Page 23 of A Spell of Bones and Madness
“You look awful,” Kohl hissed from outside the cell.
“I still look better than you,” Ander chuckled, but the noise was mostly rattled with coughs and spit. The prince would not meet Kohl’s stare, continuing to peer down into his own lap.
“You mock me now? While your hands are bound and your body lie broken?” Kohl growled, his shaven teeth bared.
“Unbind me then and I’ll mock you with both my words and my fists.” Ander blew a puff of air out, and a swoop of his hair moved from covering his lifeless stare. There was little to nothing left of the man before him.
“Even your mind appears broken, if you think I would ever unbind you.” Kohl could easily beat the man in a fight. He almost wanted to unlock the shackles and see the look on Ander’s face as Kohl bested the cocky prince, but he didn’t know how to. It was as if the gold cuffs were melded to Ander’s very hands and feet, no lock nor hinge to snap them off.
“My mind is as clear as it ever has been, despite your father and Edmund’s games.”
Kohl snorted. “Is that why you mutter in your sleep? Spew false realities? Ramble on about a bird you’ll never see again?”
Even with Ander’s head hung low, that sickening smile of his still burned right into Kohl. “A bird?”
“If I counted the number of times you muttered of starlings in your sleep it would match the coffers of Alentus and Morentius combined. Not to mention how you were just speaking it like a mad man when I walked in.”
“It’s amusing that you think I’ve been moaning the name of a bird and not the woman I long to return to. But why would I expect you to know the endearments of theElliniká Glóssa?”
Kohl leaned his face closer to the bars in the center of the splintering wooden door. “Tell me why. Why her? WhymyKatrin?”
Now Ander’s lifeless tidal gaze met Kohl’s. But they were not lifeless at all, filled with the silver glare of the midnight full moon. “She was never yours, Kohl. She never loved you.”
“You're lying!” Kohl screamed, the blood in his veins burning with an icy venom. He sliced his dagger across his palm, using the blood that bubbled up to unlock the door. Kohl stalked up to where Ander was chained, staring at those muted blue-green eyes coated in a silver film. “She was always mine. From the time I stepped on these sands as a child, to the time we recited those ancient vows in front of all the isles.”
The Prince of Nexos wheezed once more, his fists tightened beside him. “I am not lying, and you know it to be true. Those vows meant nothing to her.”
Kohl could not help himself. He flung his fist across Ander's already battered jaw, knocking him out on contact. “The unyielding power of a god. How pathetic.” He spit on the bloodied traitor that lay before him, shaking his now bruised knuckles. They would heal quickly now, with the inkling of power the blood oath had given him. The sacrifice was worth it, just to see the broken man in front of him. See him bound in chains, this close to death.
Yet Kohl could not help but remember the words Dolion had spoken to him that night onThe Hydrawhen he watched his men succumb to the siren’s song.Could not help but remember he had not heard Katrin's voice call out from the deep.
Chapter Seventeen
Ander
Ander’s eyes fluttered open to a piercing pain across his jaw. He couldn’t remember where the pain had come from—each time he’d been tortured seemed to blend together in an incessant swirl of gut-wrenching despair. Was it her? Had she returned once more to destroy him?
How longhadit been since someone was down here? Days, it seemed. No food was brought down, nor water, and Ander’s head was spinning, vision blurred, as he spiraled. The brown-eyed woman was everywhere—circling his mind, digging her talons in and ripping at his soul. Ander couldn’t stop it—the shaking of his bones, the blood that trickled from his ears, the screams she torefrom his throat. He was dying, but he would accept the sweet relief, if only to be rid of her.
She was his undoing.
She was his torment.
She had won.
Chapter Eighteen
Katrin
After meeting with Cal at the townhouse, their small crew had snuck back to the ship the following night under the cover of darkness. Kristos had taken over for Leighton at the helm and set their course during the night for Alentus—the stars guiding the way. Since they’d returned toThe Nostos, the debate of how best to rescue Ander was the topic of every conversation. Rather than sleep Chloe, Farah, Leighton, and Katrin had gathered in the war room to review their options.
“There’s no way this works,” Farah mumbled, hand planted on her hip. “My father is not inept enough to think this ugly wooden hydra is a gift from Hades.”
“It worked for our ancestors. It is how they won the Trojan War.” Chloe was staring at her nails—rather, claws—rolling her eyes at the southern princess.
“That story is a work of myths! Of fiction!” Farah gripped the sides of her chair across from Katrin in the war room ofThe Nostos.
The two princesses bickered for nearing an hour. Going back and forth about whose idea was better to get into the castle. Farah wanted to use the cover of night and the unguarded posts about the castle, entering through the secret passageways Katrin told her about. The same ones she’d used when she needed to escape the castle for a run at dawn. Chloe, on the other hand, wanted to go with Cal’s outlandish idea to create a giant wooden hydra and hide inside of it.
