The Dungeon
“Where is She?”
Tobias hung limp in his shackles, wrists worn raw and toes scraping the dirt floor. Hot blood burned his nostrils and trailed from lines of fire slashing his back. He breathed through short, shallow hics, snorting a geyser of crimson as he swayed from his chains.
“When you were discovered, there was no one else for miles,” Brontes said. “Not in the woods. Not in the nearest villages.”
He paced the cell, each step slow, comfortable. His red-streaked knuckles were folded behind his back, a leather whip tied to his belt. Not a single part of him wavered, but he was afraid. The line of soldiers behind him, a shadow perpetually lingering over his shoulder, made that clear.
“She abandoned you.” Brontes stopped, meeting Tobias’s gaze. “Discarded you like waste. It was only a matter of time. It’s in Her nature.”
Tobias’s lungs ached. He attempted to fill them, but pain spiked through his chest in every direction. He winced after each cough, groaning as he curled into himself. He had a broken rib, maybe two.
“She deserted you, and still you protect Her?” Brontes leaned close, peering at Tobias with his one good eye. “You’d rather die than betray the woman who left you to rot?”
Tobias braced himself. He knew how his silence would be rewarded. Brontes landed another blow to his temple, and his brain rattled, his sight dotted with flashing white light.
Leila.
Brontes grabbed him by the chin, forcing Tobias to look him in the eye. “I tell you where to find Her, then what?” Tobias said. He hacked and choked, blood sputtering from his split lips. “You kill Her, and the realm dies along with everyone in it. Seems I’m fucked no matter what I do.”
“I can make your end quick, or very, very slow.”
Dark curls flecked with grey, a black patch covering his left eye—Brontes was such a familiar monster, a vision etched in Tobias’s brain. Still, something about his gaze was different. Weaker.
“Where is She?”
Tobias vibrated in his shackles, each ache and pang clawing at him, an endless torture long after the beatings had ceased.
Brontes watched him for a long while, then glanced over his shoulder. “Warden.”
Armor clanked as the soldiers parted, creating a clear path toward Tobias.
Silence swept the air, then disappeared, as heavy footsteps sent tremors across the dirt.
A mountain of a man appeared from the shadows, his bare chest marred with cavernous lesions, his head covered in a black leather mask.
Tobias knew the man, had felt the agony of his wrath in the Sovereign’s Tournament and fought him in his nightmares ever since. How fitting to see him again here.
The chains went slack, and Tobias collapsed, head ricocheting against the floor. Darkness cloaked his sight as bear-like paws lurched him upright, reawakening the pain splintering through his body. He was sitting in something—a wooden chair—and his limbs were being tied down with rope.
Panting, he blinked past his haze. The sovereign stood before him alongside the hulking man, whose grey eyes peered down at Tobias from miles away. He held a blade small enough to get lost in his fist.
“Start with his fingers,” Brontes said. “We’ll move to his feet after.”
Tobias strained against his bindings and dug his nails into his palms, a futile effort. Dropping to one knee, the masked man pried Tobias’s fingers apart without effort, his blade waiting.
“You chose this.” Brontes hovered over Tobias, his voice even and unfeeling. “This is your doing.”
Tobias bit down on his lip, fighting against his mounting panic. Brontes turned to the masked man.
“Begin.”
Tobias screamed as the blade dug into his nail bed, separating flesh from bone.