Chapter 4
The proximity was maddening. Every instinct I had screamed to tilt my head, to close the distance, to crush my mouth against his and take the kiss we had denied ourselves for three long years. I wanted to drag him down onto the straw, iron chains be damned, and remind him that before he was a crown prince and before I was a condemned warlord, we were two men who had looked into the abyss together and chosen each other.
Instead, I looked into those storm-grey eyes, seeing the desperate plea hidden beneath the royal veneer.
"I swear it," I rasped, the lie tasting like ash on my tongue. I had no intention of waiting for the axe, but I would give him whatever peace he needed to survive the night. "Three days. I won't move until the third day."
Julian closed his eyes, a single shudder passing through his body as if some immense tension had temporarily snapped.
He didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned up on his toes, his hands sliding up to cup both sides of my jaw, and pressed his mouth to mine.
It wasn't a tentative touch. It was fierce, desperate, tastes of salt and peppermint and raw, unvarnished hunger. It was the kiss of two drowning men sharing their last gasp of air beneath a frozen lake. My bound hands pulled him tighter against me, the iron manacles biting into my own wrists as I held him, opening my mouth to his, feeling the desperate slide of his tongue, the hot, frantic shudder of his breath against my skin.
For three heartbeats, the citadel ceased to exist. There was no Grand Duke Alden, no comatose Emperor, no howling mob outside demanding my blood, no scaffold awaiting my neck. There was only Julian—his warmth, his scent, the impossible softness of his lips beneath the rough scrape of my beard, the way he whimpered into the kiss as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to the living world.
When he pulled back, both of us were breathing hard, our chests colliding in the narrow space between the chains. His pupils were blown wide, his lips swollen, flushed a deep, vivid red in the firelight.
"Three days, Rowan," he whispered, his voice trembling as he stepped out of the circle of my arms. He ducked under the iron chain, his hands lingering on my waist for one final, agonizing second before slipping away into the cold air. "Hold on for three days."
"Julian, wait—"
He didn't wait. He picked up the empty purse, turned on his heel, and slipped through the cell door with the swift, phantom grace of a ghost. The oak panel clicked shut behind him. The lock turned with a smooth, oiled whisper.
I stood alone in the center of the cell, my pulse roaring in my ears, the taste of his mouth still burning on my lips.
Above me, through the stone ceiling and the layers of royal rock, the deep, mournful toll of the cathedral bell began to strike the fourth hour. Dawn was creeping over the capital. In a few hours, the guards would come with halberds and chains to drag me before Grand Duke Alden and the High Council of Valenica.
I looked down at my wrists. The comfrey salve was cool against the torn skin, but beneath the medicine, my blood was boiling.
*Three days,* he had said.
I looked at the barred window, at the shadows twisting on the mortar. Julian was playing a game he was destined to lose, surrounded by wolves who had already picked his kingdom clean. He thought he could buy me time. He thought a delay would save me.
He was wrong. But as I sat back down on the wooden bench, gathering the heavy iron chains across my lap, my jaw set with cold, unyielding certainty.
Julian had risked everything to come to this dungeon tonight. He had kissed a condemned man on the eve of his execution.
If the prince was too noble to run from this burning palace, then I would tear the gates off their hinges myself. I had three days to find a weapon, three days to map the guard rotations, and three days to figure out how to slaughter every man who stood between Crown Prince Julian and his throne.
The Vanguard might have fallen, but its commander was still breathing. And until they took my head, the wolves of Valenica would find that their captive had far sharper teeth than they had bargained for.
The dawn did not come with birdsong. It came with the deafening clang of an iron bar being wrenched from the outside latch and the heavy, rhythmic thud of plate-shod boots on stone.
Four men filed into the cell. They didn’t wear the royal livery of the azure falcon. They wore the charcoal-grey tunics and blackened cuirasses of the Iron Watch—Grand Duke Alden’s personal retainers.
"On your feet, mercenary," the lead guard barked. He was a thick-necked veteran with a jagged scar running from ear to collar, carrying a poleaxe with the casual balance of a butcher. "The High Council convenes. Duke Alden does not like to wait."
I didn’t move immediately. I let my eyes trace the four of them, assessing their stances, their weight distribution, the weak points in their arming jackets. If my wrists had been free, two of them would have been dead before the cell door finished swinging open. But the heavy iron bar between my cuffs weighed twelve pounds, and the chain bolted to the floor was still anchored deep.
The lead guard took my silence for defiance. He stepped forward and drove the butt of his poleaxe into my gut.
The breath exploded from my lungs in a harsh hiss. Pain flared hot and sharp across my ribs, but I didn't give him the satisfaction of dropping to my knees. I swallowed the taste of copper, locked my jaw, and hauled myself upright off the wooden bench.
"Charming manners," I rasped, wiping a speck of blood from my lip with the back of my bruised hand. "Do they teach you that in the ducal barracks, or is it born of inbreeding?"
The guard’s jaw clenched, but before he could swing the haft a second time, the man behind him caught his shoulder. "Leave it, Varek. The Duke wants him breathing for the dais. The prince made a stink about the prisoner appearing whole."
*The prince.*
The mention of Julian sent a sharp jolt through my chest, chasing away the ache in my ribs. I masked it instantly, letting my face settle into the impassive, stone-carved sneer of a commander who had seen a hundred executions and feared none of them.
They unlocked the floor tether with a heavy brass key, leaving the wrist irons intact, and clamped a second set of shackles around my ankles. The stride it allowed me was barely eighteen inches. A humiliating shuffle designed to strip a warrior of his dignity before he even reached the light of day.
They dragged me up through the winding belly of the citadel. The air grew progressively warmer and sickeningly sweet, trading the sharp birch smoke of the dungeon for burning lavender oils and expensive beeswax.
