Page 77 of The Prince's Captive

If this was what it took to keep her safe and finally bring peace, then he would do it gladly. Nikias had warned him.

“Qui totum vult totum perdit.”

“He who wants everything loses everything.”

Where he stood, he could very well lose everything. Yet he could not stop himself from wanting it all the same.

Chapter24

MARCELLA

The next time Marcella woke up, she was blessedly alone.

Yet she wasn’t on the dungeon floor. She pushed herself up to see a cot had been brought into her cell and someone had set her on it. At the foot of it was a white, folded chiton and a strophion, perfectly clean with new clasps sitting on top of it. Next to it was a tray with food, two pitchers of water, soap, and a few rags.

Her head whipped around to be certain, but no one was there.

She was fairly certain she knew what had been real and what hadn’t. Since she could feel her peplos’ top wound around her waist when she reached under the cloak to fumble with it, discovering it was torn and she had no clasps, she was certain everything she remembered from that awful room had happened.

And with Gavril’s cloak on her shoulders again, so had everything with him.

At just the thought, she reached up and flung the cloak off herself—blessedly it flew off with no resistance this time—and she immediately shed her destroyed peplos, and set about washing herself as best she could with the soap and water. She scrubbed her pale skin until it was red and raw, but she could still feel the knife. She could still feel the straps.

She ran her fingers over the base of her neck but there was no cut, not even a faint trace of a healing scab, like it had never happened.

The cold air on her exposed skin was also far too sickening, so she abandoned trying to scrub the echoes away and moved to get dressed. She secured the strophion around her chest and pulled the chiton on. Before she clasped it at both shoulders she held out her left arm and skimmed her fingers over the bracelet, then the limiter cuff that had been put back on at some point, and up to her shoulder.

She clasped the chiton high on her shoulders, covering as much of herself as she could to fight off the damp chill of the dungeon, without picking up the cloak again. The chiton fell just below her knees, and she shivered, but it was nice to be clean and wear something clean for the first time in a month.

Then it hit her how famished she was. Even if she wanted to ignore the food, she didn’t have the strength to.

She quickly dropped to the ground and shoved the bread into her mouth. She tried to pace herself on the second pitcher of water, but her throat was so parched and dry from the screaming and crying that she needed it more than anything.

When there was nothing left, she sat back against the leg of the cot and breathed deeply. She glanced down at the hem of her chiton.

Why had they given her something to wear?

Maybe Gavril had negotiated her death instead of her torture and this was what they made all the executed prisoners wear. They wouldn’t want to kill her while she was wearing Gavril’s cloak, after all.

Or… maybe this was what they made all their rats wear to keep them clean from contamination.

She was almost ready to rip it off and go back to her peplos—at least it was Desero fabric even if not technically Marcella’s—and find some way to make it still work as a garment with new clasps when the sound of footsteps had her dropping the fabric again and rising to her feet.

Her ankles weren’t shackled to the ground, and her wrists weren’t shackled together. She just had the limiting cuffs on. She could at least go with a little more of a fight.

Or at least a decent prayer.

But it wasn’t a troop of Inimicus guards. Just one man.

Gavril.

As he turned the corner, he was rubbing his left hand up and down his right forearm, but it was free from any mark or injury. He looked up to see her standing in the middle of her cell, and he dropped his arm and picked up his pace. The light in his eyes would have brightened the general dimness of the dungeons if Marcella only cared to see it.

She flexed her hands.

She wasn’t a good fighter. She was barely even a mage. Much less good at fighting without magic, but she was not going to let any of them just take her and subject her to whatever abominable things they had in mind.

Again.

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