"But I apprised you that I am a bad man," said he, "difficult to persuade."

"And I am a hard woman—impossible to put off."'

—From Jane Eyre,
By Charlotte Brontë

HIS CELL WAS DAMP, dreary, and an unidentifiable substance dripped from the ceiling in a maddening rhythm. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. The rank smell of unwashed bodies permeated the long row of cells, which flickered in the torchlight. Dirty faces stared back at him, half veiled in shadows.

"What are you in here for?" The man next to him asked, brushing dark hair away from his face with one fettered hand.

His cell was also occupied, coming with a cellmate. Alastair had yet to decide if he liked the man, who had a fall of lank hair that reached his shoulders and eyes that glittered with unknown intent.

"I slept with the wrong woman," he said wryly, hoping to form some camaraderie between himself and the other man.

It seemed to work, as the man slumped against the wall in a more relaxed stance. "Ah, we all do that once or twice. Was it some other man's wife? Why be jailed for it? I'm George, and you are?"

"Alastair, and, no, but her... her father took a disliking to me," he lied, hoping the faint discolouration of his bruises and the shadowy lighting would disguise his identity. Carlyle would be known as a guard. "What did they lock you up for?"

He eyed the man's wiry frame. George had the appearance of a thief, and the keen eyes of a poisoner, scanning the small room as he cracked his knuckles and spoke, "I was arrested for trying to overthrow the crown."

His brows rose in the darkness. In all his time he'd spent plotting his revenge against Jovana and steeping in his hatred of Ilyas, he had considered joining such schemes before. However, he had decided that they would lead to his prompt execution, which was not a desirable outcome. It was not that he was against the institution of the Mordanian monarchy, only that he was against those who were currently instated in it. To fight against the system held no value to him. It was not a cause that captivated or enthralled him.

Working within the system... well, he had thought he had been doing a fine job of that. But then he had stopped thinking with his head and began thinking with his heart. And now he was here, locked in a cell.

"What did they catch you doing?" Alastair asked. "Slipping something into the queen's soup?"

"It's not even what they caught me doing," George said with a sigh. "It's that they caught me planning. They discovered my plans."

Personally, Alastair thought it was only a poor agent who allowed his plans to be discovered. "Were you going to assassinate the Lord Regent, then? Infiltrate the council? Sell secrets?"

George looked defensive at his line of questioning and Alastair wondered if he should have dropped it. "Why are you so interested?"

He shrugged. "Let us agree that I am not the biggest fan of Ilyas Durand or his policies."

George cocked his head to one side. "But are you of the mind of that group against him, who insist that the true monarch, Queen Jovana, ought to rule? Or do you agree with my forces, who believe that each and every tyrant shall not be suffered to live?"

"Tyrant?" Alastair echoed.

Mistaking his shocked repetition for emphatic exclamation, George continued. This would be good. Advantageous, even. Perhaps he could make a friend in this vile place... or at least gain useful information about the world outside the capitol. "Well, the monarch holds absolute power, don't they? I'd call such a man or woman a tyrant."

What was this man talking about? The queen, a tyrant? She ruled with the aid of the council, which meant that they, too, held some semblance of power. Every ruler was not on the throne by right of birth but of power, of magic and blood. If the people felt their ruler was too weak, they could wrest power from them and find a better one.

"Yes," Alastair repeated faintly. His agreement was false, but he had spent long enough pretending that another lie would not further taint his soul or vex his body. "I cannot say I have ever heard it phrased in such terms, but, you would be correct. The Lord Regent, the queen... the whole lot of them are tyrants."

George mumbled something in response, his words beginning to slur. Within moments, Alastair realized he was asleep, his head tilting against the stone wall and falling onto one shoulder. His fall of hair obscured most of his face, but the few visible features marked him as a northerner, from Belmont, the region of mountainous crags and endless snowfalls. The land of never-ending winter.

The tribes there were more independent, hating to be governed by those they viewed as soft southerners, in the part of the country that was nearer to the border between Mordania and Atla. Between the two countries was the small island of Othar, perfectly centred in the middle. Brushing aside geography, Alastair considered his options.

He could learn more about this man--no, this rebel--and his plans. Then he could feed his information to someone... but who would trust him? He had not made many friends here, aside from Hugo, who had turned out to be falser than a poor man's coin. What could he do? He would not join this man, not if he wanted to save his neck, not when he did not truly agree with his sentiments. But nor could he sit still and do nothing. 

"Alastair?" a voice roused him from his reverie, and he jolted up. It was her.

"Jovana," he murmured. What was she doing here? He had hated and loved her in equal measure for so many years that he did not know how to cope now, now with all his secrets out in the open. With his shield of lies stripped away from him, his armour of deception wrenched from his body, he felt vulnerable. Unable to proceed. 

"You lied to me." Her voice was soft, but when she held the candle up, beneath the red hood she wore, he could see that her face was set into harsh angles. Candlelight illuminated her firm mouth, high cheekbones, the aquiline line of her nose like a blade. She kept her voice low as she whispered, "I brought you food."

He could have laughed. How very typical of her, to be accusatory one moment and then tender in another. Kindness and cruelty, sharpness and softness, mixed into one woman who felt like both a weapon and a home. Alastair murmured back, "Thank you."

Taking the piece of bread from her, his hand brushed hers. Her eyes were wide, questioning as they met his, the warmth of her skin soaking into him, lighting every nerve. "I have... There are so many things I want to ask you."

He cocked his head to one side. "My cellmate could wake at any moment. You will not find him amenable to your presence. And, I may very well not live to answer any of your questions, if my father has his way."  

A small furrow formed between her brows, but she neither denied nor confirmed it. "So many years... I thought of you. I missed Mireille like anything, but you..." 

The mention of his sister was like sparks to the kindling of his hatred. "How can you even speak her name?"

She gripped the bars of his cell with one hand, making them rattle. "How can I not? Should I be too overcome by grief to even think of her?"

"She was killed for your sake!" He could barely force out the words in a whisper and could feel his temper rising with the volume of his voice. "She was killed to save your life so that those Atlan bastards would think you had died."

Jovana was silent, that face he knew all too well staring at him like a condemnation. 

"You killed my sister." But it sounded like less of an accusation and more like a prayer; like he was wishing that something would come true. Like he was wishing for the one thread of belief he had clung to for years to not have been snapped away and revealed a lie.

"No, Alastair." Jovana smiled at him—smiled!—a pitying look crossing her face. "Your father killed your sister. And you think he hasn't known who you are, where you've been all these years? You were fooling yourself! He has had all of us under his thumb this entire time. He killed your sister. He killed my mother. He let the Atlans in to destroy us so that he could be crowned Regent. The only thing he didn't count on was you running away, and even then... We are his puppets. His pawns."

She was, as always, so far ahead of him that it was all he could to keep up. Only she wasn't far at all—she was just as trapped, just as powerless as he, making a mockery of the jagged spikes of treasure forming the crown that lay on her head.

"No, Jovana. We are his ruin."