Cold had a way of seeping into bone, slow, patient, merciless. Ivy felt every bit of it.

The dungeon was little more than a stone box hammered underground, but after days without food, even breathing felt like lifting a mountain. She curled on her side on the damp floor, eyes half-open but unfocused, mind drifting in and out of numbness. Hunger no longer gnawed; it throbbed, a constant ache that made her limbs tremble whenever she tried to move.

She had refused every tray shoved through the ...