All's Fair in Revenge

Present

Nine hours until execution.

I wish I had something to chuck at Cian. Then again, if Eyr's granting wishes, I prefer a wish to get the hells out of here.

"Would you please stop?" My voice comes out so whiney I annoy myself.

He scratches his head, his fingers pausing on the stone. "Perhaps if you were a little more forthcoming, I wouldn't have to tap."

I roll into a sitting position. "Fine. For the sake of my sanity, you get one question. Proceed."

Cian looks to me through the curtain of hair hanging over his eyes. "Really?"

"Is that really what you want to waste your one question on?"

"No, I do not." He mulls over a dozen or so until he lands on the most pressing, "How'd we end up in here?"

"Poor judgement on both our parts." Boredom crosses his lowered gaze. "All right, I came to marry a prince and you pissed off the newly crowned monarch of this fine country."

"You were to marry a prince?" Cian's question offers all the inference one might expect from anyone acquainted with me.

"Don't sound so surprised." I chuck a tuft of moss at him, it's arch limps, never clearing the bars.

"You're royalty then? From another country?"

"I've answered your one question." I glare at him. "Kelvia has no royalty and it stopped sending diplomats a generation ago after they began returning in urns. We haven't set foot on their land, nor them on ours until recently."

"Yet you still came?"

"They claimed it was treaty, between our two countries, aimed at peace."

He bites his lip and I gawk, old feelings simmering in my lower abdomen. "Your countries are enemies?"

I lift my brow. "They are..."

"I think I recall that. It's hazy, but there. Like it's behind a mist. Maybe my other memories are there, too."

"I'll hold my breath."