Chapter 17 #3
Many hands pushed me down, their power overwhelming mine as I was shoved into the chair, forced to sit with my spine straight and my neck roughly strapped into the confines of the contraption at the top of it.
My head filled with the sound of a thousand whispers, their voices powerful and brimming with a range of emotions so potent that I could feel them rattling through my skin.
The gods were all around me, some curious, some eager, others horrified or angry.
It didn’t seem to matter though; not one of them appeared to make their feelings known, and if the Fae surrounding me realised they were close, they paid no attention to their presence, instead focusing on me.
A scream escaped my lips just before the iron collar was locked into place around my throat.
My breath stuck in my lungs as I felt a ring of sharpened points cutting into my neck from within the iron collar, and I stopped thrashing as the wounds forced the metal to make contact with my blood, every movement only driving them deeper into my skin.
I tried to call on my healing power to aid me, but with the iron piercing my flesh there was nothing that it could do, and my stomach roiled from the taste of iron which somehow seemed to coat my tongue.
“Tell us where your brother-in-law took his children,” Kalir asked calmly, as if he thought this would be enough to change my mind.
I spat at him, wincing from the movement as it made the iron spikes sink further into my flesh, but at least my point had been made clearly.
“I will never tell you,” I hissed, my truth sizzling in the air and making itself known.
Kalir eyed me for several moments then nodded, accepting that much and seeming to realise there wasn’t a power on this earth that would break my resolve to keep this secret.
The guards disbanded and Kalir came to stand before me, taking a plain metal coin from his pocket and holding it up for me to see.
It was big enough to fill the centre of his palm but completely smooth and unadorned, unlike any coin I’d ever seen.
It wasn’t currency, and the strange glow which it seemed to emit suggested it was so much more than a simple piece of precious metal.
“This coin shall be the master of your destiny from now until the end of time, Esworn,” he purred, that unnatural light to his eyes burning more fiercely as I could do nothing but stare up at him.
“Prepare yourself,” he added as he placed the coin on the ground before me and took a step back.
“The power I am about to call upon will be anything but gentle with your cursed soul. But I can make it hurt less at any point – all you have to do is tell me where they are hiding, and I will make you sleep throughout the process. Or keep your secrets and pay the price of them in suffering.”
A whimper bled from my lips as I stared up at him, a heavy kind of power building all around me which made the guards shift uncomfortably in their positions around the clearing, but I still held my tongue, knowing nothing he could do would force their location from me.
“I suggest you all leave,” Kalir told the guards. “For I am about to steal a slice of power from each and every deity in existence and place it into this unworthy host, and I doubt they will be happy about it once they realise what I am doing.”
The guards exchanged concerned looks as the billowing power continued to build and they all took off at once, abandoning me to this fate even as I called out after them for mercy.
“Please,” I begged, looking up into the face of the only man left standing before me as he drew closer, an iron blade in his hand which was marked with the symbol for Steelion, the goddess of metal, stone and strength.
“The time for any kind of begging is long past, Esworn,” Kalir said softly, closing in on me and though I tried to recoil, that only made the iron collar cut into my flesh more deeply. “Now you shall reap the true reward of what you’ve done and forever pay for it with your servitude.”
My heart beat faster and faster as he closed in on me, that power swelling and growing endlessly until all I could see was the fervent brightness in his eyes and before long, even that was stolen from me by the agony of the magic which he forced beneath my skin.
I jerked awake as the memories of untold pain and endless torment slowly left me and all that remained was the rapid beat of my pulse and the violent pants of my breaths.
I blinked around at the golden prison which held me, the pain of the monsters’ teeth fading now that I found myself whole once again.
On and on and on we linger.
“I hoped this time we might remain dead,” I breathed, reaching out to dip my fingers into the pool of tears as I tried to recall what I had been dreaming of.
But if it was a memory of mine then I was long beyond the point of being able to recall any of those.
All I knew was that it had hurt something fierce.
No. Death is for the lucky ones. And we have never been that.
“Never,” I agreed as a tear tracked down my cheek before racing away to land in the pool beside me, joining all the others while I remained eternally alone.
I released a slow breath but made no attempt to move. What was the point anyway? I may as well wait precisely where I was. Though I wasn’t sure what I waited for any longer anyway.
A single moment was such a long time to be alone.