The silence after the screaming was louder than the screams themselves.
They had left again—whoever they were—and this time, I didn't scream. I didn't sob. I didn't beg. There was no one left to hear it.
The cold from the stone floor had crept into my bones. The chains around my wrists had long since rubbed my skin raw, and the dampness in the air made it sting every time I moved. Time was nothing here. There was only the ache, the quiet, and the taste of metal in my mouth.
I don't know how long I hung in that darkness.
The last visit had ended with their laughter fading as the door shut, and I was left alone in the void. I remember thinking, This is it. This is how I disappear. A ghost chained beneath stone.
I was weak. And I hated that more than anything.
I tried to count heartbeats once, to track time, but it was impossible. My mind frayed around the edges. I'd whisper to myself to stay sharp, to remember who I was, but it became harder with every hour, every day—if they were days at all.
I dreamed once that I was back in the garden with the king's wife, her hands warm around mine. In the dream, she looked me in the eye and said, "You were never meant to die here, Delbeyrah."
Then the walls fell away and I was drowning in blood.
I awoke screaming, the cold iron biting into my wrists.
---
They didn't speak to me.
They'd come into the room, faces masked, eyes bright with some feral amusement. They struck me when I tried to ask questions. They forced me to drink, but only enough to keep me conscious. Once, they brought a tray of food. I reached for it with trembling fingers, only for one of them to kick it over, scattering it across the stone floor.
I think that was the moment something in me began to fracture.
Not from the pain, but from the pettiness.
Who were they? Not the Ember Ring. This wasn't how they operated. These men—if they were men—were blunt instruments, not silent daggers. Mercenaries? Slaves bought for blood sport?
Or worse—something personal.
What did they want with me?
Was I bait?
Or was this simply punishment?
---
Sometimes I hallucinated. I'd see Nira standing in the corner, arms crossed, eyes sharp, like she always was during briefings. Once I saw my mother, though I had never known her. Just a silhouette with my eyes, whispering to me through the dark.
"Don't give them the ending they want."
I whispered back, "I don't know how to fight anymore."
Her silhouette said nothing.
I cried once. Just once. When I thought I heard Keal's voice from beyond the walls. I don't know why it broke me.
Perhaps because some part of me wanted him to come. To apologize. To mean it.
I hated that part of myself. I told it to rot.
---
On the sixth—or maybe sixteenth—day, I tried to die.
I stopped drinking the brackish water they poured into my tin cup. I let myself drift. My body ached less, but my thoughts grew hazy. I thought I saw flames dancing across the ceiling. I welcomed them. I thought I heard my father's voice, calm and cold, like when I was summoned into his chamber after the death of the spies.
"If you die here," he said in my hallucination, "you become no more than they expected of you."
I gritted my teeth, the sound dry and brittle like bones cracking.
"No," I muttered. "Not like this."
---
I drank the next time they left the cup.
I was going to survive, even if survival meant crawling through whatever they threw at me. Even if my pride was a shattered thing. Even if my strength felt like ashes.
Because I hadn't written my ending yet.
And no one else had the right to.
---
My thoughts became sharper after that. I began noticing things again.
The door only opened from the left side. The guards changed every three turns of my breath. One of them limped slightly, favoring his right leg. Another always smelled of mint, like he chewed leaves while watching me.
Small things. But small things made plans.
Even when you're in chains.
I didn't know how long I'd last. I didn't know if anyone even knew where I was. But I remembered the scrolls I'd left behind. The allies I'd hidden even from the White Shadows. The fear I'd planted in the palace.
Someone would come.
Or I would find a way out myself.
But one thing was certain—I would never be the same girl who entered Ethen's Spine.
Whatever walked out of this cell—if anything ever did—would be something far colder.
Far more dangerous.