Page 125 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Inconvenienced, Damlor exhaled and withdrew a vial from his cloak. He seized Gavriel’s jaw and forced his head back. “A gift from the potion master.”

The now-familiar liquid slid down Gavriel’s throat, the taste colliding with blood. Seconds later a prickling spread through his veins. Torn flesh stitched shut. Split lips closed. Cracked bones knit. Air flowed more freely into his lungs.

When the swelling around his eyes faded, he found Damlor’s smirk waiting inches from his face. “Shall we try this again?” he asked, almost conversationally.

Gavriel scarcely drew breath before the punch crashed into his cheek. Light exploded behind his eyes. Then the small iron cage that had become his universe dissolved into black.

Consciousness returned slowly, dragging like a slow tide pulling stones.

Gavriel blinked into the dim light. The chains no longer held him upright. He lay sprawled across the damp floor instead. His body had been restored, but his mind still reeled as if shards of Damlor’s magic remained lodged behind his eyes.

A groan slipped out. He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead, trying to hold himself together. Though in truth, the pounding in his skull, the hunger gnawing his stomach, and the taste of old blood had become familiar, reliable constants.

He drew a long breath and lifted his head.

Wherever this was, they kept him apart from the others. He heard no voices. No cries. Only the occasional tread of guards and the echo of Damlor’s laughter in his ears.

The solitude hurt more than the beating.

Silence pressed in until even the quiet felt like an assault.

His only companions were the iron bars and a narrow window high in the wall. Each night the moons traced their indifferent paths through the sky, their mingling colors slipping through that opening like a bruise across stone.

Intent on losing himself to sleep, Gavriel began to lower his head.

A shimmer appeared beyond the bars.

At first he thought it another hallucination. A remnant of Damlor’s touch. But the shimmer parted like smoke, and from it stepped a face he never expected to see again.

“Elara,” he breathed, disbelief plain in it.

She settled on her knees and gripped the bars, green and amber moonlight threading through her fair hair. A small, uneven smile touched her mouth. “There you are.”

Gavriel rubbed his eyes and opened them again.

She was still there.

“We’ve been so worried,” Elara whispered, reaching past the iron.

He shuffled backward until his shoulders struck stone. “You aren’t real.”

“I am.” Her breath caught. “It’s me. Your fellow human captive.”

Gavriel stared, giving his doubts another moment of triumph. Then he lurched forward and caught her fingers. They were warm. Warmer than anything he had felt in weeks. He clung to them as if letting go would take the last piece of his soul.

“I would have come sooner, but we didn’t know where they had taken you.” Her grip tightened, desperate to be believed. “I searched. Njall searched.”

“Njall searched?” Gavriel had assumed the friendship ended the moment his impersonation was uncovered. A broken laugh escaped him.

“He would have come himself, but the prison is warded against fae.”

Still afraid to trust the sight of her, Gavriel blinked. “How did you pass the guards?”

“A Tsuchitsan aided me. He brewed an invisibility draught.”

Gavriel nodded as he absorbed the tidings. Awareness of his appearance struck him suddenly: beard overgrown, hair matted, thin to the bone. Shame twisted through him. He released her hands and turned away. “You shouldn’t look at me.”

Tears glimmered in Elara’s eyes. “What have they done to you?” Fury flashed through her features even as her voice trembled. “You’re wasting away.”