Chapter 3
His eyes found Julian’s.
For a heartbeat, the wild, homicidal fury on Arthur’s face vanished, replaced by an abyss of dark, unreadable intensity that made the hair on the back of Julian’s neck stand up. Then Arthur sneered, spat upon the flagstones, and allowed himself to be dragged down into the darkness.
Julian pulled his robes tightly around himself, stepped onto the cold, slick stairs, and followed him into the depths.
The subterranean corridor smelled of ancient river mud, sulfur, and sweating stone.
Two guards flanked them down the winding spiral of steps, their lanterns casting jittery yellow discs across walls slick with moisture. With every turn, the roar of the High Court muffled, fading into a dull, subterranean rumble like carriage wheels over a distant bridge. Arthur walked three paces ahead, his broad shoulders hunched as if bearing the weight of the entire courthouse, his wrists bound in heavy iron cuffs that clanked with a hollow, rhythmic percussion against his thighs.
At the bottom of the landing, the chief turnkey shoved a heavy iron key into the lock of a low-vaulted holding cell. The iron groaned in protest, metal scraping against rusted metal, before the thick oak door swung open with a screech.
“Get in,” the guard growled, prodding Arthur between the shoulder blades with the blunt butt of his pike.
Arthur stumbled forward onto the damp flagstones, his boots sliding half an inch in the grime before catching himself. He didn’t look back.
Julian followed, pulling the hem of his black barrister’s robe off the wet floor. His knees felt hollowed out, packed with powdered chalk. The second he crossed the threshold, the guard seized his collar and shoved him inward, sending Julian sprawling toward the low wooden bench bolted against the wall.
“One hour,” the turnkey barked from the corridor. “Pound on the wood if the beast tries to bite your nose off, Counselor. Though by the look of his eyes, you won’t have the breath left to scream.”
The iron door slammed shut.
The heavy deadbolt slid into place with an echoing, absolute *thud*.
For three seconds, neither of them moved. The footfalls of the guards retreated down the passage, their coarse laughter echoing off the damp arches until the heavy oak grate at the head of the stairwell clicked shut.
Only then did the silence settle—heavy, damp, and freezing.
Julian leaned back against the rough limestone wall, his eyes closed, his chest heaving as if he had just dragged himself out of a winter lake. Adrenaline ebbed from his veins, leaving behind a sickening, hollow tremor that traveled from his solar plexus straight down to his fingers. He held up his hands in the gloom; they were shaking so violently that his cuffs fluttered against his wrists like dry leaves in a gale. The black gall ink was ground into the grain of his thumbs, dark as old blood.
A shadow fell over him.
Julian opened his eyes.
Arthur stood towering above him. The snarling, rabid contempt that had twisted the soldier’s face upstairs was gone. Every line of false brutality had melted away, leaving behind an expression so raw, so aching with tenderness, that Julian felt an immediate, sharp pain behind his ribs.
Before Julian could draw breath, Arthur dropped to his knees on the filthy flagstones, heedless of the standing water seeping into his trousers. He raised his bound hands, looping the heavy iron chain over his own wrists to free his fingers, and reached out.
Arthur caught Julian’s shaking hands between his broad, calloused palms.
The shock of the warmth went straight through Julian’s marrow. Arthur’s skin was rough, crosshatched with sabre scars and the small, stubborn burns of campfires, but his touch was impossibly gentle. Arthur squeezed Julian’s hands tightly, sandwiching the quivering, ink-stained fingers between his own, rubbing his thumbs over Julian’s knuckles with fierce, steady rhythm.
“You’re freezing,” Arthur murmured. His voice was no longer the rasping growl of a cornered beast; it was low, velvet-dark, and thick with an affection he had been forced to choke down for hours. “Look at you. You’re shivering like a wet dog.”
Julian let out a ragged, trembling laugh that hitched halfway up his throat. “I am not freezing. My heart is simply trying to batter its way out of my ribs.”
“It did a fine job up there,” Arthur said quietly, still working the heat back into Julian’s hands, bringing Julian’s right knuckles to his lips to press a warm, lingering kiss against the ink-blackened skin. “You looked like you were going to faint three times, Jules. I thought Vance was going to throw his wig at you.”
“You were supposed to hesitate,” Julian whispered, his voice cracking on the soldier’s name. He turned his hands within Arthur’s grip, his long, pale fingers desperately curling around Arthur’s broad ones, clinging to him like a man clinging to the gunwale of a capsizing boat. “I told you to wait for Finch’s second objection before you disavowed the signature. You roared at me before Finch even cleared his throat!”
“I saw Sterling leaning forward in that velvet box,” Arthur replied, his jaw tightening slightly. “The smug bastard was smiling, Jules. He was watching you sweat, drinking it in like fine wine. I wasn't going to let him enjoy it for another second. The sooner the chaos started, the faster his little spider-web began to tear.”
Julian looked down at Arthur’s wrists.
Beneath the iron cuffs, the skin was raw and weeping red. The bailiffs upstairs had ratcheted the screws down tight, punishing the disgraced captain for his insolence in the dock. Dark purple bruises were already blooming around the tendons, blood crusting in the seam where the metal bit into the bone.
A hot surge of anger and grief rose in Julian’s chest. “Those swine,” Julian breathed, letting go of Arthur’s hands only to reach for the iron bands. He touched the split skin with trembling fingertips, his touch as reverent as a priest’s before an altar. “They tightened them on purpose.”
“Doesn't hurt,” Arthur lied, though a slight twitch near the corner of his mouth betrayed him as Julian’s thumb brushed the torn flesh.
“Don’t lie to me, Arthur Thorne. I know the set of your shoulders when you’re in pain. I’ve known it since the Pyrenees.” Julian reached into his inner breast pocket, withdrawing a clean linen handkerchief he had kept dry beneath his woolen coat. With swift, practiced motions born of years tending wounded men in field tents, he wound the linen carefully around the raw meat of Arthur’s right wrist, cushioning the iron ring against the broken skin. “If you lose a finger to gangrene before this trial is done, I will hang you myself.”
Arthur watched him work. His golden-brown eyes, illuminated only by the faint light filtering through the high iron grate of the cell door, were luminous with an emotion so fierce it seemed almost dangerous.
“Two months ago,” Arthur murmured, his voice softening until it barely stirred the damp air between them, “you couldn’t even look me in the eye without flinching.”
Julian paused, the linen taut between his fingers. A dull ache settled behind his breastbone.
