Page 127 of The Prince's Captive

She didn’t remember taking it off.

As she turned her head, she blinked past the tears in her eyes to look at the room.

There.

She could see his cloak sitting on the floor at the foot of the table. She tried to reach for it before she realized how futile that was. Her right hand was strapped down and the cloak was on her left and the table was high off the ground. She wouldn’t be able to reach it that way.

But she wanted it.

She didn’t know what had happened. Why she was on the table. What she’d done to deserve being put back up there to be experimented on. What had happened to Gavril.

Because something had to have happened.

He’d promised she’d be safe.

If he wasn’t around to keep that promise—

Marcella tried to bite her tongue to muffle the cry rising in her throat at that thought, but she failed.

Was Gavril dead?

No. No. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

But… what else would the throne room have been about? Why Aimilia would be so upset and be wishing Nikias dead instead?

No. She had to be wrong.

She’d promised she would keep his cloak and wear it, and when he came back, she would return it.

She looked at the cloak on the ground again. She couldn’t reach it with her right hand, but her left wasn’t strapped down. Her hand wasn’t restrained by a metal contraption inhibiting her fingers from motion.

She flexed her feet and turned them, bracing her toes on the wood and pushing herself up the table as far as she could go until the leather straps on her ankles caught and stopped her. Her front scraped against the smooth wood and she shuddered as the feeling only doubled how exposed and vulnerable she was in that moment.

Still, she was able to twist and get her left shoulder over the edge of the table and dangle her hand down. She hissed as pain doubled back up her wrist, but gritted her teeth since it was only the beginning.

She stretched her fingers out until they brushed the fabric piled on the floor. The sob that fell out of her was pathetic, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the feeling of the familiar fabric under her fingertips or the fire threatening to overtake her and send her back into unconsciousness again.

She curled her fingers into it and pulled back up.

It was agonizing and slow and she could feel the weight of the fabric pulling down and threatening to spill from her grip, but she only tightened her hold and pushed down the pain in her wrist. If the cloak slipped out of her grip, she wouldn’t have the strength of will to grab it again.

So inch by inch she pulled it up until it crested the top of the table, and she was able to pull it under her front and curl into it as much as possible with her restraints.

Marcella got some of the fabric beneath her head and she buried her face into it. It was dusty and dirty from the matches with Aimilia, but it was still Gavril’s and that was enough.

Her mind was too addled to reason why she thought having the cloak under her would somehow bring Gavril back safely. All she knew was that she had promised.

The cold night air cut through her back, but his cloak was warm against her cheek and front.

She prayed to Asentai that she would wake up in her cell the next morning and that Gavril would be outside her cell door.

Epilogue

GAVRIL

Gavril had forgotten how much he hated being a commander. He mostly just hated the way the soldiers spoke. Since he was only being given a few men just to bring back any supplies he might find, he’d been cautiously optimistic they’d be better behaved than the last group of Runai he’d had on the mission to capture Hypatia. He’d also made himself clear that if he heard so much of a whisper of vulgarity about his wife or frankly any woman, he would be leaving them behind in Sordes territory.

And they knew now he was good for it. Mage Hirtus had never returned. And good riddance to him.

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