did. What happened after that, I don’t know. But I do know something . . .”
Cleo had started to tremble as she imagined Magnus here, chained right where this prisoner stood. His face bloody, beaten. His body broken.
“What do you know?” Cleo snarled through clenched teeth, drawing closer to the prisoner. So close that his sour stench became nearly unbearable.
“Lord Kurtis is obsessed with the prince—obsessed with killing him, that is. So, my guess? That’s exactly what he did.”
White-hot pain seared into Cleo, and she swallowed back the urge to sob. She’d already imagined a thousand horrible things Kurtis could have done to Magnus.
More reason to stay awake. More reason to fight for answers, because she wasn’t ready to give up.
“Magnus is not dead,” she bit out. “I won’t believe it.”
“Perhaps Lord Kurtis cut him up into many bloody pieces, strewn about Mytica.”
“Shut your mouth,” Cleo growled.
It was suddenly hard to breathe.
Drowning, she thought with rising panic. I feel like I’m drowning again, yet I’m wide awake.
From deep inside the walled compound’s prison, she heard a loud rumble of thunder.
“Kurtis promised you something for your loyalty,” Amara said. “What? Rescue, perhaps? Fortune?”
She had to be right. Kurtis would need all the help he could get after crossing Amara.
“You must know where he is,” Cleo said, her voice not much more than a painful croak. Each breath was labored, and the burning sensation in her palm was impossible to ignore.
The man regarded her now with bemusement. “Stupid girl, you’re better off without that family alive. You should be thanking Lord Kurtis. And me.” His glittering gaze moved to Amara. “Smartest thing you did was lock King Gaius up. He would have slit your throat the moment he could.”
“Perhaps,” Amara allowed.
“Is he as dead as I am?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
After Kyan and Olivia had disappeared last night, Amara had King Gaius thrown into a cell, along with Felix and Ashur. They were three men who presented a threat to the empress, in different ways. Three men she preferred to keep in separate locked cages.
“Did you say that I should . . . thank you?” Cleo managed.
“I said it. I meant it.” He laughed, but it sounded raw now. “Some called him the Prince of Blood, didn’t they? One who followed in the footsteps of his father? His blood was so red as it hit this dirt floor. And the crunch that his bones made as they broke . . . like music to my ears.”
“Shut up,” Cleo snarled.
Suddenly, the prisoner’s eyes widened. His mouth opened, his lips moving as if he sought his next breath but couldn’t find it.
“What?” he croaked out. “What . . . is happening?”
Cleo tried to stay calm, but it had grown more difficult with every hateful word this prisoner uttered. Nerissa was right—it had been a horrible mistake to come here.
She needed to find Taran. He now had the air Kindred within him, battling for dominance of his mortal body. She’d all but ignored him since last night, lost in her own grief, her own suffering.
She shouldn’t have. She needed him. She needed to know how he was coping.
Her hand burned. She looked down at the water symbol, and her eyes widened. Small, wispy blue lines had begun to spread out from the symbol itself.
“You’re a witch!” the prisoner gasped.
Was that what he thought? That she’d drawn an elemental symbol on her palm, hoping to summon a small piece of water magic like a common witch?
I’m not a witch, she wanted to say.
I don’t know what I am anymore.
Cleo looked around at the small, dark room. This was the very room where Magnus had suffered.
“Is he dead?” she managed, her words barely understandable. Then she yelled: “Answer me!”
“By now?” the prisoner gritted out. “I have no doubt that he is.”
All the breath left Cleo’s body as she stared at this monster.
“You’ve said enough,” Amara snarled at the prisoner.
“Yes, he has,” Cleo said.
Then she allowed her hate and grief to surge forward. In an instant, the burning sensation in her left hand turned to ice.
The prisoner’s eyes bugged, his mouth opening wide as he let out a pained scream that cut off abruptly. He froze in place, his hands restrained in the metal cuffs, the heavy chain attached to the wall.
“What are you doing to him?” Amara gasped.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Her pain and rage had triggered something inside her that she couldn’t control. But instinctively she knew what was happening. She sensed every trace of water in the man’s body as it turned to solid ice.
A chill fell over the cell like a shroud. When Cleo exhaled, her breath formed a frozen cloud just as it did on the coldest days in Limeros.
Then the prisoner’s frozen body shattered into countless pieces of ice.
Cleo stared with shock at what was left of the man as her mind cleared. Stunned silence filled the dungeon cell for several moments.
“You killed him,” Amara said, her voice hushed.
Cleo slowly turned to face Amara, expecting to be greeted with a look of horror, of fear. Perhaps the empress would fall to the ground and beg for her own life.
Instead, Amara regarded her with what appeared to be . . . envy.
“Incredible,” Amara breathed. “You showed us all a little water magic last night, so I knew it had to be possible. But this? Truly incredible. Perhaps Gaius was wrong about what he said. You—you and Taran—can use the Kindred elementia within you without it destroying your mortal bodies.”
As if every ounce of strength had suddenly left her in a rush, Cleo collapsed to her knees, bracing herself on her hands. The ground was wet, the icy fragments from the prisoner already starting to melt.
She’d wanted this for so long—to possess the magic of the Kindred.