367 The Pageant

~ ZARA ~

I woke to the clanging door again and my entire body flooded with adrenaline. Was it going to be Hildie again? Or someone else? Had the guards decided to ignore their orders and come after me? Were they going to break me the way they were breaking Emory?

All these thoughts whipped through my mind in the seconds it took to blink, then push myself up to a sitting position.

The dim light of the dungeon was unkind as the cell door swung open, because the only light came from that fire at the center of the dungeon that the guards had been huddled around, and the stone wall at the front of the cell broke it. So the doorway remained in shadow until the cell door had swung wide.

For a moment I blinked in confusion. All I could make out was a tall figure in light-colored clothes... then I caught the shock of white hair.

I sucked in a gasp as David muttered something to a guard, then strode into the cell and stood over me, glaring and fierce.