Chapter 25 #2
Tal took a deep breath, paused, and began to sing, “The cold wind blo—” She screamed again.
She closed her eyes and only saw blood behind the lids.
Her head burned. But this wasn’t the fire she knew; this was like poison.
It ate at her mind and slithered into every inch of her body like the blood that coursed through her veins.
When it stopped, her captor brought his face to hers.
“I can continue like this for weeks. I assure you that you will not outlast me. Now, show me your gift.” His breath accosted her, and Tal gagged.
“Have you ever considered chewing mint leaves? You would make more friends if your breath wouldn’t frighten them away.”
Aside from pursing his lips, the mage showed no sign that he heard her. He sighed heavily. “One more time?”
Carrick at her bedside, chastising her for getting hurt again.
Tal screamed until her throat burned. Her brain must have swelled until it grew too big for her skull. She tried to thrash, punch, and kick, but her body refused to respond. When it stopped, she gasped a ragged breath. The mage asked again for her to reveal her craft, and she spat in his face.
He stayed silent as he wiped away her saliva but then gripped her head in both his hands and maintained eye contact through the agonizing barrage of a powerful spell that felt like a thousand needles impaling her eyes.
Calm and calculating Rainier, worrying a spot on his nails, anxious he missed something—a detail, a clue.
It continued like that for what felt like ages.
She slipped in and out of consciousness, and lost track of time.
When she woke, she taunted her captor, and he slowly lost his composure.
First, he pursed his lips. Then, he gritted his teeth.
Before long, he began pacing the floor. At some point, he adjusted his paralyzing spell so that she could feel pain without being able to move.
He switched to alternating between one spell that bludgeoned her body and one much like the slicing spell she had experienced at Silaron.
Sweet, tortured Egan looking to her for answers she didn’t have.
She imagined the bruises and gashes that must cover her body and wondered what bones were broken and how much blood she’d lost. The sight of her must’ve been horrendous.
Her energy sapped, her throat raw from screaming.
There wasn’t an inch of space that didn’t hurt.
When she’d finally had enough, she waited for the mage to get close to her.
He’d slapped her across the face this time.
She turned back and he got in her face and screamed, “Show me!!”
Faron.
Tal took a deep breath and concentrated what remaining energy she had left.
She met the mage’s eyes and blew into his face.
She called her fury and willed it to burn the mage where he stood.
But none came. There was no heat, no rumble in her chest. She felt nothing.
Her fury had gone. No, not gone. Impaired.
The alcohol still flowed in her system. Where her fury should have been, laughter bubbled up in her chest. She burst out an exhausted, hysterical sound.
Her eyes sprang with tears that she couldn’t wipe away.
“How long ago did you take me?” she croaked.
Faron fighting alongside her. Faron exasperated, running a hand through his hair. Faron and his telltale smirk, filling her space, tangling his hand in her hair, kissing her.
The mage stormed out of the room and slammed the door. Not a moment later, he rushed back in and grabbed her head, eliciting the most excruciating pain she had ever felt, like her head being ripped apart by his bare hands. Tal didn’t even have a chance to scream before she passed out.
She was dreaming. She knew that much. The small room and the mage were gone.
She stood in a forest. In front of her, with her back turned, stood a woman with flaming red hair.
She stared at a mirror image of herself.
Am I dead? she wondered. She reached for the other Tal, but the woman did not turn.
Instead, she walked away, setting the forest around her ablaze.
Water splashed onto her face. It filled her mouth and nose. She coughed and choked on the liquid. She turned her head to get out of the stream of liquid and continued to splutter.
“Why do you make this so difficult?” asked her captor.
“You do realize you picked me up at a tavern?” Her throat felt like fire, and she continued to cough. “Do you not know anything about magic?”
“I know a great deal more than you will ever know,” he spat.
“But apparently no one ever taught you the first rule.”
He slammed his hands down on the table beside her head. “You cannot taunt me. You are weak. You are insignificant.”
“And you are an asshead.”
The mage lost his control at her insult.
He slashed his arms down over her body, and she felt heat before the pain.
She couldn’t see it, but she felt the gash across her middle.
Tal hoped he hadn’t cut too deep, or her insides would pour out onto the table beside her.
He didn’t even bother torturing her mind this time.
With a wave of his hand, she once again fell into unconsciousness.
Darkness surrounded Tal. She tried to blink it away and couldn’t tell if her eyelids responded.
She spun on her heel and found a soft white glow in the distance.
A step in its direction forced the light to concentrate into a pinprick.
Another step, and it grew to the size of her palm, pulsing as if it called to her.
As she neared, its color changed to a soft yellow, then deepened until it matched the color of her sunset hair.
She stood opposite a flame. The light, now her own height, should have blinded her.
Sparks of red shot throughout, some breaking free before dying on their own.
As her heart pounded in her chest, so too, did the red sparks.
She reached for it, and the fire mirrored the movement.
Tal cocked her head. The top of the flame tilted in the same direction. She placed a hand on her chest, only now noting how empty it felt. She watched as the flame, her fury, moved in tandem.
“It’s you,” she said.
The flame tilted forward, nodding.
“How do we get out of here?” Tal sobbed.
Her fury did not respond.
“Please, you have to help me.” She stepped forward, hoping to pull the flames within her, but hit an invisible wall. She pushed against the barrier to no avail. “What is this?” she cried.
The flames grew slowly, as if carried on a wisp of smoke.
Her fury filled the surrounding space, reaching its borders.
Each effort to push through caused it to flash and flare.
It tried and failed to break free of a box barely large enough to contain Carrick.
The fury grew agitated, lashing against its walls, growing brighter with its fruitless effort.
“What do I do?” Tal’s fist banged soundlessly against the cage. “How do I get you out?”
She could barely keep track of the flames now. They moved too fast. She squinted against the light that now burned too bright.
“Please!” She closed her eyes, blinded. “Tell me!”
The wooden door banged against the wall. Pain accosted Tal’s senses. She gasped air in short bursts, not sure which was worse: dying or the pain that greeted her with each agonizing breath.
“The others. We took them. Yes, it is with them. The red. They had red. It must be with the others. It follows the red.”
Warmth poured over her middle. The gash at her abdomen throbbed.
“Red hair. Red eyes. Red patches. Red marks. Yes, we’ve caught it already. It’s back there. It’s not here anymore. It can’t be.”
Her knee was shattered. She could only imagine the bone broken into a thousand pieces that now floated within the cavity of her leg.
“The children. The girl. Yes! The girl. No. She had yellow. Wait! Strawberry. Yes, strawberries are red. It must be her. They took her back. I knew it was her. I knew she had it. I must take her again. I must bring her to the—”
Something warm bubbled up Tal’s throat, and she choked on the liquid. She turned her head and coughed blood onto the table.
The mage stopped his mad rambling and tsked.
The pop of a cork filled the small room, and her captor shoved a warm glass bottle to her lips just as he had so many times already.
She swallowed the healing elixir greedily, but it was gone too soon.
The mage pulled back before she could drink enough, always too soon.
The pain lessened. She welcomed the familiar itch of her wounds stitching themselves closed, but despair returned when the itch stopped and the burning, aching pain remained.
She wasn’t healed. Only kept from dying.
“You know the rules. You live. You suffer.” His gaunt face came into view, crazed eyes wide.
“Unless you reveal!” His throaty whisper hinted at something sinister, eyes searching Tal’s face.
His lips cracked as they pulled wide into a terrifying grin.
“I shall pull the memories from you, yes. I shall remember them for you.” His hands gripped the sides of Tal’s face, digging into her temples.
Something scratched within Tal’s mind. It doubled and tripled.
It clawed within her thoughts, and she began seeing the moment in reverse.
The mage took his hands away from her face.
When did he get so close? The memories played like a mirror image of themselves.
He whispered in a demonic language she couldn’t understand.
Each barb-coated memory was wrenched from her, tearing and slashing through everything in its path.
And when the hooks tore free, the memory was lost. His cracked smile fell as his eyes searched her face in a frenzy.
The pain remained, but she didn’t know why.
Was that a healing elixir? Her knee, broken into a thousand pieces. What was he rambling about?
The claws dug too deep. Tal screamed. She remembered the blood in her throat. She registered the copper on her tongue and spluttered.
Red spattered across his face, and he stopped the assault on her mind.
He blinked, eyes focused on nothing. Then they widened, and disgust pulled his mouth into an ugly, warped line.
He used the sleeve of his cloak to wipe her blood, only succeeding in smearing it across his pale skin.
He roared at the ceiling while Tal watched in silence.
He turned to her, panting and snarling, before gripping her head again.
He lifted her off the table with a force that made her neck crack and then shoved back down.
Tal didn’t hear nor feel her skull smack against the wood. Everything went black.
She remembered everything. Every moment she had ever suppressed her fury and the utter exhaustion she felt as a result, every time she wielded her magic as if holding it by a rope, every time it called to her from within flashed before her.
Is this what death feels like? The rumbling in her chest felt distant and near at the same time.
Her fury was there with her, suffering alongside her with each memory.
It whispered to her, but she couldn’t hear the message.
Torture was strange. There came a point where the pain washed over her, coating her soul in poisoned fire.
It became a part of her. It never dulled, never became easier, but Tal reached a point where she couldn’t muster the energy to feel it.
Her screams dulled to a cry, a whimper. Her fury had returned long ago, but she couldn’t call it.
It hid within her, beaten into a shadow of itself.
It could not comfort her. Tal was alone.
With nothing to give but blood, she was ruined.
And each time the mage returned, she anticipated the burning pain of the slashes, no longer braced herself for it. She welcomed it. She was pain.