Page 125 of The Sins of Silas

“Over my dead fucking body,” I spat.

Silas's gaze burned into mine, our eyes never leaving one another. His eyes spoke to me.

“I will not let anything happen to you.”

The Otacians were not put in any confines. Their weapons were simply stripped from them, as were ours.

“So, what's your plan?” Silas gritted out, eyes finally darting to Dimitri as he was tugged out of his chair by a guard. “You hand us over to my father?”

Dimitri chuckled, the sound grating against my bones. He laughed so hard he began hacking up a lung.

After he composed himself, his grin grew. “Oh, you have no idea what's to come, princeling.”

We were dragged out of our seats, roughly shoved forward. I had no idea where we were being led, but as I heard a buzzing in my ear, my nerves calmed. Just a bit.

The green-eyed guard just watched me. Gods…did he wish to use me as Dimitri suggested? How fucked up were these people?

We walked for a while through various stone hallways. I tried to memorize them all…tried to remember how I could find my way back up here when the time came.

The last door we were brought to was metal, and it was unlocked with a key. We descended the steps, my heart sinking at the sight.

Hundreds of my kind were kept in the enormous cell beneath the fortress, with iron bars and the same familiar cuffs on all their wrists. Gaunt-looking faces studied us with little emotion. Men, women, children—all frail and broken.

All with shaved heads.

And the smell…by the looks of those trapped here, baths were a rare luxury. And they must see to their needs somewhere close by.

Faltrun wasn't turning over Mages to Otacia like they were supposed to.

Faltrun was enslaving them.

We were shoved in, and as my eyes skated over these people—my people—I whirled, grasping the iron bars.

“You fucking bastards!” I shouted as the barred door was locked. “You will pay for this!”

The asshole with the key just disregarded me and began his assent up the stone stairway, the rest of the guards following, leaving only one who just watched at the far end of the room.

My grip on the iron bars tightened, and I fought the urge to shed tears.

We were fucked. So, so fucked.

Then again, if Dani or Vi could manage to free us, all of us, we'd have a fucking army on our hands. A weak, starved army, but an army none the less.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a voice, a shaky voice.

A voice I hadn't heard in so long.

“Lena?”

As I turned, my knees buckled at the sight of short, white hair and broken, brown eyes.

At the sight of Torrin Brighthell.

Enslaved in this cell.

ChapterThirty-Four

LENA - LAST YEAR

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