Seduce Me in Flames by Jacquelyn Frank

enemies.
    “Allay does not take kindly to those who would take money out of its coffers.”
    “Its coffers are fat and overflowing enough. Meanwhile, your merchants are being tariffed into starvation. Your technology is lagging behind because it costs too pretty to make new, innovative machines.”
    “You sound very passionate about a land that is not your own. Far from it, in fact.”
    He tried to shrug it off, but she was unconvinced. “I’m just about the money, Blue Eyes. And maybe a wee bit about the danger. It’s fun trying not to get caught.”
    “With ‘trying’ being the operative word. You might work more on the succeeding part.”
    That made him chuckle, whereas another man might take offense at having his skills called into question.
    “You might be right about that. But it’s always about a weakness. Mine’s always been the damsel in distress. I stopped to help a woman in need and it turned out she was a damn cop. That should teach me a lesson. Next time, I won’t fall for a pretty face asking for help.”
    “There won’t be a next time,” Ambrea scoffed. “You’ll be sentenced to death. And apparently whatever it was you were doing was enough to earn your being held in the country’s most notoriously inescapable prison, so you might put escape out of your head if that’s something you’re hoping for.”
    “Ah. You’re a real cup-half-empty kinda girl, now aren’t you? Are you an expert on this place? How long have you been in here? You have some color to your skin and face, so you haven’t been underground that long.”
    “This time, only a couple of weeks, I think. Time moves so differently in here, and they don’t exactly give us a clock to watch. Not unless they want us to watch it. It can be hard on you to see the minutes of your life slowly ticking away, or the moment of your execution quickly ticking toward you.”
    “This time? You’ve been in and out of here before?”
    Ambrea exhaled long and slowly. She didn’t feel like discussing her periods of incarceration. It was better not to think about it. It would only depress her. If she let her mood flag, it would make it easier for her uncle to weaken her. In a low moment, she might end up throwing it all away.
    She liked to think she would never do that. That she was stronger than that. That she cared too much for the future of her country. But interminable darkness andwetness and having all your rights stripped away for no apparent reason other than the question of your birthright—it could wear on a person’s spirit. Honestly, she didn’t know how Suna could bear it. How she could volunteer for it. Perhaps it made it easier, her knowing that at any time she could just get up and walk away. Then again, so could Ambrea. All it would take is a signature and a retinal scan.
    “Once you’re here for any length of time, it seems as though you are here forever. It never leaves you. I don’t think there is any such thing as freedom from this place.”
    “I think that it’s all in the strength of your mind,” he said with a sudden soft seriousness, his eyes penetrating through the dimness and distance between them. It even seemed as though his accent lightened up and he spoke very clearly to her. “And whether or not you are willing to give up. Are you the sort to give up easily?”
    She felt a flash of anger. He was talking about things he didn’t understand. Give up easily? Her whole lifetime had been about struggling to survive. She had fought for it in one way or another ever since her mother’s death when she’d been four. She was bone weary from it. But if he had any idea of who she was and what she had put up with, then maybe he wouldn’t be questioning if she were a quitter.
    “I’ve never quit. I’ll never quit. There’s far more than my well-being at stake. It wouldn’t be right for me to just throw it all away and look for an easy out.”
    And that was when she realized she would never sign that