Page 44 of The Prince's Captive

He shot a deliberate look at the other commander who now stood to the side of them but also directly equidistant between them. The heretic stood to his left, closer to Gavril than to Marcella.

Gavril gave a few orders in a low voice, speaking faster and there was something to his voice… almost like he was trying to be harder to be understood by someone who wasn’t a native speaker. He couldn’t possibly know she knew pieces of their language… could he?

Either way… he didn’t want her to know what was going on.

If he hadn’t taken away the chains connecting her wrists, she would have wrapped them around his throat no matter how futile an effort it would be to stop whatever they were about to do to her.

Some of the men moved into action, digging through their supplies. As they did so, she glanced around once more, just to weigh the odds.

No. Even if she tried to just run for it, she wasn’t going to make it even to the edge of the camp before one of them caught her and dragged her back.

One of the men rushed back over to them with a little ration cake and another with a waterskin.

“—last night on the road—” the man with the waterskin was saying as he held it out to Gavril.

Gavril took it and uncorked the waterskin and smelled it. “—whole time—taking up space—”

The man raised his hands defensively. “—punish me—giving it—in handy—”

Gavril let out an ironic huff of laughter. “—pose that’s fair enough. Thank you—close enough—repay—arrive—”

Marcella caught a whiff and it definitely wasn’t water.

“—count as—wineskin—not a glass?” One man near her said.

“—cousin used a wineskin when he—” Another man replied.

Gavril cleared his throat and passed the wineskin to the heretic and the man with the ration cake handed it to the heretic as well. He looked over to the older commander and said something. “—ready.”

“Is she?”

Gavril turned to her and said in her tongue, “Need your trust little longer.”

Trust?Trust an Inimicus? Trust an Inimicus commander and illusionist?

“It was never yours,” she rasped, lifting her chin and showing off the bruises that still meant every word she spoke sent a twinge of pain through her. “Do what you will. I will do what I must to get this over with so that I can sooner return to Asentai’s embrace. However, until that moment, every breath I breathe will be a curse on you and your line.”

Whatever his reaction was, it didn’t show on his face. He said, “So be it.”

He turned to the commander and spoke in his tongue again. The commander nodded and glanced over the crowd as he started speaking. He spoke quickly with more sharpness to his words than their language already inherently had. There were a few words she might have translated right, but they also sounded like other words, so she wasn’t sure. A few of the ones she caught translated to something that didn’t make sense in the context either.

She could only assume none of their words would make any sense to her if this was an Inimicus ritual before they handed her over to their heretic officially.

The commander turned back to her and Gavril, narrowing his eyes at her and she just narrowed them right back. He then lowered his voice and spoke to Gavril, “Last chance.”

“I’m decided.”

The commander continued speaking, and he took the ration cake from the heretic and held it out. He then passed it to Gavril, who took it and murmured something. She caught “—labor of my hand—”

He broke it, not evenly, and handed her the larger piece. She reluctantly took it in her good hand. In her tongue, he murmured, “Repeat my next words and then eat.”

She ground her thumb against the cake, crumbling the edge and sending a few tiny specks to the ground. He spoke a short phrase.

She rubbed her thumb against the edge again, wearing down the dry, tasteless ration cake and stayed silent. He sighed and repeated the first two words of the short phrase.

When she still didn’t repeat them, the commander spoke. “—terrible idea—”

“—her a minute—” Gavril snapped at him. When he turned back to her, his expression was much softer. Then in her tongue, he said, “Please.”

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