Page 30 of A Broken Throne of Bronze

“I’m here.” I nod and my lower lip quivers without my permission.

Viridian’s threat from dinner, the night I held the butter knife to his throat, rises to the forefront of my mind.

“If you ever try to cross me again, I will personally see to it that your lover pays the price.”

I remember how angry he was. How his eyes blazed.

“Has he hurt you?” I ask Loren, frantically scanning him for injuries. “The Crown Prince?”

“No,” he assures me, brushing his thumb back and forth against my cheek. “I haven’t seen him since that first day.”

I sigh in relief, and the tension in my shoulders lessens.

“We have to go,” I tell him. Dropping to my knees, I inspect the metal bars, looking for the lock.

“We can’t.” Loren’s words hang over me, heavy with the sting of defeat.

“What do you mean, we can’t?” I look up at him, eyes wide. “We can’t stay here.”

“Believe me, I know—I don’t want to stay here. I…” His voice slows. “I want a quiet life with you, in Slyfell. Maybe a farm, children, I don’t know.”

I drop my gaze from his.

A quiet life in Slyfell. A safe life. The life I always thought I would have.

“You don’t… You don’t want more than that?” I ask. I know this isn’t the time to have this conversation, but I can’t seem to stop the question from leaving my lips.

Loren crouches, so he’s at my level. “What more is there to want?”

“I don’t know,” I murmur, shaking my head a little. “Something.”

There’s so much out there—so much to see, so much to do. The whole world waits at our fingertips. There has to be something else.

Something more.

Right?

But Loren only chuckles softly, looking at me as if I’ve said something adorable. I don’t like it.

“The cell,” I say, my voice grainy as I direct his attention back to the steel that cages him. Anything to make him stop looking at me like that—like wanting more out of life is so unfathomable. “We need to open this door.”

“We can’t, Cryssa. There’s no lock.”

“No lock?” My words come out fast and garbled. “How can there not be—”

“Magic,” Loren cuts in. “It’s magically secured.” His expression lifts slightly, as if he’s remembering the bakery incident, too. “There’s no lock for you to pick this time. Trust me, I wish there were.”

“Then we’ll find another way out,” I say, rising to my feet. “We’ll think of something, we can—”

Loren’s entire body goes rigid. He holds up his palm, and the motion silences me immediately.

Cocking his head, he flicks his eyes toward the dungeons’ entrance and then back to me. Clearing my mind, I strain to listen.

Voices.

There are voices coming from the top of the staircase leading down here.

“You need to leave,” Loren tells me, his words firm. “Now.”

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