Raina woke with her mouth tasting of dust and a head like a drum. For a second, she thought she was still under the cupboard—dark, cramped, the smell of tins and biscuits. Then the blanket moved, and cold air hit her face.

She pushed the cover away. The cell was small: a thin mattress, a stool, a tiny, barred window. The bandage on her shoulder stuck to her skin where she’d slept on it. Her fingers found it without thinking; the crescent under the cloth felt like something alive, a small animal tucked under her palm.

Across the corridor, behind a thick iron grate, Marta hunched in the dim. The old woman looked smaller than Raina remembered, bent around herself like cloth. Their eyes met, and Marta lifted two fingers—a tiny tap, the same code she’d used before Raina ran. It was both a warning and a promise.

Raina tried to push herself upright, and the room spun. Her head throbbed. A voice from the doorway filled the cell with a smell—smoke, leather, something old. Kyran stepped in like he owned the light. He moved slowly, all control and quiet power. His amber eyes were a shock against the pale of his face.

“You’re awake,” he said, like a man making an observation.

Raina’s mouth felt dry. “Put me down,” she said. Her voice came small but sharp.

He didn’t smile. “You’ll sleep better if you learn to do so where someone watches.”

“You think this is watching?” she snapped. The anger felt sudden and childish, and true.

“You were marked,” he said, neither cruel nor kind. “I kept you from worse hands.”

“You marked me,” she hissed. The words had claws. “You marked a child.”

Kyran’s face closed for a breath, then softened with something like old regret. “Better a mark than being torn open,” he said. “You’d have been hungry for other men’s curiosity.”

Taron came in behind him with a jug of water. He set it down carefully like it was an apology. He was steadier than anyone here seemed willing to be.

“You drank?” he asked kindly. He had the soft bluntness of someone used to giving orders and small comforts.

Raina curled her fingers around the cup. The water tasted of pipes and the faint tang of metal. “Where’s Marta?” she asked without thinking. The name slid like a pebble from her lips.

Kyran’s gaze flicked to the barred window. “She’s close,” he said. “You can see her.”

Across the corridor, Marta had lifted a hand and pressed it flat to the cold bars. Her fingers trembled. The old woman mouthed something Raina couldn’t hear; tiny, insistent. Then she tapped twice and curled her fist—the same quick sign she’d been taught to give when danger was near.

Raina’s heart hit the bars of her ribs. A small, old part of her wanted to run forward and smash every torch in the corridor. Instead, she lay back and let the walls lean in. The bandage itched; the mark hummed like a moth against glass.

Liora’s voice floated down the hall like a filament. She was all silk and sharp teeth. “How quaint,” she called from somewhere beyond. “Our King brings home a stray and wraps it in velvet.”

Taron’s jaw tightened. He stepped between Liora and the cell as if he could make a fence with his bones. “Enough,” he said. “Let her be.”

Liora’s laugh was soft and mean. “He keeps the sealed wing shut for a reason. You should feel flattered, love.”

Raina wanted to spit. Instead, she said, “You can’t own someone.”

“You’re naive,” Liora said, voice like sugar on a blade. “Possession is a fine thing when you have power.”

Taron looked at Raina with eyes that tried to be kind and only managed tired. “You’ll get no mercy here,” he said. “You’ll get orders. I’ll keep an eye. If something happens, I’ll be by the door.”

Kyran crouched a step closer. His breath smelled faint of cigarettes and something sweet she couldn’t name. He touched the bandage softly. Heat streaked through her like a hot coin.

Something small and old answered inside her—a low, thin voice that was not Marta’s and not hers. It slid across her thoughts and pressed the single word into her head.

“Mine”.

The word sat like an iron on her tongue. Raina jerked away as if burned. Kyran’s face was unreadable for a moment, then he smiled a small, awful thing.

“You hear it?” he murmured. “Good. You’re waking up.”

Raina’s fingers dug into the thin mattress until her nails hurt. The word clung like smoke. She thought of Marta’s palm at the bars, the tin and the coin, the bargain she’d made years ago. The memory tasted like old wood and salt.

A guard at the end of the corridor shifted. Steps passed and distant voices threaded through the hall. Taron glanced at the door, his hand near the handle as if ready to spring. “Council tonight,” he muttered. “You’ll be shown.”

“Shown?” The word felt like a hook. “Like an exhibit?”

“Like proof,” Taron said. “Kyran wants to remind people of what he holds.”

Raina felt the mark under the bandage prickle. A tiny note rose in her chest, a sound only she could hear — a thread of voice, thin and urgent.

“Run”, it whispered, but weaker, flickering like a candle in the wind.

Marta’s eyes met hers again across the iron. This time, the old woman’s mouth shaped a single hard order she could not hear. Her fingers closed, and she blinked fast, wet with something Raina couldn’t name. Regret. Hope. Guilt.

“You won’t let them take you,” Marta mouthed, or maybe Raina said that to herself. The small cell felt suddenly like an island. Outside, the palace breathed, and the night stretched like a hand ready to close.

Kyran rose and walked to the door. His cloak swung, and the torchlight carved him into angles. “You rest,” he said. “We will use you where we must.”

His voice left the room thin and sharp. Taron lingered a moment longer near the hatch, eyes on Raina like a man balancing a coin. Then footsteps faded, and the door banged softly behind them.

Left in the small dark room, Raina curled her knees to her chest and pressed her palm to the bandage. The mark under the cloth thrummed like a moth hitting glass. The voice inside her spoke once more, not a command but a pull.

“Mine”, it said again, and this time it felt like a promise and a threat rolled into one.