Chapter 20 #2
Finn’s fists clenched. “I’d rather chew off my arm than give you a single scrap of information,” he said, voice unwavering. “I’ve already given you my answer.”
Darius smiled. “So you have.” He turned to the hooded figure. “Proceed.”
The torturer stepped forward.
The guards wrenched Finn toward the chair, shoving him into the seat. Thick restraints were yanked into place, buckling tight across his wrists, chest, and his legs. Trapped. As helpless as an animal on a butcher’s block.
Panic brewed in his gut. He forced himself to smother it. Anger. Defiance. Anything but fear.
“I don’t usually let anyone strap me down until the third date,” Finn muttered, rolling his shoulders against the restraints. “But I suppose I can make an exception.”
The torturer scoffed.
Finn sighed. “Least you could do is buy me dinner first.”
The leather yanked tighter. Finn hissed through his teeth as the straps dug into his skin, cutting off any illusion of movement. The room shrank around him, strangling him with the knowledge of impending agony.
Darius watched, his gaze glinting, his expression full of assessment—like an artist appraising his canvas.
“You see, Finnian,” he said, his voice smooth, “this doesn’t have to be your end. It can be a beginning—one where you are hailed as a hero rather than reviled as a traitor. All you have to do is cooperate.”
Finn exhaled slowly, forcing his pulse to steady. He met Darius’s gaze with something close to hatred. “The only new beginning I’m interested in is the one where you’re no longer king.”
Darius’s expression flickered—just for a moment. Proof that once again, Finn’s verbal thrust had landed.
He’s insecure. Extremely insecure. That was useful information—if Finn lived long enough to use it.
Darius’s jaw tightened. Annoyance bled into his features, bitter as acid. “Let’s begin,” he said, masking frustration with cruelty. He gestured to the black-clad torturer—who Finn now mentally named the Duke of Poor Life Choices.
The Duke considered his options before plucking a slender rod from the brazier. The metal gleamed wickedly in the dancing firelight, its surface cherry-red and hissing with heat.
Finn’s breath hitched.
His body knew what was coming, even before it touched his skin. The searing heat warped the air, making it shimmer like a mirage. His pulse hammered, his muscles tense.
“The dragon,” Darius prompted, his tone almost pleasant. “Tell me, and this can all stop.”
The rod inched closer. Finn gritted his teeth, forcing the words past his lips. “There...is no dragon.” A lie that would cost him. But in his heart, it was true. There was no dragon. Only Cedric.
“Liar!” Darius snapped, turning to glare at the torturer.
The rod met flesh. The world shattered.
Pain exploded through Finn’s nerves, a white-hot brand that tore through muscle and bone alike. A jagged breath escaped him, more hiss than scream.
Every instinct shrieked move, fight, stop this! But there was nowhere to go, no escape from the agony tunneling deep, lighting up every raw, exposed nerve.
The stink of burning flesh hit his nose. His flesh.
He would not scream.
Finn bit down on his lip hard enough to taste blood, copper flooding his mouth, mixing with the taste of his own fear.
When the rod finally lifted, his vision swam, spots bursting like dying stars before his eyes. But he was still here. Still breathing. And he still hadn’t given them a damn thing.
Darius leaned in, his voice little more than a whisper. “You’re a fool, Finnian. Throwing away everything for what? A beast and a traitor?”
Finn’s breath shuddered. His skin still burned, pain throbbing deep, a searing ache that refused to fade. His muscles spasmed against the restraints, but there was no escaping the agony.
Don’t answer. Don’t engage.
But the words tore out before he could call them back, ragged between clenched teeth. “Not...a beast,” he ground out. “Cedric...is a good man.”
Darius went still. Too still. Then, slowly, his head tilted. “Cedric?”
Finn’s stomach plummeted.
Darius’s lips curved, slow and satisfied, like a predator that had just scented fresh blood. “You know his name.”
Shit. The mistake crashed through him like a hammer strike. Too much. He had said too much.
Darius crouched, seizing Finn’s hair in a brutal grip, yanking his head back until his vision swam.
“So, the monster told you his name,” Darius whispered, his breath warm against Finn’s sweat-slicked skin.
“Tell me, Finnian, did he also tell you about the innocents he slaughtered? Wasn’t your father among their number? ”
The room tilted around him. Pain and exhaustion blurred the edges of his thoughts, but the words hit their mark. Finn’s father. His jaw clenched, desperate to cling to certainty, to what he knew. “Cedric would never—” But then his voice faltered. Because he had been there. Had seen it.
Darius chuckled, a bitter, knowing sound. “Oh, he would. And he did. It’s clear he used his magic to ensorcel you.”
No.
But the seed had been planted. Cedric was powerful. What if…?
The thought sliced through him, cold as steel, but then… Cedric had tried to turn him away. Had tried to stop him.
And even when Finn had attacked him, Cedric hadn’t fought back.
No. He knew Cedric. And no spell could make love feel like that.
The torturer returned the branding rod to the brazier, leaving it to smolder in the dying embers. Then, without pause, he selected something new.
A wooden mallet.
Darius released Finn’s hair, rising to his full height, his expression dark with amusement.
“You see, Finnian, Cedric is not the benevolent creature you believe him to be,” he said smoothly. “He’s a monster. He has a history, a past filled with death and destruction. And you, my dear knight, have been played for a fool.”
Finn’s heart thudded painfully against his ribs. He wasn’t wrong about Cedric. He couldn’t be. But the pain made things slippery, made certainty feel distant.
“He’s not the monster,” he muttered, partly to himself, partly for Darius’s benefit.
He tasted blood on his tongue. Darius. Darius was the monster.
The Duke of Poor Life Choices tested the weight of the mallet in his palm, rolling his wrist, appraising the weapon with idle familiarity.
Finn’s stomach clenched.
Then the torturer reached for Finn’s right hand. Instinct screamed, but the leather straps held fast. His fingers flexed. My sword hand, gods, no—
A sharp crack split the air as the mallet slammed down against Finn’s index finger.
Pain detonated.
Finn’s vision flared white, his body arching violently against the chair as agony tore through him, lightning bright, nerve-deep. He felt the sickening give beneath the strike—not just a bruise, not just pain, but something shattering.
His breath left him in a strangled gasp, a sound he didn’t recognize as his own.
The next blow landed on his middle finger. Another snap, another fiery wave of agony, a scream locked behind gritted teeth. He clenched his jaw so tightly his teeth might crack.
The torturer adjusted his grip, shifting Finn’s pinned hand slightly, angling it. He wasn’t rushing. No, he was taking his time, drawing it out.
The ring finger next.
Finn’s whole body convulsed as the mallet came down again, a ragged, broken noise escaping before he could swallow it down. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight back, only endure. The damage was permanent now. A knight’s fingers were everything—grip, control, precision.
He was losing all of it.
Darius watched, face unreadable, though something flickered behind his eyes—a deep, cruel satisfaction.
Darius watched him intently, eyes gleaming with sick fascination.
Like a man admiring a caged beast, waiting to see if it would snap or submit.
“Cedric is a monster. A threat.” His voice was almost coaxing now, almost patient.
“Stop protecting him. Why are you even doing this? Enduring this? Some misguided sense of honor?”
Finn gasped through the agony, his vision swimming, dark blotches bursting at the edges. He wanted to pass out. His body screamed for it. But his pride refused.
His breath rasped through his teeth. The words scraped against his fractured mind. He was in too much pain to think, too raw to lie. The truth slipped free before he could stop it.
“For love,” he mumbled.
Darius stilled, his lips parting slightly, as if tasting the words. Then his expression hardened, and he gave a curt nod to the torturer.
The next blow came fast. Finn felt rather than heard his pinky break, the bone splintering like dry kindling.
This time, he screamed.
Darius let it happen. Let the agony rip through Finn’s lungs, let it fill the chamber, only to be swallowed by the stone walls.
He must have blacked out. When he came back to himself, Darius was still there. Still watching. And now, disgust twisted his face.
“Love?” The word dripped with scorn, but it felt like a cover for…
what? Contempt? No. Fear. “You fool. You know nothing about him. About either of them.” Darius reached, gripping Finn’s ruined right hand, studying it.
Finn bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood.
“You think love will save you? That it will save him?” Darius’s smile was all teeth. “Love is the first thing I break.”
His hand wasn’t gone, but his mind was pretending it was. If he could trick himself into believing that, maybe he wouldn’t lose himself entirely. Finn wanted to curl in on himself, to escape any way he could. But the straps held fast.
And for a fleeting, wretched moment, he thought about it. Thought about telling Darius everything. Just to make it stop.
Just to be free of this agony.
But then… No. The idea sickened him more than the pain ever could.
He forced himself to lift his head. Every nerve screamed. But he still met Darius’s gaze.
“I know enough.” His tongue felt thick, like a lump of bloodied meat in his mouth. Had he been biting it? He swallowed the iron taste down. “I know Cedric isn’t the monster you claim him to be.”
And then, because he was already damned, he was going to carve his own epitaph. Finn spat blood onto the king’s pristine boots.
“Cedric is the rightful king.” His voice should have broken, but it didn’t. “And I swear my life, my sword, and my soul to him.”
Darius’s face twisted. Pure, unbridled rage. “Enough!” he roared, the sound reverberating off the stone walls.
Finn hardly had time to savor the victory before the king turned to the torturer, his fury bleeding into something colder.
“Make him talk. I don’t care what it takes.” Darius paused, eyeing him. “Break him if you must—but don’t kill him.” His voice lowered, edged with something calculating. “This errant knight may still be of use to me.”
Finn exhaled slowly, teeth bared in a feral, bloodied smile. “Go on, then.” His voice was hoarse. “See who breaks first.”