The dirt clung to my skin even as the world slipped away. I didn’t faint so much as my body forced itself into silence, like shutting down was the only way to keep me from shattering.When I woke, the stone ceiling swam above me. My throat burned with thirst, my stomach cramped with hunger, and every inch of me ached as if my bones had been replaced with rusted iron. The cot beneath me was stiff, but it was still the first surface in days that wasn’t dirt or stone. The blanket tangled around my legs like a restraint.For a long time, I lay there. Breathing. Just breathing.My hands, bandaged poorly by someone who clearly didn’t care about the stitching of flesh, throbbed in sync with my heartbeat. The blisters had burst open again and again until my palms were one raw map of pain. Whoever wrapped them didn’t bother with ointment. The bandages smelled faintly of iron and sweat.The door creaked open before I could pull myself upright.Luca. Again. Of course.He leaned against the frame
The shovel slid from my hands.The clang when it hit the dirt rang through the yard like a bell, sharp enough to turn heads. My arms dangled uselessly at my sides, muscles twitching with tremors I couldn’t stop. I wanted to pick the damned thing back up, to prove I wasn’t done, but my fingers wouldn’t obey me anymore. They curled into bloody claws, nails clogged with soil, palms shredded raw.Luca loomed nearby, arms crossed, waiting for me to collapse so he could sneer, I told you so.I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I braced my knees, forced my back straight, and stared at the half-turned ground. The sun had bled away, leaving streaks of purple and gold in the sky, and shadows stretched long across the yard. The air cooled, but inside my chest, a furnace raged.One more day. Tomorrow, I’d finish.A laugh carried across the training yard—one of the warriors, perched against the wall with his friends. “Look at her. Shaking like a leaf.”“Leaves don’t bleed like that,” another mutte
Sleep was a stranger.They’d shoved me into a small, stone-walled chamber near the barracks. No window, just a narrow slit where moonlight managed to slip through and paint the floor in a pale streak. A cot sat in the corner, thin blanket folded with military precision, but my body refused to surrender to it.Every time I closed my eyes, ghosts rose to greet me. Faces I’d buried. Names I’d never forget. Isabella’s voice—sharp, cold, laced with steel—echoed in my skull. You’ll never have what you once did.I didn’t deserve the cot, or the blanket, or the air filling my lungs. I knew that. Still, I sat hunched on the edge of it, hands twisted tight, listening to the faint sounds of the pack outside. Their laughter. Their footsteps. Their lives. Lives I’d poisoned.When the first cracks of dawn slipped through the slit in the wall, I rose. My legs felt like stone, but I forced them to move. Today was the day. Penance, she had called it. Punishment, I knew.The door slammed open before I
The weight of my own words lingered in the air, heavy as stone. You’ll stay. The sentence should have felt like victory, like reclaiming power after years of betrayal. Instead, it sat bitter on my tongue.Behind me, I heard the faint scrape of Thalia’s boots as she shifted, uncertain whether she was allowed to breathe, much less speak.I turned slowly, eyes sharp as blades. “Don’t mistake silence for safety. You’re here because I’ve chosen to keep my enemy where I can see her—not because I’ve forgotten what you are.”Her lips parted, a fragile thing. “I understand.”I narrowed my eyes. “Do you? You’ll eat when I say, work where I say, and sleep under guard until I decide otherwise. My people will look at you and see a viper in their house. And if you so much as blink in a way I don’t like, I won’t hesitate to end this arrangement.”Her hands clenched at her sides, but her voice was steady. “That’s more than I deserve.”I hated her composure. Hated that she didn’t rise to my cruelty, d
Her sobs echoed in my hall like ghosts that refused to leave.I stood above her, every muscle in my body rigid, my nails digging into my palms until I felt the sting. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Because if I let myself breathe too deeply, if I let myself think too long, the walls I’d spent years building would start to crack.Thalia.The name alone was enough to sour my tongue.The woman kneeling at my feet wasn’t the shadow who had haunted my every step, the blade that had been turned against me too many times. No—this woman was hollow, broken, stripped down to pieces she could barely hold together. But that didn’t erase the blood. It didn’t erase the choices.I wanted to hate her. I wanted that hate to burn bright, to drown out the tremor in my chest. But standing here, with her voice still trembling in the air, I felt something else stir—a weight I hadn’t asked for, one that settled heavy in my lungs.Pity.And gods, that made me furious.“Get up,” I said sharply.Her head jerked, e
The road stretched endless, dust rising in muted clouds around my boots with each step. My body ached, but it was nothing compared to the weight clawing at my chest. That ache wasn’t hunger. I wasn't thirsty. It was guilt, raw and unrelenting, pressing me into the dirt like I carried stones on my back.Isabella’s pack sat on the horizon, guarded walls and watchtowers pricking the skyline. A fortress. A home. And the one place I had no right to walk into.And yet, here I was.Every step closer tightened my lungs. What if she turned me away? What if the look in her eyes was nothing but hatred? Gods knew I deserved it. I’d earned her rage a hundred times over. My name had been whispered in curses, spat out like poison. I’d been the shadow lurking behind too many wounds, too many betrayals.But after everything, after blood spilled and bridges burned, I couldn’t keep running. Not from her. Not from the truth.I stopped at the crest of the hill, staring down at the pack below. Smoke rose l