Fifteen #2
“Since you’ve refused your task, I need to remind you of your obedience. Something I will utterly enjoy. Unfortunately I can’t make you bleed as much as I want to, that will cause your death.” His eyes darken. “But I can hurt you.”
He stands, and moves over to the side as my breathing picks up, panic running through me.
Be brave. Be brave.
“If I didn’t need you for getting that dumb animal to give me more Nighturn, or to further torture that barbarian boy, I would keep you in here for as long as I wanted, and no one would come for you. You would be down here until your bones turn to dust.”
I whimper, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, shaking my head as my body trembles.
He comes back over, taking a seat once more and lifting one of my legs. I kick out, but the guards come and help him hold it in place on his lap.
“We don’t have a lot of time, you and I, but we can make it work.”
Then he lifts his hand, a small scalpel within it, and my teeth rattle with how much I’m shaking.
“S-stop.”
“Begging already?” The scalpel touches my skin, and I flinch, causing it to nick my skin. “Be still now,” Halen says, eyes concentrated on what he’s doing as he slices down my leg.
I cry out, the sting unbearable, my body tensing against the restraints.
He moves down lower, to above my ankle bone and then he comes back up to the top, making another line.
Agony slices through me, the air stinging the wound.
“Stop, stop,” I cry out, wriggling in the chair and Halen laughs at my pain, the guards laughing with him as my blood drips to the floor.
“So weak,” he tuts. “Isn’t she weak, Jarvan?”
The guard who’s holding my leg down laughs. “Very, my king, though you like hearing them cry.”
Halen laughs again. “Oh, I do.”
A knock on the door comes as Halen presses deeper, ripping a scream from my throat.
“Yes?” Halen asks.
“Lord Redwick is here, my king.”
“Ah!” Halen says, dropping my leg and standing.
Pain spears up my calf when my foot bounces off the floor, and I cry out, my body jolting. It’s like fire spreading up my leg.
“Lord Redwick!” Halen laughs. “So good of you to finally decide to join me,”
“Apologies for my tardiness, my king,” Lord Redwick replies.
“Alexandar assumes you were in the tavern. Did your cock get stuck in a whore?”
“They’re rather tasteful over there,” Lord Redwick muses. “Just how I like them. It’s hard to leave the warmth of a cunt at times, but no, my king. I was dealing with a betting dispute.”
I blink through my tears, my head spinning. His voice… Why does it sound familiar?
“Ahh, the bets going well?” Halen asks, as two blurry figures come toward me.
“Of course, best year yet, and we’re just getting started.”
My head drops to my chest, tears dripping down my cheeks, my ears ringing.
“Are you set up for the next game?” Halen asks.
“The people are very excited for Flight of Honor, it’s always done well with coin.”
My head lifts like it’s underwater, the movement slow, dizzying.
That… that voice.
It can’t be…
Can it?
I must make a noise, a whimper or something, because the two figures are in front of me now. “Where are my manners? Lord Redwick, meet Alara. Alara, meet Lord Redwick.” Halen says.
My heart hammers, nausea rolling as I choke on my own breath.
No, no it can’t be.
This is a dream.
A nightmare.
This isn’t real.
“Say hello, Alara,” the king hisses in my ear.
When I can’t get a single word out, Halen grabs my hair and pulls my head back, and I freeze.
Utterly freeze.
I can’t breathe, can’t speak.
Hear.
I can’t do anything as I look up into angry, deep brown eyes, and I feel the color drain from my face.
He looks different. His hair is swept back and neatly combed, glasses perching on his nose, and he’s dressed in finer clothes than I have ever seen, but I know those eyes.
They have looked upon me with malice. With evil calculation. When I cried they would light up with glee, and when I was silent they would fill with anger, a malice that would choke me.
Memory after memory flashes through my mind while fear consumes me.
Stuck at the bottom of a well, throat bleeding as I screamed for help.
How the breath was taken from my lungs in the barn when he strung me up and broke my bones.
How he took me to the underground and gave me to others to hurt, how he would shove me to my knees for water, how I would curl up and cry as he prodded my broken body just to hear me squeal…
The breath stalls in my lungs.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
“You finally have an elf, my king,” Emerish says, jaw tight. “Congratulations.”
Halen stands taller. “It’s been many years, but I finally have one within my grasp, and more to come.”
“Oh?” he asks, eyes never once straying from mine as he swallows roughly.
“Yes, they’re on their way as we speak,” Halen says.
“You have accomplished so much, my king. One can only aspire to be as committed and competent as you.”
Halen laughs. “No need for flattery.” He holds out the scalpel to him. “But you can have a go.”
Emerish licks his lips as my vision darkens at the edges, my chest heaving.
“You are too kind.” He grabs the scalpel and takes a step closer, the blade coming to my throat.
The scars burn as I try to tilt my head away, anything to get him away from me, but Halen grabs my hair once more.
“Now, stay still.”