Mira's POV
The dungeon floor was ice against my cheek.
I didn't remember falling. One moment the guards were dragging me down endless stairs, the next I was lying on cold stone, tasting blood and dirt.
"Get up," a guard barked, kicking my leg.
I tried. My body wouldn't cooperate. Everything hurt—my face where I'd been hit, my arms where they'd gripped too hard, my heart most of all.
Rough hands hauled me upright and shoved me forward. My legs barely held me.
We were deep underground now. The torchlight barely reached into the shadows. Cells lined both sides of a narrow corridor, iron bars rusty and ancient. Faces pressed against those bars—hollow eyes, desperate faces, hands reaching out.
"Please," a woman's voice called from the darkness. "Water. Just a sip of water."
The guards ignored her. Ignored all of them.
They stopped at a cell near the end. The door screamed as they opened it, metal scraping against stone. The sound made my teeth hurt.
"Your new home," Captain Reeves said with a cruel smile. "Though you won't be here long. Queen Isadora handles traitors personally."
They threw me inside. I hit the ground hard, my palms scraping on rough stone. The door slammed shut behind me with a sound like the end of the world.
Keys rattled. The lock clicked home.
Then their footsteps faded, taking the torchlight with them.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
I lay there for a long time, too exhausted and hurt to move. My mind kept replaying everything—the Prince's silver eyes looking at me with gratitude, his voice saying "thank you" like I mattered, then those same eyes rolling back as he passed out before he could defend me.
The magical healer's lie echoed in my head: "My magic saved him."
She'd stolen my work. Stolen my one moment of worth. And everyone believed her because she had magic and I had nothing.
Story of my life.
Eventually, cold forced me to move. I crawled to the corner farthest from the door and pulled my knees to my chest, trying to conserve warmth. My thin dress was no protection against the dungeon's chill.
Time passed. I couldn't tell how much. Hours? Days? There were no windows, no way to track the sun. Just endless darkness and the constant drip, drip, drip of water somewhere.
My stomach cramped with hunger. My throat burned with thirst. But no one came.
They were going to let me die down here. Slowly. Forgotten.
Maybe that was better than whatever Queen Isadora had planned.
I must have dozed off eventually because I jerked awake to the sound of footsteps. Multiple people approaching. Torchlight flickered in the distance.
My heart hammered. Was this it? Were they coming to execute me already?
But the footsteps passed my cell. They stopped several doors down.
"Open it," a woman's voice commanded. Smooth, cold, and used to being obeyed.
Keys rattled. A door opened.
"You can't keep me here!" a man's voice shouted. "I've done nothing wrong! I demand to speak to—"
The sound of a slap echoed through the dungeon. The man's voice cut off.
"You demand nothing," the woman said softly. Dangerously. "You are here because I will it. You live because I permit it. Remember that."
Footsteps again. Coming closer this time.
I pressed myself into my corner, trying to be invisible. But the footsteps stopped right outside my cell.
Torchlight flooded in, blinding me after so long in darkness. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain.
"So this is the magicless girl who claims she saved my son."
That voice. I knew that voice from a thousand nightmares told in the Lower Districts. Queen Isadora.
I forced my eyes open. Through the bars stood the most terrifying woman I'd ever seen.
She was beautiful in a cold, sharp way—like a knife made of ice. Her crown caught the torchlight and threw it back in cruel sparkles. But it was her eyes that froze me. They were dark and empty, like looking into a bottomless pit.
"Stand up," she commanded.
My legs shook as I obeyed. I refused to cower, even though every instinct screamed at me to bow, to beg, to grovel.
Queen Isadora studied me like I was an insect she was considering crushing. "You touched the Crown Prince. Put your filthy, magicless hands on the future king. Do you know what the penalty for that is?"
"Death," I whispered. My voice came out hoarse from thirst.
"Usually, yes." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "But my son is alive, which complicates things. The royal healer tells me her magic saved him. Yet several guards reported you were found treating him. Interesting contradiction, don't you think?"
Hope flickered in my chest. She was questioning the healer's story?
"I did save him," I said, stronger now. "Nightshade Tears. I used silvervine, moonflower, and dragon's breath oil to neutralize the poison and burn it from his blood. The magical healer arrived after the work was done."
Queen Isadora's expression didn't change. "Bold words from someone in your position."
"They're true words."
"Truth." She laughed, cold and cruel. "Truth is whatever serves my purposes, girl. Do you think I care who actually saved my son? What matters is the story we tell. And the story is that royal magic saved royal blood. Not some magicless rat scrambling in an alley."
The hope died in my chest, crushed under the weight of her words.
"However," the Queen continued, "there is a problem. My son briefly regained consciousness at the scene. Before passing out again, he said something about you saving him. Several guards heard it."
My breath caught. He'd remembered. Even in his weakened state, he'd tried to tell the truth.
"So you see my dilemma," Queen Isadora said softly. "I can't simply execute you without it looking like I'm covering something up. That would raise questions I don't want raised. But I also can't allow a magicless commoner to claim credit for saving the Crown Prince. That would challenge everything our kingdom is built on."
She studied me with those bottomless eyes.
"So here's what's going to happen," she said. "In three days, when my son is fully recovered, he'll hold a public audience. You will be brought before him. He will thank the royal healer for saving his life. And you will confirm that story. You will say you did nothing—that you merely waited with him until real help arrived."
"But that's a lie," I protested.
"Yes. But it's the lie that keeps you alive." Her smile was like a blade. "Refuse, and I'll execute you for assault on royalty. Agree, and I'll merely conscript you into palace service. You'll work in the healing ward as the lowest servant—scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, doing whatever tasks are too degrading for actual healers."
She leaned closer to the bars. "It's humiliation instead of death, girl. Most would consider that mercy."
My hands curled into fists. Work as a servant, knowing I'd saved the Prince but never able to claim it? Watch the magical healer bask in praise for my work? Live every day as a reminder that magicless people were worth nothing?
But the alternative was death.
"What if the Prince tells the truth?" I asked. "What if he remembers everything and says I saved him?"
Queen Isadora's smile widened. "My son is practical. He understands how kingdoms work. He'll say what needs to be said." She turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and girl? If you ever speak of this to anyone—if you ever claim you saved the Crown Prince—I'll kill everyone you've ever healed. Every patient you've touched in your miserable little clinic. Their deaths will be on your hands."
The threat hit me like a physical blow. Mrs. Chen. Little Tommy. All the people I'd helped over the years. She'd murder them to keep me silent.
"Do we have an understanding?" the Queen asked.
I wanted to scream. To refuse. To tell her she couldn't do this.
But I thought of Tommy's small face, of Mrs. Chen's grateful tears, of all the people who'd trusted me with their lives.
"Yes," I whispered, hating myself. "We have an understanding."
"Excellent." Queen Isadora gestured to her guards. "Leave her here until the audience. No food, no water. Let's see if a few days of hunger makes her more... compliant."
They left, taking the torchlight with them.
Darkness crashed back in, heavier than before.
I slid down the wall, numb with despair. I'd saved the Crown Prince's life—performed a miracle with almost nothing—and my reward was silence, servitude, and the threat of my patients' deaths if I ever told the truth.
But as I sat there in the dark, something burned through the numbness.
Anger.
The Queen thought she'd broken me. Thought she could erase what I'd done, rewrite the story to fit her world.
But she'd made one mistake.
Crown Prince Cassian had looked into my eyes and thanked me. He'd tried to tell the truth even while barely conscious. That meant something. That had to mean something.
And in three days, I'd see him again.
Three days to survive. Three days to stay strong.
Three days to hope that maybe—just maybe—the Crown Prince remembered a magicless healer named Mira Ashwood who'd refused to let him die.
The darkness pressed in, but I didn't let it take me.
I'd survived my father's abandonment. My mother's death. Years of abuse and poverty and being told I was worthless.
I could survive three more days.
And then... then we'd see what truth was really worth.