Page 44 of Scourged

Mariah kept her expression still, even as confusion raced through her. “Putting myself through what?”

Anniliese gathered her skirts in her hand, setting down theallumelamp. She rose again, still holding Mariah’s gaze.

“All … this.” She gestured with a pale hand at the cell, the mattress, the clothing on Mariah’s back. “You could put an end to it all, so easily.”

“Oh? I could?” A note of incredulity crept into Mariah’s voice.

Anniliese nodded. “Yes. My father told me that if you give up, if you agree to abdicate your power, all this will end. They will let you leave here with your life and dignity intact.”

Mariah couldn’t stop the dull, lifeless snort that escaped her lips. “You can’t honestly be that stupid.”

Anniliese stiffened. “I trust my father. The other lords can be … difficult, but my father?—”

“Your father had his hands up my skirts last night, pawing at me like an animal, just like the rest of them. He treats you well, certainly, but you’re his daughter. It’s how a man treats the other women in his life, the ones who have less value to him, that show his true nature.”

Anniliese’s mouth gaped open and closed, gasping like a fish. Mariah would’ve laughed.

Would have. If she’d been anywhere else, not trapped and defiled in a rotting cell below the earth.

To her shock, the other girl’s cheeks flushed pink. She hung her head, a few curls falling around her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t—I didn’t know. What they were going to do to you. I wanted to stop it, but—” Anniliese breathed a shaky inhale, still hiding her eyes.

Mariah watched her, curiosity settling like stones. “You’re afraid of them.” It was just a guess, but Mariah didn’t ask it as a question. There was something about the other girl that now felt so empty, so defeated.

Like Anniliese, too, was trapped in a prison. One that wrapped velvet and tulle around her neck and wrists, corseted bodices worn like chains.

Anniliese sniffed, wiping a quick finger beneath her eyes, before lifting her head.

“Why would I be afraid of them,” she said evenly. “They are my family, and they care for me. They will always protect me.”

“If you truly believed that, you would’ve stopped them last night.”

Anniliese raised her chin higher. “I said I didn’t know what they would do and that I was sorry. I didn’t say I had any wish to help you or protect you.”

Mariah smiled at her, somewhat sadly. “Then it’s quite a good thing I don’t need your help or protection.”

Anniliese blinked, before shaking her head. “Why do you do this? Why are you letting them break you?” Her fingers flew to her thin neck, toying with a delicate necklace lying there.

“Why are you suddenly so concerned about them breaking me, Anniliese?” Mariah narrowed her eyes. “You certainly didn’t have any reservations before about tormenting me.”

Anniliese released a frustrated groan. “That … that wasn’t mychoice. They made me. They told me the faster you broke, the sooner I could become queen. I did what they asked, and I hated every minute of it.”

The air around Mariah stilled. Water dripped down the damp stone walls, collecting in frozen pools at the back of her cell. She shifted, her tangled hair brushing across her too-thin arms.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, no more than a deadly-quiet whisper.

Anniliese’s eyes widened, face leeching of color. “I—nothing. I was … nothing. I was talking to myself.”

The silence between the two women stretched into the sky somewhere high above, where the moons cast their longing rays upon the earth and the stars cried out for something to hope for.

“I want you to promise me something, Anniliese Hareth.” Mariah’s voice was still quiet, but there was strength behind her words. Strength she hadn’t felt in many long, cold weeks.

Anniliese regarded her cautiously. “I will not free you.”

“That’s not what I want from you.” Mariah shifted forward on her cot, placing her feet flat on the stone.

“Stop playing for your father. For men who will never appreciate a woman’s worth. Find it in yourself to start making your own choices. Do things not because they tell you to do them, but because it’s whatyouwant for yourself.”

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