6. Verena #2
Ah, ah, ah. I told you to hold still. Must you always resist?
By the time the Huntsman is done with my fingers, I'm nothing more than a sobbing, hysterical mess.
"Free me, vipress," the voice growls. "This is your last chance before I revoke the choice completely."
"B-but I'm not the queen," I sob, shaking my head. "I'm not. Let me go. Please, just…"
The faerie ignores my weeping, addressing the Huntsman. "Whatever vengeance upon her you still desire, take it now. Though I wish to draw out her suffering for all the evil she has done, she may not survive the magnitude of my wrath."
I close my eyes tightly and shrink in on myself, sure the Huntsman is going to torture me in some new way to avenge his dead friends.
But his voice is low and cold. "So long as her punishment is agony, I leave her to you."
"You have my word as an immortal that it will be the purest agony. Bring Reinhilde to me."
The Huntsman grips me by my tied wrists.
I start to protest getting anywhere near the monster in the cage—but I cut off in a pained yelp when the Huntsman half-drags me through more puddles before I'm shoved against the metal-and-wood bars of the warped prison.
I do not want to see what's about to kill me. So I keep my gaze down, on the fallen feathers, wilted roses, and shadows inside the cage. The five broken fingers of my left hand throb mercilessly.
"Any final words?" the faerie asks, the rattling chains moving closer.
I notice a vaguely spicy scent as a large, clawed, somewhat humanoid hand wraps around one of the metal bars the Huntsman is pinning me against.
It's official. I'm about to die.
I'm going to die a painful death in this stupid fucking fairytale world with no answers about how I even wound up here. What's worse is, now that I'm on the spot, literally the only thing popping into my hysterical mind in my final moments is Freddie Mercury singing Another One Bites the Dust.
Because my brain has great taste in music but terrible taste in timing.
When I just squeeze my eyes shut again and say nothing, the monster hiding in the shadows laughs quietly, as if my terror is satisfying.
"No? And here I thought you'd be clever until the end. Then let's begin."
Pure, unadulterated pain blinds me in an instant. It rockets down my spine, curling my toes and pulling another scream from my raw throat. There's heat, too, so sudden and severe that I'm sure this is what burning alive feels like.
And it just builds, second by second. More agony. More heat.
Pounding fills my ears while the taste of smoke and copper singes my throat. Something inside me is going very wrong. My heart has started to thunder so unnaturally that it feels like it's breaking apart just before—
"Malivant!" a vaguely familiar voice calls from somewhere. "Stop."
The ever-increasing pain lulls for a moment, but I still feel like I've been shut in a dark coffin full of nails and set on fire. I'm not sure I could open my eyes if I tried.
The cruel faerie hums. "An unmoored soul, passing through the reflections of the pools, dares to utter the true name of Wrath? Whoever you think you are, you have no business interrupting. Leave."
"Use your seelenwerk to read her soul, faerie. You'll see it is not the same one who deserves your punishment. You're torturing an innocent."
The Huntsman is still pinning me to this cage, but I feel him tense. Meanwhile, whatever magical agony was just pumping into me stops abruptly, leaving me trembling.
"Impossible," the faerie spits.
The newcomer's tone is pure challenge. "Is it? Find out for yourself."
It's quiet for a moment, and then I flinch when a hand gently but firmly grasps my chin through the tears, tilting my face up.
Strangely, it doesn't feel like the clawed hand I just saw a moment ago, even though it's accompanied by the faerie's voice demanding, "Open your eyes."
No, thanks. I don't need to be terrorized even more before dying.
I'm so shaken and hopeless that for a second, I'm tempted to tell them to please just kill me and get it over with. How much terror can a woman like me handle in one lifetime?
But when the faerie silently holds my chin as if he'll wait forever if needed, I work up the courage to open my eyes.
The tears and shadows work together to obscure a lot of what I'm looking at through the bars, but I can make out vertical, slitted pupils peering into mine. Those pupils dilate quickly just before an odd sensation sweeps through me, like every vein in my body is tingling.
My heart pounds in a different rhythm. I feel…strange.
Like I've just been laid bare—but so has he.
The faerie exhales harshly before the grip on my chin disappears. His voice is strained with confusion and something I can't name.
"It's true. This is not her."
I fucking told you.
The Huntsman makes a strangled sound, his grip on me loosening at once. "No. That cannot be. This same vile creature hired me to dispose of the Isenmerian princess. Look again."
"No need. There is no mistaking that Queen Reinhilde's soul is gone, and a broken one occupies her body now. Thus, my wrath may remain forever unanswered," the faerie sighs.
There's a powerful whoosh like something large has moved inside the cage, and then the shadows hide their prisoner once again. The second he's moved away from me, exhaustion nearly makes me collapse.
The Huntsman catches me in time, lowering me to the floor carefully.
"You…are not the queen," he says very slowly, like the words aren't computing.
No shit, Sherlock. I only screamed that over and over.
I think this means they're not going to kill me anymore.
I'm also pretty sure that the lost soul the faerie mentioned is the Adonis from the magic mirror.
I'm not sure why he's here, but I should thank him—except whatever the faerie just did to me is taking a hefty toll.
My eyelids feel heavy, and my body is as weak as wet paper.
Even though I'm half delirious and about to pass out, I flinch away from the hand that dabs at the blood and water on my face. My left hand throbs again as a shudder wracks through me.
"Don'thurtme," I slur. "Not again. Please don't t-touch me…"
My consciousness is pooping out on me, but somewhere in the falling darkness, I hear a broken whisper.
"What have I done?"