Naya stood on the deck of the Gallant and tried not to flinch under the stony glares of the nine Talmiran soldiers standing before her. Her lips still burned with the memory of the kiss. It had felt so impossibly good to hold Corten again, and she’d sensed his eagerness when he’d kissed her back. In that moment she’d wanted to give up everything and flee with him. The only thing that stopped her was a gut-deep certainty that once they started running, they’d never be able to stop.

The aether around her carried the pepper-smoke tang of anger and anticipation as the soldiers formed ranks before her, keeping their hands close to the hilts of their swords. Naya had no doubt those swords were wraith eaters. In addition, two more squads waited in rowboats below, and three nearby ships had pointed their cannons at the Gallant, ready to fire broadside if she tried anything.

Naya supposed she should have felt proud that they thought her enough of a threat to deserve such an overwhelming show of force. Instead she just felt sick.

“Naya Garth, you are hereby charged with trespassing and the attempted murder of a Talmiran citizen.” The soldier who spoke was a short man with a bushy brown beard that might have looked silly if not for the icy disgust in his aether.

Captain Cervacaro stood to the side of the soldiers and Naya saw his face pale at the accusation. Tension thickened in the aether, making her skin prickle. Naya met the soldier’s gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The bearded soldier’s eyes narrowed. “I am referring to the attack at the Academy of Magics last night.”

Naya did her best to look confused. “What attack? I was here on the ship all night.”

“Several reliable witnesses reported your crimes. If you are innocent, then you have nothing to worry about coming with us to defend yourself in the courts.” The soldier’s lip curled into a sneer, as though he found the prospect highly unlikely. “If you refuse, we are authorized to take you by force.”

Naya shivered at the bright thread of eagerness in his aether. She was innocent, at least partially. She hadn’t tried to hurt anyone at the academy, though Hest had certainly done her best to kill her. She doubted her guilt or innocence would matter much to these men. “I’ll come with you,” she said quickly. “And I hope you’ll send someone to tell Queen Lial that I’ve reconsidered her offer. I have information for her.” It was a gamble. But if Naya was right about the queen’s role in all of this, then it should be enough to get her to hear Naya out.

Something that might have been doubt or disappointment flickered across the soldier’s features. “Restrain her,” he said. Two more soldiers stepped forward, one of them pulling a complicated set of wooden cuffs from a pack on his back. Naya clenched her teeth at the icy touch of the salma wood. The chill of it radiated through her limbs as the soldier locked one set of cuffs around her wrists, then clasped a collar around her neck. Another set of cuffs bound her ankles, all of it held together with heavy metal chains.

“Is this really necessary?” Naya asked. The throb of the cracked bone in her hand seemed stronger amid the cold pain of the salma wood, and the chains around her ankles were so short that she’d have to shuffle rather than walk. She was glad that at least the compass and anchor bones weren’t there anymore to add to the dissonant sensations, or worse, to somehow translate her pain back to Lucia or Corten. Both bones had cracked and fallen away as she’d stepped back into life.

The bearded soldier offered her a thin smile. “We know what your kind are capable of.”

The soldier who’d cuffed her pulled out a salma wood club and prodded her toward the edge of the ship. There they hooked a rope onto her cuffs and lowered her down to the waiting rowboats like a sack of grain.

Panic tightened in Naya’s chest as they secured her to a heavy iron loop on the rowboat, then started back toward shore. She flexed her wrists against her restraints but stopped when the soft clink of chains earned her a look from one of the soldiers watching her. Instead she turned her gaze toward the shore, trying to appear calm.

She told herself she would be fine. This wasn’t anything like the last time she’d been locked in chains. She had a plan, and she had at least some allies back at the Congress. She just had to convince Queen Lial that dismissing the accusation was the smartest course of action.

If that failed, at least Corten and Lucia would be safe.

Naya’s thoughts fuzzed in a fog of pain as the soldiers rowed her to shore, then escorted her up the lift to a waiting carriage. Despite her efforts to reassure herself, the carriage ride reminded her all too much of the ride to the executioner’s platform back in Belavine. How was it that she kept getting herself into these situations? Less than a year ago, she’d been a merchant’s daughter. The biggest danger she’d ever faced was that of shipwreck, and even that hadn’t been much of a risk in the routes her father usually sailed. Now here she was facing the prospect of imprisonment and execution. Again.

A cruel voice in the back of her mind whispered that she never should have come back to Talmir. Everyone would have been better off if she’d just stayed in Belavine. Well, everyone except Corten. The memory of him standing whole and alive on the Gallant silenced that voice. She hadn’t told him about the five years the stranger had demanded as part of the price for bringing him back. The choice had been hers, and knowing about it would probably only make Corten feel guilty.

The carriage doors opened and Naya stumbled out. “Where are we?” she asked, the panic rising fresh in her chest despite the numbing chill of the salma wood cuffs. The carriage had stopped in a dark stone chamber. Soldiers guarded an iron-bound door on the far wall. A boom came from behind her, and Naya looked back to see a larger set of doors being latched shut.

“Your new residence, until the queen decides what to do with you,” the bearded soldier from the ship said.

“I thought you were taking me to the palace,” Naya said.

The soldier sneered. “The palace? No. You’ll be staying in the only part of this land where one of your kind belongs.”

Naya looked down the dark hallway with a sinking feeling. “I’m a member of the delegation. You can’t just lock me up like this.”

But apparently they could, because one of the soldiers hit her across the shoulders with a salma wood club, forcing her to stumble forward. Between the effects of the salma wood and her cracked bone, she didn’t have the strength to fight them. She’d hoped the soldiers would take her in for questioning immediately. Instead they’d brought her to the Barrow, the prison in Justice Square where the worst of Talmir’s criminals were held. Did Queen Lial have more evidence than Naya had assumed? Or had she decided she didn’t care about angering the Congress by locking Naya away down here?

The soldiers dragged her down and down, past cells with heavy barred doors. The upper levels of the prison were loud with clanking metal and the cries of prisoners. As they descended the shouts were replaced with silence broken only occasionally by a quiet sob or a burst of hysterical laugher. Through the ice of the salma wood and her own dread, Naya could feel the darkness of the prison’s aether seeping into her. The air tasted thick and heavy with despair, a sickly-sweet stench like something long dead. It made her shackles feel heavier and her doubts and fears multiply.

The soldiers finally stopped at a heavy door of dark salma wood. The bearded soldier unlocked the door and opened it to reveal a windowless cell little bigger than a closet. Or a coffin. Naya’s throat went tight and the last of her courage left her. “No,” she whispered, trying to push away from the dark opening. “No!” Her bare feet slid against the damp stone floor as she struggled to scramble away. She tried to push her wrists through her cuffs, but the shackles held fast.

A club slammed into the back of her head once, twice. Dazed, Naya stumbled into the cell. Her shoulder hit the wall and the freezing touch of more salma wood greeted her. Before she could even turn around, the heavy door boomed shut behind her, sealing her in darkness.