Page 123 of The Prince's Captive

She threw up a shield in just enough time for it to shatter as Aimilia’s lightning bolt slammed into it. Marcella stumbled back from the force, and she lifted her hands to cast again, but before she could finish her rune, she had to throw herself to the ground to avoid the next lightning bolt. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see it strike the wall behind her.

Marcella was trying to get to her feet, but a vitae whip encircled her ankle and was dragging her across the ground. Maybe the Inimicus liked vitae whips more than her people knew. Marcella flipped over, trying to dig her hands into the dirt, but it all slipped away from her as Aimilia pulled on the whip and started moving.

She wasn’t dragging Marcella toward her. She was dragging Marcella behind her.

As she was ripped across the ground, Marcella gave up on trying to ground herself and instead rolled onto her back and cast a short rune, but the blinding light was enough to cause Aimilia to let go and Marcella to get a moment to think of something better.

The something better she thought of was to cast another shield in just enough time to block the next whip coming her way. When it shattered, Marcella just cast another.

She stayed on the ground, throwing up shield after shield until she couldn’t anymore. Aimilia hovered over her, hands spread out with a rune at her throat, ensuring her victory. Guess she was done playing with her.

Prince Nikias called out and Aimilia immediately dropped the rune.

Marcella just rolled onto her front, feeling every bruise and scrape she’d gotten.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Aimilia standing beside her, a hand on her hip. She called something out to Prince Nikias.

Marcella blinked and looked up at him as he replied, his arms crossed as he glared at Aimilia. His displeasure didn’t seem to faze Aimilia as she just gave Prince Nikias a beautiful, winning smile.

Prince Nikias just shook his head and turned to the guards. Within a few seconds, the walls were gone and the guards were grabbing her by the arms and hauling her to her feet. She was too dazed to try and stop them. They clapped the limiters back around her wrists and started hauling her away as soon as Prince Nikias waved his hand.

Marcella didn’t understand what had just happened.

But it happened again the next day.

She was thrown into the ring, her limiters removed, and she threw the matches against Aimilia.

Well… maybe not threw.

She held back, but even if she hadn’t, she was fairly certain Aimilia would still be eating her alive. Every match that likelihood only increased as Marcella’s exhaustion grew, the meals she was able to keep down decreased, and her bruises, scrapes, and burns multiplied.

All minor, but plenty of them.

Marcella assumed they were trying to continue what Gavril had started doing, studying her people’s magic to better fight against it, but it had never been like this. She didn’t think Gavril had so much as left a bruise on her.

She’d known he’d been holding back.

Marcella didn’t think Aimilia knew the concept.

But Aimilia didn’t do anything that would cause Marcella a major injury, blessedly. So maybe she did. Or at least she just wasn’t trying to outright kill Marcella.

But Marcella was not going to just give them the one thing she knew she could use against them. She would not cast two runes at the same time.

And she would let Aimilia beat her into the ground if she had to.

She imagined it was probably very rewarding for the other girl, given Marcella was the one to blame for setting off the chain of events that had her relationship with Gavril fracturing.

Although it was strange, after every fight, when the guards began to peel her off the ground to clasp her cuffs back on, she would watch Aimilia and Nikias argue with each other. Nikias clearly wasn’t happy with Aimilia, likely due to the fact that Aimilia wasn’t getting Marcella to expose more of her people’s runes or secrets.

A week after Gavril had left, Marcella caught Aimilia throwing the words at Nikias as she stormed off, “—it, do it yourself—barely stand—pathetic—”

Marcella was too close to fainting for the significance to register to her until the next day.

When the guards shoved her to the ground and ripped her arms out from under her to remove the cuffs, she spotted brown hair out of the corner of her eye and not red.

Prince Nikias was in the ring with her.

She scrambled to her feet. She hadn’t gotten any answers when she’d asked in her tongue, but—

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