After dinner, his father had apparently decided he wasn't finished with torturing them yet, so he told them that he had scheduled a tour of the royal dungeons. An odd and surely appetite-reducing visit as it would be, Declan refused to miss it. He saw the way his father was looking at Nadia, and it infuriated him.

Maybe because he'd looked at her the same way before. Like she was a curse or a blessing or a prophecy fulfilled. Not a person.

His hands clenched at his sides. The supper had been barely edible, filled with his father's exotic concoctions meant to improve one's health. Still, his stomach barely growled. He was used to eating very little and wanted to be alert anyway, not sleepy.

As they descended the surprisingly well-lit staircase, each step echoing against stone, Declan heard fires crackling in braziers and he thought he even heard a scream or two. The sound reminded him of how he'd held a knife to Nadia's throat, and he forced that memory down.

His father had wanted a show. And Declan hadn't liked the way he was examining her, as though questioning whether he had chosen to keep her around for the sake of some sexual convenience, and so he'd proven him wrong. Apparently, at the cost of her displeasure with him, as she was currently walking ahead, next to his father, and five feet in front of him. The diamonds on her dress glittered brightly, each stone calling to him like a beacon. Green silk that had been so soft against his fingers, the slight curves of her body warm against his torso.

He wanted her, he wouldn't deny that. But there were far better ways to satisfy himself than to get involved with a woman who wanted nothing to do with him and clearly didn't admire or even respect him. No, he'd ruined any trust between them when he'd pressed the knife to her throat. Perhaps even on purpose.

The way her breathing had quickened, the way she hadn't even struggled to get free -- no, he wouldn't dwell on those things.

"And here is where we keep our prisoners," his father said, gesturing to a series of windowless rooms.

Not even bars, but only cinder blocks, kept the prisoners inside. It was a function of design to make them feel claustrophobic, perhaps, but what it also did was make it impossible to see inside except for a small slat in which they slid food and water. Each cell was connected to the palace's sewer system, which led to the river. Not a few prisoners had drowned trying to escape that way, and eventually, grates had been installed over the chutes.

"Are they ever let out?" Nadia wondered, looking at the cells. Only she would ask such a question. He fought back the urge to smile.

"Once a month," his father replied. "For bathing and the like. Otherwise, the place would become quite rank. We used to allow them to wash with rainwater, but a few attempted to escape from the skylight that the rain trickled through."

"Crafty," she muttered. The hem of her gown trailed along the pristine stone floor, which was mopped twice a day. He knew because he had been here before.

Not as a guard, and not as a visitor. But as a prisoner.

"Quite," he said.

She stiffened but didn't respond otherwise to his comment. Neither did his father.

"And here is where we keep the worst prisoners," his father said, holding his torch aloft. Declan didn't miss the way his hand shook slightly when he held it, and by the way that Nadia shivered despite the humid room, he knew she had seen it, too.

His father was ill. Wasting away, possibly.

They were led into a circular chamber. Men were chained to tables, clad in little more than loincloths, and had he not known better, Declan would have thought it was a brothel. But he did know better, and he had known much worse.

Because the tables were metal, and beneath each was lit a roaring brazier, coals heaped as high as the fireplaces in hell. Sweat dripped down every man's body, every face contorted into a rictus of pain. Screams of pain echoed through the space, bouncing off of the curved walls. A high-ranking prison official, usually one with a proclivity for watching pain, would stand and supervise.

Declan knew and still had the burns on his skin to prove it.

"How can you keep men in such conditions?" Nadia looked appalled, both at the state of captivity and at the torture. "Is it not horrific?"

He placed a cautious hand on her shoulder. She didn't bite it off, so that was a start.

"Every great state has its dark underbelly, priestess." He looked into the fear on every man's face and refused to be afraid. "This one is Astroia's."

She broke free of his touch, gaze fixed on his. "Why?"

Why bring me here?

Why do this to these men?

Why do they deserve such a punishment?

Why are they not dead from such tortures?

"All in good time," he said, forcing himself to breathe deeply. That was worse. All he could smell was rank body odour and disgusting refuse mingled with ashes and smoke. "All in good time."

He cast a deliberately slow gaze at the cells around them and she caught his meaning. Spies. Guards. Everyone was listening. Every wall had ears.

"I see." Nadia nodded before stepping back, away from him. Still angry at him, but he would accept what little she offered.

"I'll see you settled tonight," he said casually. "You are my responsibility. I want to ensure you are safe and comfortable in your chambers."

"What a gracious host," she said, but her green eyes were all fire.

What she didn't know, however, as she followed her father deeper into the dungeon, was how badly he wanted to burn in them.

-

As promised, he appeared at her door at eleven at night, rapping on the wooden surface without a second thought. If she tried to attack him, well, he had his fists for that, but he didn't want to have to use them. His knife, he had left behind, hoping it wouldn't remind her of his social faux pas.

She opened the door after a solid two minutes, clearly bent on making him wait. That was fine if she wished to be petty and careless of her safety, which she seemed to be proving herself to be more and more every day.

"Enter," Nadia said flatly.

Her maid looked scandalized by his appearance at such a late hour. He snapped his fingers, however, and she left.

"I seem to have scared away your chaperone," he noted.

"I'm no priestess anymore and the vows of celibacy I swore have crumbled to dust, Declan." She sat on her bed, crossing her legs. The green dress with its swath of diamonds was gone, replaced by a simple white dressing gown.

He leaned against the door. "Are you propositioning me, Nadia?"

She spluttered. "You are the absolute worst. Don't think I've forgiven you for the... supper incident, either."

So that was what she wished to deem it? Very well, he would play her game. For now. "I never apologized for it, so there was no need to forgive me."

"Well, will you apologize now?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"I require a specific offence to apologize for," he said. "Otherwise, I feel you would have me make amends simply for existing."

"Perhaps you should." She stood from the bed, crossing the room to him.

"An offence, priestess." He looked down at her. She picked up a stool and knelt on it, making them of equal height.

"Fine." She huffed. Up close, he could see a freckle by her left eye, another one beneath her jaw. "My accusation against you is that you humiliated me in front of your father and treated me and my curse like a sideshow."

"A sideshow?" he repeated. "Nadia, I was keeping him from looking at you like a whore."

"You can't control how others will treat me," she snapped, shoving her hands into his chest.

"So you mean to tell me that you wouldn't mind in the slightest if my father treated you like my concubine," he said, gripping her wrists.

She glared up at him. "How is it your place to step in, Declan?" she demanded.

"You are my responsibility," he said.

She tugged at her wrists, trying to pull free from his grasp. "I'm not a child!" She wrenched free from his hold and moved away from him.

"No, but you are at a disadvantage in this court. And you don't want to know what my father did to the last woman who was romantically involved with me."

"I do." She put her hands on her hips, her wrists reddened from his grasp. Had he been so rough with her? The thought made him frown.

"You do what?"

"I wish to know what happened to her," Nadia said.

"She's dead," he blurted out before he could stop himself. "Would you like to join her? Then, by all means, Priestess, dissuade me from treating you like a sideshow, as you deem it, and allow me to treat you like my whore."

She didn't flinch at his vulgar language. Instead, to his immense surprise, her face softened, and she reached up to cup his cheek. "I'm so sorry. Did you love her?"

He didn't melt into her touch as much as he wanted to. He didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve her pity or compassion. "It was a long time ago, priestess."

"Pain never fully leaves us. We only learn to live with it."

"You're wiser than you look." He gave in and kissed her palm.

"And how do I look?" She took a step back, hand falling away from his face.

"Too powerful for your own good, Nadia."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "I'll decide what is good for me, thank you very much."

He didn't respond, instead of staring at the mirror behind her head. She sighed, changing the subject. "Why would your father take us on a tour of the dungeons?"

"He wanted us to lose our supper, I suppose," he said, shuddering at the memory of that and close space, with its familiar sights and sounds and smells. "Or, because he wanted to remind both of us what it would taste like to warrant his displeasure."

Nadia took a deep breath. "Remind us? Or remind you? "

"Oh, certainly me. I'm quite familiar with those dungeons, especially the cells. "

She frowned. "You were a guard there?"

"I was twelve when my father evicted me from his presence. There are few jobs for a pampered princeling out on his own, you know," he said.

"You were thrown in prison?" Nadia appraised him.

"For vagrancy," he said. "Three months, then I joined the Army."

"You were only a child..." she said slowly.

"As I have said before, Priestess, I am not a good man. Don't confuse a troubled past with moral goodness, Nadia. That principle will save you from a great deal of heartache later on."

A cascade of emotions flickered across her face. "Why did your father let you come back? He seems to despise you."

"He wants to live forever," he murmured. "He thinks you're going to assist in that pursuit."

Nadia scoffed. "And you? Why have you brought me here?"

He ought to tell her that his interests aligned with his father's. But that would have been a lie, and they both knew it. "Good night, Nadia."