Page 68 of In Rising Tides

Just the idea of wanting to speak had the burning spearing down her throat again.

The thread around her heart had vanished entirely. The collar had taken more than her speech. It had stolen her voice.

She needed to play the game to survive.

Lyra’s throat constricted as she bit back her pride.

It tasted horrible.

“Sit,” Drystan ordered again.

Lyra’s back met the chair. The bite of the cold against her flesh distracted her from maintaining her mask.

She couldn’t wipe the glare off her face.

“I know why you want access to the library. You seek to find a way back to the land,” he sighed. Her frown faltered. “You’re in such a hurry to return to the land, a place that used you and abandoned you.”

Drystan plucked the floating papers from around him and arranged them into a neat pile. “But it’s no matter. I will seek retribution for us.”

Lyra’s head tilted to the side, the only movement that aptly displayed her curiosity.

It was a mistake.

Spikes on the collar pricked her skin, and she righted her head at once.

“I don’t know if I should even be telling you this,” he paused, as if thinking it over. “But alas, I received word that the elf prince,” Drystan hissed, lifting a paper and studying it. “Has been imprisoned for conspiracy to assassinate the High King.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach, and she clenched her hands into fists to remain unruffled.

Drystan chuckled and licked his lips. “Trying not to appear too curious, are we?”

She didn’t—couldn’t—move as her vision tunneled.

Wilderhadtried to formulate a new plan to save her. He loved her.

Drystan’s attention on her narrowed before he looked to Angler next to her. “The punishment for that is death.”

He crumpled the paper in his hand, and the magic that kept it from water was destroyed.

It turned to soggy mush in his hand before being swept away into pulpy pieces by the current.

Lyra’s eyes widened a fraction.

“This displeases you?” Drystan grinned.

When Lyra didn’t react further, his face twisted with glee.

“It seemed too quick a death for me, too.” He sighed as if this were all a great inconvenience. “I’ve sent the wulvers to dispatch him. By the end of the week, your elf will be dead by my hand.”

Lyra gripped the underside of the table to keep from outwardly reacting.

The wulvers had failed to kill Wilder before. They would do so again.

Otto would tell them the wulvers were coming. And Wilder was smart, so smart and clever, he would escape before his father’s judgement.

“It’ll be very easy to do,” Drystan muttered, talking more to himself than to her. “Locked in that magic-less dungeon.”

Aday and a night passed in excruciating silence.