Author’s Note: After writing the Rose, I had to write this. A story from Raniye’s perspective (a character from my fic Antiphony) on her life as Destane’s prisoner and her tragic romance with Mozenrath. Please heed the rating; as in the Rose, there are dark and sexual themes, but with the addition of explicit details.

As always, feedback is much appreciated. Thanks to Katie Ann again for her advice and help.

She awakened to the first day of perdition.

Her eyes opened and saw nothing. The sun rose dark in this land, and the sun set even darker. No light filtered through the midnight curtains to her left, no desert breeze stirred the stifling air of the room. Only her shallow breaths disturbed the deathly stillness.

She was alone.

She lay there, unmoving, staring at a ceiling she could not see, wondering if time had stopped or moved on without her. For a fleeting moment she wished that she could be as the princesses in the tales her mother had often told her in childhood. That she could close her eyes and die to the world for one hundred years, and awaken again to find all the evils that had once loomed over her were now gone. She cared not for a prince. And she would not mind if she never woke up at all. Slumbering for an eternity was better than constantly dying in wakefulness.

Time had not stopped. Though her mind wished it would, her body testified to its relentless continuance. She was thirsty; her throat grew more parched by the minute. And her eyes were clearing, adjusting to the darkness; she could make out the dim outline of engraved patterns in the ceiling.

He had left her here alone. To die? To wait for his return? She shut her eyes but could not shut out the questions, the images, the sounds, the dull twisting pain below her stomach.

She tried to move, and bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. A mere inch of movement had sent a sharp spike of pain through her. The sudden wetness heating the skin of her thighs signaled the reopening of a wound.

His pale eyes faintly illuminated the darkness, fixated on her with unearthly delight, and a tearing pain speared between her legs, adorned by the pricks of nails gouging into her skin.

She willed herself to focus on anything else, any small route of escape from the well-preserved cavern of human memory. But she could not move, could not remove herself from this place, the room that was now her cage.

The door opened, casting an eerie, dull light across the room, and she turned her head toward the silhouette of the young man who had just entered.

In the bleak, colorless light, she saw his solemn face, pale and expressionless, his demeanor naturally imbued with a high-born air. His long black hair lay in curls around his shoulders, carelessly well-groomed. Like his master, he dressed in dark robes that seemed to suck in the light, and his step was calm as he approached her. She could not see his eyes, for he had lowered his face, avoiding the sight of her completely.

She lowered her gaze as well, knowing that no man would ever look upon her now that she had been defiled, tainted with a curse princesses were not born to bear. The apprentice was approaching her because he had to, under orders from his master, no doubt. She did not fear what he might do to her; there was nothing left to fear after one had already passed the gates of hell.

“Uncover yourself.”

Her gaze flickered involuntarily toward his face at the cold command. Their eyes met unexpectedly, and she noticed his dark irises were the same shade as her own. But they looked upon her impassively, clinically, as one would observe an object in need of repair. He waited.

She drew back the thin sheets draped over her crippled body, afraid of what she might see if she turned her eyes downward. There was a great quantity of blood; she was sure of it. And to reveal herself and all her shame to this young man who was hardly past the end of boyhood…her cheeks flushed, and she could not look at him again. The open air met her skin in cold judgment, stinging at her wounds.

“Hold still.”

She obeyed wordlessly, not questioning his purpose. Briefly she thought it strange that he could remain so detached. There was hardly a man in the Chyrilian court who could conceal his admiration or desire for her. Particularly the youths. But she reminded herself that this was no ordinary young man. He was the apprentice of the Lord of the Black Sand. The man who would be responsible for receiving the prisoners from her kingdom and systematically converting them into hordes of the undead.

Perhaps yesterday this would have frightened her, the thought that she was fully exposed and vulnerable before such a man. But past the gates of perdition, all perspectives changed.

She flinched slightly at the first contact of his hands against her skin. The cold touch of his fingers inches below her abdomen sent chills through her entire body. His touch was as inhuman as his master’s, but in a different way. Not the ravenous graze of primal instinct, but the impersonal quality of an element of nature. As she turned her head slightly in reaction to the sudden cold, their eyes met once again. His gaze had not changed. He touched her not with desire but out of necessity, as an alchemist handled crude metals.

The cold did not fade, but spread downward from her stomach to the aching spot between her legs. Her pain lessened to frozen numbness, a dull discomfort that was distant from her senses. She saw his lips move silently, casting some sort of spell over her. His hands glowed a faint gold. And then her skin began to warm, the heated energy from his palms tingling her senses and frozen nerve endings. She felt her open wounds closing, cracked skin healing into smooth, unbroken flesh.

The pain continued to fade until it was gone completely. Only a memory of it remained now, along with the knowledge that she would have to bear it again indefinitely as a permanent prisoner in this blighted land. And each time she did, she guessed that the young man would attend to her in the morning with his clinical touch and clipped words. To numb her pain, and to prepare her again for his master.

She could not despise him in spite of this. She could not feel anything toward him. His silent and impassive manner gave nothing for her to grasp onto. He was a wall of ice.

The spell was finished, and he removed his hands from her. He spoke again in the same neutral voice.

“I have closed your womb so that you cannot conceive. You will have to drink an herbal tea every morning for the next ten days to allow your body to adjust to the change. It will be prepared for you at breakfast.”

He paused as if waiting for some sort of response from her. When she said nothing, he continued.

“You should clean yourself and leave this room. Your own chambers are ready for you.”

She nodded quietly, aware that she was still fully naked before this man. But the knowledge was sterile, as clinical as the touch of his cold fingers.

He turned stiffly and walked toward the door, his long dark robes sweeping behind him.

“Thank you.”

Her quiet words broke the silence and his calculated stride. He paused but did not look back at her.

“I am only under orders,” he said. “As are you.”

She lay in the darkness for another measureless moment, turning over his departing words in her head. A cold, factual summation of their lives in this black desert of perdition. Lifeless as his words were, the truth in them dampened the searing edge of her shame. It was all out of her control. She was merely under orders, after all.

In the Land of the Black Sand, she learned that there was such a thing as evil kindnesses.

She wore a vial of blood around her neck, a gift from her master. In reality it was a shackle, something she could not choose to reject or remove. It held the blood of a newborn, he had told her, his pleased voice faintly lined with the uncertain hope that she would accept it with delight. He saw her as a rose of utmost purity, and so he often gifted her with such evil kindnesses, adorning her with innocent deaths.

A princess should have attendants to care for her needs. You may select two females from your kingdom.

She had thought with relief that his latest gift was actually free of evil. The allowance of human companionship.

Until she stood beside his young apprentice in the dungeons, staring in speechless horror as he bound the two girls she had selected to adjacent stone tables. He was merciful enough to cover their eyes in cloth before proceeding with his master’s orders. She begged him to stop, to spare them; she did not need anyone to attend to her, especially not the living dead. She had long stopped weeping for herself, resigned to her fate as a living sacrifice on behalf of her kingdom’s continued existence. But the dry well of her tears was suddenly filled to overflowing out of terrible guilt and grief for her people. All the people who had already died and were now waiting to die for her. She lived on for them, but they went to their deaths for her.

The apprentice turned toward her with cold patience, ignoring the cries of struggle and sobs of fear of the young girls whom he would soon silence.

“Even if I spare them today, they will still meet the same fate eventually,” he said simply. “No prisoner leaves the Citadel alive.”

And she realized there was no kindness without evil in this land of nightmares.

She turned away from him, shutting out sound and sight as best she could with her invisibly bloodied hands, and waited for the deathly hush that would follow the sacrifice.

His cold hand touched her shoulder briefly, signaling that his orders were complete, and she forced herself to look. Two lifeless bodies stood of their own accord beside him, quiet and unmoving, their pretty adolescent faces still shrouded by cloths. She stepped backward, away from the bloodless shells that were her master’s latest offering to her. The apprentice watched her impassively. His voice was curt when he spoke.

“Do not waste your pity on the dead.”

His gaze gave away nothing. But he sounded like he had spoken these words to someone else before…perhaps to himself. In the moment he looked away from her, she thought she saw the hard onyx in his eyes flicker with remembrance.

His words echoed in her head throughout the evening and the dreaded night that followed, and somehow the sound of his cold, clinical voice hardened into a thin barrier in her mind, encasing her from the ragged, tormenting gifts her master offered her in his nightly kindness. She should not waste her pity.

One day, the deathly stillness of the Citadel was broken by music.

As she sought out its source, wandering the long hallway in her master’s absence, she wondered if perhaps it was the stillness of her heart, not the towering prison around her, that was hearing this unearthly song for the first time. Perhaps the stone walls were already acquainted with this haunting melody, for they did not shiver or crumble under its beauty. But in the meandering thread of this harpsong, she felt her own heart begin to stir from its frozen tomb.

She drank it in thirstily, as a dying traveler lost in a vast desert who glimpses an oasis for the first time, moving swiftly down the hall toward the room where the music began. Urgency filled her breaths; what if it was an illusion? What if it ended before she reached the room and saw for herself if it was real?

She stopped before the unremarkable wooden door that harbored the harpsong within. And she hesitated, realizing where this door led. The apprentice’s study.

With slow, measured care, she pushed the door inward, noting in puzzlement that it was unlocked and unmagicked. Mozenrath was a closed, private man; she had not expected she would be able to enter his room so freely.

But he was also a careful, calculating man. She realized then that he had not left his door unbarred by mistake. He had consciously allowed her in.

He sat at the far end of the room, facing the long window that looked out over vast dunes of black sand. He did not turn as she stepped inside his private study, and the stringed song born from his hands flowed onward, unbroken. As she moved closer, she saw the intricately carved blackwood harp in his hands, its polished surface gleaming dully in the dim light.

She passed bookshelves and tables spread with scrolls and magical items, strange liquids and small containers of mysterious ingredients for his experiments. There was a meticulous order to everything. She sensed that he had been practicing magic shortly before, but had decided to stop and rest. It intrigued her that he seemingly found rest in music. She had once loved to sing, before she had been silenced upon arrival in these lands.

She had thought that nothing of beauty could live here. Her master claimed she was the only rose whose loveliness flourished in black sand, but it was a delusional lie, as almost all his words were. She was dead inside, her heart filled with decay. But as she listened to the apprentice’s wordless song, she felt something break the surface of the hardened soil within her.

It was an aimless, wandering melody, telling a story of a man who lived and breathed and worked but could not rest. He learned and questioned and doubted but could not believe, always eluded by the truth. The song wound on into a somber key, descending and hardening, no longer meandering, but growing ever more restless. She was standing beside him now, her eyes tracing the profile of his refined features, coming to rest on the graceful movements of his hands across the finely crafted instrument.

Hands dipped in fountains of blood—these were the hands strumming the unearthly melody that had awakened a glimmer of life within her. She wondered how hands of such desecration could create such holy sound.

Her breath slowed in time with the song as it drew to a close, and stopped for a moment in the silence that followed. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He said nothing for a while, drawing the case of the harp from beneath his chair and placing the instrument inside. Standing silently and moving to the wall, he set the harp on a vacant shelf. His hand lingered on its leather case as he spoke.

“This is a magical instrument. It requires a high level of skill in order to work properly. I was merely practicing, nothing more.”

“I see,” she said. His dismissal of the beauty he had just created did not make it any less beautiful. She wished she could play so skillfully; her heart yearned to be lost in music, which had the rare power to remove pain and soften the serrated edge of reality.

“You are not a stranger to the arts,” he said, unexpectedly turning to face her. “I have heard you sing.”

For a brief moment she did not know what he was talking about; her voice had been silent since she had arrived. But then she remembered; she had found Laila one night shivering in the stairwell, haunted by nightmares. And she had coaxed the girl back to her room and sung her to sleep with an old lullaby her mother had once sung to her. After leaving the room quietly, she had passed him in the hall, saying nothing at the questioning look he had given her.

“Yes, I took lessons as a girl,” she said. “But I am not as skilled as you on your harp.”

He made a dismissive sound, folding his arms as he leaned against the shelf behind him.

“Music means nothing to me. It is merely a tool. A channel for magic.”

“Magic comes in different forms,” she said.

He scoffed at her poetry. “I am interested only in the useful kind.”

“Usefulness does not take away from its beauty,” she said with gentle persistence. She did not know the purpose of this conversation. The two of them hardly spoke. He preferred to be alone, often working into late hours of the night, and if necessary he spent time with Xerxes, usually to accomplish the missions his master routinely assigned him.

But he had allowed her to intrude upon his private study. It still puzzled her. Aimless conversation would not give her answers, however. She took a risk, stepping outside her passive shell for a moment.

“Do you pity me, Mozenrath?”

He looked at her sharply, thrown off guard by her maneuver. Even careful, calculating minds could be caught unaware.

“No.”

“Then why did you allow me in?”

He drew his mouth into a thin line at her bold words; she could see a stifled answer behind his lips.

“The harp drew you here.”

It was her turn to pause in surprise and bewilderment. It was a magical instrument, he had said. Then it was natural that the notes it played were the equivalent of spoken spells.

But though its magic could open the heart of a young woman and draw her toward its sweet sound, opening locked and spell-sealed wooden doors at the same time was another matter.

Another layer of confusion quietly wove through her mind. He had meant to draw her here. Yet as they spoke, there was no purpose to his words or actions. He was still cold and aloof, arrogant and callous.

She chose to speak of something else. Another step into the unknown darkness; the harp had awakened her courage. She could not define why, but she wished very much that he would believe in the beauty of his song. Her question was timid but firm.

“May I sing for you?”

One night, her master dined with her alone in his study. It was a rare occasion. He was a busy man, and often did not take meals with his apprentice and three captives, preferring to eat alone. He traveled more often as of late and seemed restless, as if he were searching for something important that constantly eluded his grasp. He was a man of power and ambition, and she knew he would stop at nothing to obtain whatever it was he wanted.

This particular night, however, his attention was focused solely on her. And through the penetrating gaze of his searing blue eyes, she saw that he hungered for more than all she had given him thus far. For the first time in a long while, she felt fear. Her senses had grown dull over the nearly three years she had been his slave, no longer fearing him as much as she dreaded him. She wondered in trepidation what he might want from her, what he could possibly take that he had not taken already.

He had decided to dine with her alone for a reason. She watched his every move as he poured her a glass of aged wine, speaking pleasantly and acting as if she were the mistress of the Citadel and he the servant. She answered his questions and conversation in her customary demure, distant manner. And she found that he seemed to grow more restless as the meal wore on, as she continued to give him short, polite answers and drank obediently from the glass he continued to refill.

Her head began to spin with the heaviness of the alcohol. She was thirsty, but there was no water. She did not dare ask him for any, even if he was acting genteel toward her tonight. His moods were notoriously mercurial, and she did not want to risk making him angry.

The intensity of his eyes on her wine-flushed face seemed to bore into her soul, scoping, scouring, seeking something elusive.

“I know you thirst,” he said, his voice oppressively soft. “You have gone too long without water. Though I have poured streams and rivers upon your roots, they do not absorb my offerings.”

She understood his metaphor. But she was frightened by the insinuations. He was displeased. He never allowed a displeasing situation to continue for long.

“I know that flowers are naturally inclined toward a source of light. But there is no light in my kingdom,” he said, eyeing her burgundy lips briefly as he spoke. “I have puzzled over the matter of how you might adapt to a source of darkness instead. You are amazingly resilient, my dear, a fascinating creation. If you were not, I would never have bothered with you in the first place. It has been a challenge for me, to have you by my side constantly, and yet to always hold you at a distance.”

Her heart was beginning to whisper warnings, terrifying her mind with what he might have in store for her tonight. His open confession was abnormal, dangerous. He was a man of power who did not reveal his weaknesses to others. But she was an exception.

She would give anything to be free of her position.

“You keep yourself closed to me,” he said pointedly, leaning closer to her across the small intimate table. “I have showered you with gifts, and yet you have given me nothing in return. You have tested my patience, my rose. But there is a point where patience ends.”

He captured her mouth in his, and she yielded without complaint, tasting the bitter wine on his lips. She felt his hands on both sides of her face, his long-nailed fingers stroking her skin. And she heard him whisper foreign words softly against her mouth.

Her head began to swim in dizzying pleasure, a slow heat wave starting in the pit of her stomach and rolling outwards through the length of her body. She leaned forward into his kiss, suddenly thirsting for more than water, demanding silently that he hold her, crush her close to him, quench the thirst that had set her body on fire.

In her dimly fading self-awareness, she knew that she was under a spell, one that she would find horrific if she were in her right mind. But it was too late; he had cast his magic upon her, and her control had all but vanished, replaced by raging desire. Desire for him, a monster.

It was worse than all the times he had taken her before. Her resilience was a curse, as she never faded fully into the oblivion of mind-control. The sliver of self-awareness left in her was conscious of what was happening, how her body was reacting to the touch of the man she hated and dreamed of murdering in the darkest ways. She was conscious of how she was the one who drew him from his chair and toward the divan, that she was the one who pulled him down upon her and opened herself completely as a rose in full daylight.

But there was no light in this land. He had succeeded in drawing her toward darkness instead.

Time and movement blurred, the aftermath of her forced depravity a wash of fog in her mind. She felt the soft sheets of her own bed around her, and she drifted off to sleep. She did not dream.

The nightmare began when she awoke.

Magic was not wine; it did not allow her to forget what had transpired. When the spell had faded in her sleep, her mind had slid back into control, suddenly facing a slew of half-alien memories of her actions under her master’s magic. She saw them all now with utter clarity.

She lay trembling on her bed, hands curled uselessly into fists, not strong enough to draw blood from her palms with her nails. She wished to feel pain, to feel anything but this. Anything to wipe away the memories of what she had done, how low she had fallen.

It was not enough for him to have her body. He wanted all of her. Her mind, her heart, her soul. He would spare nothing to have it all.

Her tears were just drying on the pillow when his apprentice entered and approached her to fulfill his routine orders.

He cast one look at her and paused, his glowing hands suspended in the air above her bare abdomen. There was physical damage to be healed, as usual. But he was a sorcerer, and he knew the fading scent of magic when confronted with it.

She studied the flickering expression on his face, still unreadable, but in a way she had never seen before. He knew what spell his master had used on her. The knowledge stood plainly in his eyes, and alongside it she saw disgust. She lowered her eyes, burning with shame, wishing that she could shrink into nothingness or sleep for one hundred years.

But when he spoke, his voice was calm. And the slight edge of anger it carried was not meant for her.

“Drink this.”

He pressed a cold glass bottle into her hand. She drew herself up painfully, leaning her bare back against the headboard of the bed, and examined what he had given her. The container was small enough to fit into her palm; the thick glass housed a clear liquid that flickered silver.

“It’ll clear your head.”

She looked at him with a measure of doubt, but knew he would not tolerate her doubting him. Tentatively she tasted the liquid, and it immediately numbed her tongue. Her first sip tingled all the way down her throat, and its magic began to spread throughout her senses, turning everything into a blur again. She thought of the memories of the night before, only to find them rapidly smearing like ink across smooth paper. Details faded into mere colors while desires dwindled to blandness. Her memories of the previous night were now as an oil painting smeared and ruined. Perfectly, gratefully ruined.

She looked at Mozenrath with new eyes, wishing she could thank him with more than words, wishing she could be useful to him somehow, as he had focused his life on obtaining whatever could be useful for gaining power. But she could do nothing, and had to settle for words once again.

He did not respond, taking the bottle from her wordlessly and refilling it, then offered it back to her.

“Keep it well-hidden.”

She accepted it with grateful hands, holding it close as if it were her salvation. It was only temporary relief, but it was effective, and that was what mattered.

She did not shiver at the cold hands that healed her then, knowing they had rebelled against their master willingly. For her. The thought lit a small smile across her lips.

The first time she rebelled was not on her own behalf.

She ventured down into the dungeons on silent feet, having learned how to avoid the notice of undead guards whose senses were dull and slow. It was more difficult to move stealthily with the burden she carried, but her resilience carried her through. She descended the last set of stairs to the special cell she had only seen a handful of times.

She shifted the load she carried onto her other shoulder, making sure the edges of the long blanket did not touch the dank floor. She had slipped past the last patrol of guards, and there was only the door left to deal with.

Her master did not realize how careless he had become with the gifts he gave her. Since he had begun casting magic on her at night to attain what he desired, he had also given her more freedom to wander the Citadel as she wished, allowing her to pass through most of the invisible barriers he had set up to detect intruders and threats. Thus, as she reached the heavy wooden door, she only had to turn its enchanted handle to dispel its invisible bolts and push it inward.

Her lip trembled as she saw him lying there, pale uncovered skin marred with bruises. He lay on his bare back on the cold ground, trapped here in the depths of the earth below the Citadel. She closed the door as quietly as she could and hurried to his side, kneeling by his incapacitated form to spread the blanket beside him. He looked at her in mild surprise and wonder as she drew his body gently onto the soft, warm surface, cradling his head in her lap. She had no magic or medicine to heal him with; she could only offer warmth.

“Why did you come?”

The question was expected; she had known the answer for a long time.

“You always came for me.”

She stroked the haphazard waves of his hair gently, looking down into his eyes with a sad, grateful smile. In his state of pain, perhaps his rigid control over his expression had slipped slightly; the open wonder on his face gave her pause. For a brief moment, something in her stomach fluttered at the sight of his normally aloof gaze now intently focused on her.

“I was under orders,” he said simply.

“I know,” she said. She lay one palm against the side of his cold face, wishing she could bring him out of this accursed, freezing room. He could not use magic here and was unable to heal himself. This was his master’s favorite form of punishment for him. To leave him incapacitated in a magicproof prison in solitary confinement, stripped of everything but his relentless pride.

A shiver ran through his body. Even lying on the relative warmth of a blanket was not enough. She felt his hands; they were even icier than normal.

Slowly she eased herself down beside him, stretching her body against his, and folded the blanket over them both so that his bare skin was covered from the cold biting air. She drew herself closer, her cheek resting in the crook of his neck, feeling the quiet rhythm of his heart quicken at the contact.

He turned his face away from her, shamed by his weakness. She knew his demeanor well enough to sense the patterns of his pride. He was embarrassed that she was seeing him at his most powerless, his most vulnerable. But he had to know as well that she did not care about that. She cared for power only in the sense that it was necessary for her to escape, but that was such an improbable dream that she never dwelled on it for long. And his naked form did not shame her or even make her blush; after all, she had been fully exposed to him countless times, starting on the first day she had awoken in this dark place.

But when she saw the hot flush in his cheeks, she knew that it was not only out of shame that he refused to look at her. The knowledge of his discomfort intrigued and unsettled her at the same time. She had never thought of him in any way other than the cold, stoic apprentice of her master. And she had assumed that he had thought of her as nothing more than his master’s slave who needed to be clinically examined and healed regularly.

She did not want to step beyond any more boundaries than she already had. Most of all she did not want him to despise her or avoid her when he was released from this icy cell. She still thirsted—not for freedom so much as companionship, as the former was too impossible to yearn for. But at the same time she felt a slow warmth growing quietly within her, in natural reaction to her breach of propriety with this man who was not her master. This man she had met when he was hardly past boyhood, yet had carried himself with the aura of a veteran survivor of hardship, mature and confident, cold and detached. Her heart skipped slightly as she realized that perhaps she had the power to change this. To change him. His heart beat like hers, but it was surrounded by walls of ice. Tonight she had warmed him for the first time, though his hands were still cold. With a small smile, she reached for his hand, feeling no resistance as her fingers interlaced with his. Their joined palms rested against the feverish skin of his lean abdomen. She felt him twitch uncomfortably, shifting his body slightly downward so her hand could not venture lower. She almost laughed then, realizing that he was still much like a boy in some ways, guarding himself so carefully against a woman who wanted nothing but to ensure he could survive the night comfortably. The endearing reversal of his cool, unruffled demeanor felt like a breath of fresh air in the vast tomb that was their master’s stronghold.

She hummed softly to the steady rhythm of his heart, a familiar song threading through her lips and across the skin of his throat. The faint melody of an enchanted harpsong, unstrung by her voice, blended into the stillness and became the new mode of silence between them. With her free hand she continued to stroke his hair. It was soft as always, but had gnarled in tangles from the punishment he had received before being forced into this cell. They lay together for an indeterminate time, and she knew she had to leave before her master suspected anything. She knew that once Mozenrath recovered, he would destroy the blanket she had brought, erasing the evidence of her rebellion. But for now, they needed it for warmth. They needed each other for warmth.

The ethereal tune slowly faded from her lips, and she finally got to her feet with reluctance, readying herself to leave without detection by the undead guards. She knelt quickly and kissed his forehead, a light touch of her lips that deepened his blush.

She made sure his hands were warm before she left.

One week, she enjoyed the semblance of freedom.

Her master had gone across the continent on one of his unexplained journeys. She did not wonder what he was doing; she tried not to think about him at all. She wanted to savor a week of his absence. Perhaps the first day she would still be conscious of him, half-expecting him to return at night to cast that accursed spell on her. But each day after that, she would feel greater freedom, able to sleep on her own, dreamless long hours in the dim light of day as well as in the utter blackness of night.

She knew herself well. The first night was sleepless out of anxiety she could not suppress, her body and mind both filled with the irrational fear that he would return. She finally left her room when her bed began to feel like a cold tomb in the midst of her sinister imagination.

Wandering the long, narrow halls, she passed undead sentinels that did not sleep, standing guard silently over the stronghold in their lord’s absence. They did not turn to look at her or stop her. She had enough freedom to avoid notice; her master had only ordered them to watch his apprentice, not her or Xerxes or Laila.

She did not realize how aimlessly she had been walking until she paused at the sight of Mozenrath. She had almost reached the end of the hall in the part of the Citadel where he slept and studied.

He was apparently unable to sleep as well. He stood leaning against the far wall, casually silent but in deep thought. He saw her, but did not acknowledge her presence with more than a slight flicker of his midnight eyes.

He was clad in a long black robe, his hands tucked into his sleeves; perhaps he was trying to keep them warm in the cold of the night. She approached him, not breaking eye contact, her long gossamer nightgown flowing behind her.

She stopped in front of him, looking up into his expressionless eyes, now close enough to see the dark rings that surrounded them. He was tired but restless. He did not sleep or eat nearly enough. Yet their proximity allowed her to notice suddenly how tall he had grown, standing almost a full head above her.

Standing inches from him, she had the urge to reach up and brush back the stray locks of hair that had fallen across his forehead. She was inhibited by propriety and expectations, both self-imposed and external. He was not her master.

But this was her week of freedom.

What did it matter if he was not her master? She wanted nothing more than to be shed of her status as a slave, to be free from the cruel expectations and vile spells the old man cast over her. She had no master tonight.

She repeated the thought in her head, tasting it, savoring it. It meant freedom. She yearned for it more deeply than anything else, yet always shielded her desire behind modest restraint. She wanted to be rid of such prohibitions.

Almost unconsciously she moved closer to the young man standing silently before her, watching her with eyes darker than night. With hesitation she reached up and touched his face, sweeping back his curls, her thumb passing gently over the curve of his brow. He did not move.

She moved closer once more, and this time she did not hesitate. His heavy-lidded eyes shifted between her enraptured eyes and her parted lips as she brushed her mouth against his, tasting him for the first time. It was a light kiss, experimental, uncertain, completely new. It was exhilarating; it tasted of freedom.

She was free to do this, she ventured to tell herself. She was free to do as she wished for these seven nights, to give of herself as she wished, to make demands as she wished, to join her world with this young man’s as she wished.

And when she drew back from her first taste of him, she found that he understood her. In fact, he felt the same way. His hands were already on her waist, running over the thin folds of her gown as if testing the tension of harpstrings. His fingers explored the light texture of her skin underneath, drawing her close to him once again so he could taste her this time.

His mouth was strong, insistent, firm as he took her breath from her, and she felt something long-forgotten inside her spark to life as his tongue joined his lips in savoring her, entering her mouth with hunger that was tempered by disciplined patience. He was firm but not forceful, demanding but not threatening. She felt one hand run up over her shoulder blades, entangling itself in her long hair and tilting her head back as his lips roamed downward to caress her throat. She sighed in the first tremor of release, a whisper of what was to come once they abandoned this empty hallway for the familiar intimacy of a bed.

She tugged at his robe around his shoulders, pulling him downward to give him better access to the exposed skin of her neck, her skin on fire from his touch. It was so alien to her, that she could feel such desire and pleasure in the mere anticipation of what had yet to transpire between them, pleasure she had never been allowed to feel before, stemming from desire that was not forced upon her. She stretched her body against his, leaning into him against the wall, feeling his lean frame grow tense, though he eagerly received her sudden insistence. The slow burn between her legs brushed against his, and a harsh sigh escaped his lips, his eyes flying open to look at her, to really look at her for the first time. Not as an object that needed repair, not as a weakened shell of bitter memory and regret, but as a woman who yearned for freedom and believed he could grant it to her, if just for this one night.

He pulled her into his room, out of the cold darkness of the hallway, and drew her to his bed. She smiled a small smile as she noticed his hand was warm.

He lay her down gently, more gently than she expected from an inexperienced young man, a man who months earlier had blushed furiously in embarrassment from her embrace on a cold dungeon floor. A flash of delight ran through her mind as she realized this would be his first time. She would be the one who would take him into her world, not the other way around. She would show him pleasure he had never known before, and make him believe in beauty, for the bliss he would soon feel would be the strongest evidence he could ever have. She would make him feel alive. And at last, she would have control over her own body and the body of another; she was choosing to make love, for once not forced to accept the ministrations of a man she abhorred.

And so she stayed his hands when they began to pull at her gown, and drew herself into a sitting position, bearing his look of puzzlement with a coy smile. She placed her hands on his chest and pushed him gently onto his back, feeling his resistance and surprise relent under the silent assurance in her eyes. She reached downward then and undid the knot of his robe, exposing pale, faintly scarred skin and lean muscle. He was thin but not weak; strenuous endurance training had honed his physique into the perfect channel for his inner power. He shifted beneath her as she tugged his robe off his body; she could feel his heartbeat under her fingers, quickening with the strain of holding still and waiting for her. She almost wept as she raised her head to meet his gaze and saw understanding there; he was staying with her, his will yielding to hers, knowing she needed to do this her way, to taste this dizzying mix of power and freedom.

She leaned down, her knees shifting downward across the bed, and her hands found the first point of pleasure below his abdomen, feeling the fine strings of his self-control stretch perfectly taut as he tensed under her touch. Her mouth followed her hands, trailing lightly, teasingly across his defined obliques, her tongue gently caressing skin that had thus far only felt burns and bruises. And she saw that this was a new kind of torment for him as his hands fisted into the sheets at his sides, his lungs drawing in breath haltingly without anywhere to channel it.

She could bring him to a peak slowly, as one climbs a gradual slope, torturously anticipating his destination at the end of the winding path. Or she could set him alight with the speed and ease of a flame spreading and crackling across dry timber. Glancing at his white-knuckled hands, she made her decision.

She closed her mouth over him, curling her tongue around his length to savor her first taste. He tasted of youth, coiled energy held forcefully in check by fraying strings, a completely new and invigorating experience for her. She adorned each touch and taste of him with a brief, teasing exhalation of air across the ultra-sensitive skin now glistening from her ministrations, fanning the fire that was already burning quickly toward its full height. The strings began to snap in rapid succession, fine muscles convulsing under her hands, harsh breaths sharpening into tortured gasps. And when he finally bucked against her and cried out his release, the salt of her tears flowed down to mix with the salt in her mouth, her trembling fingers reaching to hold his hand tightly, to assure her he was real, that this was real. His iron walls had shattered under her, a broken young woman whose heart of ice he had in turn melted. She felt all the more alive with him beneath her, just as uncertain, just as hopeful in this semblance of freedom.

And then she felt his hands seize her by the arms, dragging her onto her side, pushing her down brusquely onto her back as he tugged her nightgown roughly over her head and cast the garment aside. There was nothing between them now but the feverish heat emanating from bare skin. He loomed over her, the intense burn of his eyes devouring the sight of her lying fully exposed beneath him, no longer as a damaged experiment of his master, but as a flesh-and-blood woman he could claim for himself.

In a split-second, the harpsong of freedom threading warmly through her consciousness lurched off-key into a sinister cadence of discord.

In the dark gleam of his hungry eyes she saw a jarring flicker of piercing blue, the predator’s gaze that had haunted her life for four years. She was cornered, helpless, frozen as a wounded bird once again, wings lying limp at her sides, pinned firmly by his superior strength. He leaned down to claim her lips, pushing her tongue into the back of her mouth with the force of his brutal kiss. She crumbled, sinking into the mattress under the pressing weight of his body, shutting her eyes and sending tears into the pillow. Shoving her legs apart with his knee, he drove himself inside her in one rough motion, stopping her breath with a spear of pain and twisting pleasure.

And then he went completely still, staring down into her wide, frightened eyes and seeing her tears. The dark hunger of his expression faded into shock and realization of what he was doing to her. He drew back immediately, disengaging himself from her, planting his knees on either side of her hips but breaking all contact with her skin. His shaken appearance caused something to crack inside her.

“I’m sorry…I don’t want you to stop …” she said with a sob. “Please…” She placed a trembling hand on his flushed cheek, drawing his face downward to brush her lips. She did not know what she was pleading for, what she wanted anymore.

His lips were still and unresponsive. He resisted the pull of her hands, though she knew he wanted her. Why was this happening? Why were they breaking apart before they had even begun?

In the broken shards of her heart she knew the answer, cold and unyielding as his eyes. They both knew.

“Will it…will it always be this way?” she asked quietly. She brushed back the damp locks of hair from his forehead. “Will he always be there between us?”

He turned away from her with a tense growl, sitting upright and putting even more distance between them. “I am not him,” he said harshly. “Don’t tell me you look at me and see him.”

Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Her words seemed to hit something deep inside him, without the iron walls to shield his heart. She saw the rush of fury in his gaze, directed inward and projected toward a man who was not present yet was always there in their minds, breathing constant fear into them with the immense power he held over their lives.

“I know you’re not him,” she said softly. “You’re good.”

He raised an eyebrow skeptically, scoffing at her assessment of him. She understood the reason for his doubt. He was a ruthless killer who had taken thousands of lives with forbidden dark spells and unrepentant coldness. He was driven by revenge and the growing thirst for power, aspiring to take over his master’s throne once his vengeance was complete.

“You’re good to me,” she continued, clarifying what she felt for him. “I…I don’t want this to end. I want you. I…”

She trailed off, deciding to speak without words, sitting up and drawing herself into his lap. He stiffened at the contact of her hips settling against his, her legs wrapping securely around his thin waist. She held his face in her hands and kissed him softly, slowly, showing him she was ready to begin again, to try once more to make this work between them. He responded hesitantly at first, unsure of how he was making her feel, not wanting to see that stark look of terror and dread in her eyes again. She assured him with the insistence of her touch that she did not fear him. Their pace was slow, heat gradually building between them through the wandering touch of lips and gentle hands, the slow grinding of her hips against his.

And when she slid him inside her with the gentle guidance of her hand, she looked into the warm fire of his eyes and saw that he was beginning to believe at last. She trembled and almost broke at the import of this moment, this precipice she had reached; there was so far to fall if she stumbled. But there was a world to gain, a seed of faith to grow, if she succeeded. She would show him that beauty was real, that there was more than just the cold thirst for power and the struggle against death. She would show him that she was real, and what they had between them could be real if he wished it to be.

Their lips met, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders as she began to move against him, around him, rocking her hips with painstaking slowness so they could journey toward that blissful peak together this time. He shuddered against her mouth, the muscles in his back stretched hard and taut, and responded by gently lowering her to the bed, stroking her face with his hand as he wordlessly insisted that he finish what she had started. His eyes never left hers, their midnight depths drinking her in, willing her to lie back and receive what he wanted to give, not exhaust herself in trying to give more to him.

He moved slowly, burying himself completely in her before he began a deep, steady rhythm with the controlled power in his muscles. Her back arched and her eyelashes fluttered in the slow waves of ecstasy rolling through her, hitting every nerve ending and hidden point of pleasure along the way, her body resonating like a well-tuned harp in his hands. She gasped as he gradually quickened his pace, enough to heighten her pleasure but not frighten her or take away her sense of control. She wrapped her arms around his back, nails razing shallow scratches across his skin, catching a glance of his face before he captured her lips in a brief, burning kiss. His face was a mask of concentration, drawn tight with the difficulty of maintaining control and the perfect rhythm between them. She felt her mind rapidly losing coherence, thoughts melting away into a dizzying blend of pleasure and amazement at what was happening, wondering fleetingly how such a level of discipline could exist in a man, how she could feel such maddening pleasure without a trace of pain or fear.

She sensed the final tide beginning to stir, rising rapidly within them both, and shut her eyes with a soft cry as it flooded through her senses at last, sweeping her away in a helpless torrent of bliss and unspeakable pleasure. He spoke her name roughly in her ear, and she felt his release blaze through her in a warm surge, the remnants of her overloaded senses swirling into a puddle under the intensity of his voice and the feel of him inside her.

“Raniye.”

He spoke her name as a sorcerer who dared to summon a goddess, or a man of faith confessing his most secret sin. Her name alone was his raw admittance of what she was to him. And she smiled through tears of joy, feeling like she would break apart if she marred this moment with words.

They lay together quietly in the darkness, their minds slowly disengaging from each other while their bodies remained coiled tightly, her hand stroking his hair absently. A simple, wistful song threaded through her lips, a lullaby she had learned in her past life.

Past the gates of perdition, all perspectives changed. But tonight, she felt a small, resilient seed of hope take root in the rocky soil of her heart. It was their first step back toward those gates, though they were far, far removed from salvation. Her hope was lined with hesitance and trepidation, hemmed in on all sides by fear and doubt. But hope fostered in the depths of darkness was all the more resilient, imbued with the courage to stand against death. Still, she drew back in uncertainty at the glimmer of an impossible thought that sprung into her mind.

But as she looked into the silent strength of his midnight eyes, she thought perhaps she could believe—hesitantly, fearfully, but truthfully—that there was a way out of these gates.