I forced myself to stay calm, to keep the fear from showing. My lips tugged into a smile I knew was twisted and stiff, carved more by tension than intention.
"…Why?"
My trembling voice didn't escape Jasper's notice. He chuckled — a sound so cold it could have cracked the air between us, and tightened his grip on my numb hand.
"You know they followed a heretical cult," he said, as if recounting a long-lost tale. "To them, children weren't blood or kin. They were just offerings to be sacrificed in the name of some wretched god."
My wrists were locked in his grasp. I couldn't reach the key hanging from his belt. Slowly, deliberately, I ran my fingers over his cheek, using the gentleness to distract him while inching myself closer, inch by inch.
"I know." I murmured, soft as a prayer. "That's why I wanted to bring you back to the capital with me."
"But you never came back."
