Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,42

do.”

We fell quiet after that, hurrying to eat our paltry meal. Before we’d had a chance to finish and drink the water, the door opened.

“Stand up. It’s time to leave,” the hooded man commanded.

I grabbed the flagon as I stood up, unstopping it and swallowing the last bit of cheese whole, then took a large gulp of the water and tossed it to Eljin, who did the same.

The man stepped toward us and yanked the flagon out of Eljin’s hand.

“That’s enough. Go.” He shoved Eljin in the back, sending him stumbling toward me.

They marched us through the darkness until our legs practically gave out and then shut us in a room to rest for a couple of hours once more. The same cycle repeated for what felt like days, until I couldn’t stop the continuous trembling in my hands, from hunger and unrelenting panic. I began to believe I’d never see the sun or sky again. The only change was the hooded men who guarded us. Every so often, they would switch. I couldn’t believe they were all black sorcerers. If they were, Damian’s fears that we would never survive an attack from Dansii were even more accurate than we’d believed.

Finally, when I was certain I was going to lose my mind completely or collapse on the ground and die from starvation and exhaustion, we stopped by yet another winding set of stairs.

“Up,” the sorcerer next to me said, grabbing my arm and yanking me toward the stone steps.

“Up?” I repeated in disbelief.

He didn’t respond except to jerk me forward, making my shoulder pop. I didn’t ask again, hurrying up the stairs as quickly as I could. My heart thumped harder and harder against my lungs the higher we got, as the smell of earth and the constant, oppressive darkness began to lift. When we reached the top stair, a massive wooden door blocked our exit. The sorcerer beside me pulled a ring of keys out of his robes and pushed one into the lock. With a click, it released and the door swung open.

Two more men in dark robes, their hoods pulled up, stood past the door, blocking the way. The sorcerer next to me said something in Dansiian, and the two guards stepped aside to let us through. Eljin and the other men were right behind me as we moved forward into a hallway lined with doors.

There were no windows, but torches were propped in brackets in evenly spaced intervals. Even though I knew whatever lay ahead couldn’t be good, my legs went weak with relief — I could see more than a body’s length ahead of myself. I was no longer surrounded by damp earth.

Another sorcerer came up on my other side, and then each of them grabbed one of my arms, as if they were afraid I was going to fight back now, after remaining so compliant the entire time. Their fingers dug into my muscle and bone as they dragged me down the hallway. I heard people behind the doors; the muffled sound of someone sobbing in one, and a strange scratching noise in another. Almost as if the occupant was scraping stone on stone. Who were they? And where were we?

My momentary relief was extinguished when we turned a corner to a smaller, darker hallway with only two doors, rather than continuing forward to the staircase at the end of the bigger corridor. The doors were guarded by two massive men who held curved swords in their hands.

The larger of the two, who had to be at least a head and a half taller than me, barked something at us in Dansiian, but the sorcerer responded calmly. Whatever he said was effective, because both of the guards straightened and quickly moved toward the door on the right, one of them unlocking it and pulling it open.

“Who is it?” someone inside asked in Antionese — a voice I’d begun to worry I’d never hear again.

My heart constricted as I strained forward against the men who still held my arms, desperate to see in.

“You will wait here until the king decides what he wants to do with you,” the sorcerer on my left told me, and then he shoved me toward the cell. I stumbled through the doorway, then slammed to a halt when I saw him lying on a cot below a tiny barred window, his injured leg wrapped in dirt-encrusted, bloody bandages, thinner than I’d ever seen him, a beard darkening his jaw.

“Alexa?” He