Page 81 of Claimed

‘It requires accuracy.’

‘Then be accurate somewhere useful.’

She inclines her head, no submission in it at all.

I turn towards the fractured path back to my ruined chambers, towards the Heartshard Glass I have avoided because broken mirrors show too many things at once.

The mark burns.

Eira’s pulse beats below.

Morrighan waits in every dark place my body tries to fall.

And I, who have survived empires, betrayals, blood wars and Gods wearing women’s faces, stand in my own Tower with poison in my veins and relief rotting under my fury because the woman who betrayed me may yet be necessary.

Alive.

Mine to question. To punish. To keep breathing until the world gives me a better reason to stop wanting what I should destroy.

‘Rowan,’ I say without turning back.

‘Yes?’

‘Do not fail me.’

Her answer comes soft as snow over a grave. ‘Then stop lying to yourself long enough to survive.’

14

EIRA

The dungeon reeks of old stone, iron, and the kind of cold that taunts your very bones, then laughs with every shiver.

I’ve paced every inch of this cell so many times my body knows the dimensions better than thought does. Seven strides one way. Turn. Seven back.

The walls are rough in places, slick in others, damp enough that my fingertips come away wet when I press too hard.

The wards hum beneath the stone, low and constant, prickling over my skin and turning each breath thin with irritation.

They don’t threaten death in any of the hundred different ways my mind conjured when Malachi threw me in here hours ago with murder in his smile and victory in his eyes. No. The wards only remind me, over and over, that I’m not here by accident.

I’m here because Valentin Moretti put me here.

That thought arrives fresh every time, sharp enough to cut. And my hands curl so tightly my nails bite crescent moons into my palms. I let them.

Pain is clean. Pain is mine.

Everything else is a riot.

There’s fury, blistering enough to keep me moving when exhaustion drags at my limbs. There’s confusion too, though I resent it. Confusion feels too close to weakness, to being outplayed, and I’ve been outplayed enough for one lifetime.

Then, possibly worst of all, there’s the darker thing under both, the thing I keep circling without naming because the second I give it shape, it becomes real.

Hurt.

Ah fuck, I named it.

I yank once more at the iron ring bolted into the wall. The chain attached to it rattles, brutal and hollow, a sound that skates through the chamber and comes back worthless. The grave-binds – enchanted black-silver restraints forged to suppress power and sap resistance – are gone now. But the insult of them still clings to my skin.