Twenty One
Alara
Agony, everywhere.
My legs and arms throb, the pain ever present, and I’m shivering. Teeth chattering.
Sweat beads the back of my neck, and my breaths drag in and out, releasing a terrible wheezing sound.
My body is alight with suffering, clawing at my muscles, biting my bones to the point where I can no longer tell which part of me is worse.
He likes to torment all of me, anywhere he can dig himself inside until I’m just… not there anymore.
Because if I’m not here, he can’t reach me.
I’m just an empty vessel amongst the living, far away where he can’t reach me.
But the pain can.
Gods, it can.
A sound, a scrape of some sort comes from somewhere behind me and I whimper.
No. No.
No, no, no.
He’s come back for me, he’s going to hurt me even more than he already has.
He won’t stop, won’t rest.
He won’t leave me alone.
Another sound.
I can’t take much more.
Please.
No more.
Please.
“Shhh.”
I tremble, my body automatically moving and it hurts even more, feeling like it’s rattling upon knives.
Tears track down my face and I make an incoherent sound, one that causes a growl in response and my heart stutters.
He’s coming.
Oh Gods, he’s coming.
I just want the pain to stop. To end.
Morana. Please kill me.
Elvanan, please save me.
Please, please.
“Alara, come back to me.”
I want to die.
“Just remember one thing? Okay.”
I blink heavily, the words registering somewhere within me.
Just…one…thing?
I sob, my shoulders shaking and pain flows through me, gnawing at every part in an excruciating way. I almost blackout.
“Please, make me your one thing so that you stay with me.”
But I hurt so much.
“I need you, don’t leave me, fight.”
I’ve been fighting all my life.
“Just one thing.”
I’m not strong enough.
“Choose me. Please.”
I close my eyes, letting the darkness take me away from it all.
I don’t know how long I was out of it for, but when I come around again, my body feels like I slept on nails.
My eyes peel open slowly, the bright light above causing pain and dark spots to dance across my vision.
A grunting noise comes from somewhere behind me, and my body immediately tenses, remembering someone’s in here with me.
Then it all comes back to me. Rushing like a violent wave crashing against rocks.
Emerish, pain. Burning. Cutting, Emerish. Hitting, slapping, punching, Emerish. Kicking, poking, laughing, dying…
Slave, slave, slave.
A breathy noise comes from me, my heart hammering, fingers twitching against the stone floor. It’s bloody. My blood I realize, and strands of red… What?
Then I hear it so clearly, hear him so clearly that I think I’m dreaming.
“Little Whisperer?”
I exhale roughly. The sound broken and uneven.
Rohan? Is it really you? Or am I hearing things again?
“In and out. It’s me, it’s just me. I’m here.”
I’m scared.
“Keep breathing for me.”
Rohan, please.
Please, save me.
I can’t… I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
“Alara!” I jolt, eyes flying open, not even realizing they’d shut. “Breathe, copy me,” he demands.
I hear an intake of breath, and I mirror it. It then releases, and I do too.
“Good girl, calm. Again.”
I do.
“More.”
He’s really here. I can’t see him but he’s here.
I breathe with him, tears trailing down my face. It’s painful to breathe, like fire spreading through my lungs but the order from him was firm, no room to do anything other than comply.
“That’s it,” he praises.
Once I have enough air in my lungs, I slowly turn my head just enough to see him.
Rohan kneels on the cold stone, chained with his bloody hands resting on his thighs as he stares at me with so much concern etched upon his face that it breaks me.
I sob, my shoulders wracking with the force of it.
“Shh, shh, Alara,” he says gently, voice breaking, hands tensing. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
I open my mouth to try and speak, but all I manage is a croak, my throat raw from screaming.
He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, shoulders stiffening before he forces himself to loosen them.
“Okay, just breathe.” He pulls at the chains again, grunting in frustration. “I need you to try and do something for me, okay? Only if you can.” I nod. “Can you come to me?” he asks, looking over my body. “Slowly, take your time.”
I move my leg. It hurts, it hurts so much but I want nothing more than to go to him, I need to go to him.
My eyes dart around the room, fear skittering through me.
“It’s just us,” he reassures me, and my shoulders loosen, some of the tension lifting. I shuffle closer. “That’s it, come to me, but don’t put yourself in more pain. Take it slowly, I mean it, Alara. Slow.”
It hurts, but it will hurt more if I’m not with him.
I groan, tasting blood in my mouth as I roll onto my side more. It’s agony, but I press on.
“That’s it.”
Rohan watches me intently as I breathe through my nose, gathering my courage for the pain I know will come.
But he asked me to go to him, and I want to.
I want him to take me away from the darkness in my mind, the pain in my body, to make it all better.
He’s the only one who can make it better.
Tears slip down my face as I manage to get onto my stomach, his encouraging words make it so I manage to get my knees under me next, having to pause for breath from the burning at my side and my stomach swirling with nausea.
Gods I might be sick.
“That’s my brave girl, take your time.”
Another groan, and I carefully, painstakingly slowly, make my way to him as Rohan encourages me, eyes never once leaving me.
“Nearly there, Little Whisperer. So strong. So brave.”
I whimper, my arms shaking as I crawl to him, my knees scraping the hard ground.
Nearly there, I’m nearly there.
Just a little more.
Breathe, Alara.
Keep going.
It feels like forever, but eventually, I reach his knees.
Rohan lifts a hand, the chain pulling tight and I notice the bruising and cut skin beneath. He must have been yanking at them.
“Come on, my brave girl, nearly there,” he says gently.
I move closer, just a little, and then I feel it.
His shaking fingers caressing my face.
“Come here,” he croaks, and I move my hands up onto his thighs, then his sides and when I’m close enough, he gently pulls me onto him, laying me across his lap slowly, so as not to hurt me as he brings my face to his neck. “Gods,” he breathes.
I cry so hard I choke, cry so hard that Rohan has to lean me to the side so I can throw up nothing but bile from the pain.
“Fuck, I’m here,” he says, moving the hair out of my face. “I have you.”
Once I’m done, he pulls me to his chest once more, shuffling back against the wall and he just holds me there.
Safe.
Warm.
Home.
“Gods, Little Whisperer,” he breathes into my hair, hands roaming over me softly, barely putting any pressure on me. I can feel them trembling.
He pauses when he sees the burn through a tear in my tunic at the side, and the temperature ramps up, his own body trembling now with rage as he throws his head back against the wall, taking deep breaths.
“He will pay for this,” he says between gritted teeth. “He will know suffering, Alara. I’ll make sure of it.”
“It… hurts,” I croak. “It hurts… so much.”
He brings a gentle palm to the back of my head, pressing me closer.
“I know, Little Whisperer. You can rest now, I’ll keep you safe.”
I relax into him, questions burning on my tongue about why he’s here, what happened, what’s happening now, but my eyes close of their own accord and wrapped up in his arms, I fall asleep with the lie he just told me.
Because neither of us are safe.
And we know it.
“Where are you hurt the most?” Rohan asks, as I breathe into his neck.
Rohan made me drink a full waterskin, which a guard must’ve brought in here at some point while I slept, and he’s kept me in his lap the whole time, making sure I don’t look toward the middle of the room, to where a part of me is still left on the floor with every drop of my blood.
“Everywhere,” I reply quietly.
He growls, his chest rumbling and he picks up my hand and brings it up to his lips. He kisses my palm softly and then moves to my wrist.
“I’m sorry,” he says, never once taking his lips away. “I’m so fucking sorry, Alara.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I should have known he would do this… I should have never let you go with him.”
“It was my choice,” I cough. “I don’t have many choices, Rohan, but this was mine.”
He tenses.
I can feel his guilt, his loathing for himself. “I hate seeing you hurt, Alara, I can’t… I can’t keep seeing you hurt.”
He’s shaking, and I pull my hand free of his grasp, reaching up and stroking his short beard.
“I… I was brave. Like you said.”
He exhales roughly. “You are brave, Alara. Brave and strong, and kind and reckless, and…” he takes a breath. “You are everything, and I need you to get out of here. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”
“We both know we don’t really have much of a chance at that,” I say quietly, closing my eyes once more and sinking into his heat.
Rohan strokes the back of my head, running his finger down my arm, careful of the bruising and cuts.
“How did you get here?” I whisper to him some time later, my throat still raw and sore.
He’s silent for a moment. “They brought me from the Enclave.”
I tense, clearing my throat. “The results?”
“Yes,”
“Did… did people die?”
More quietly now, he replies. “Yes.”
My shoulders slump and I bury my face in his neck.
“They brought me here because I won’t agree to help him talk to the dragons below,” I say.
He tenses. “Alara. I thought we agreed you would?”
I lean back and look up at him. His eyes roam my features, the purple around his irises so bright as he pushes my hair gently behind my ear, jaw ticking when he sees the cut at the point. He lowers his face and presses a kiss to it, and my eyes water at the gentleness.
His hands are rough, hardened as a warrior, calloused as a dragon rider, and yet they touch me like they wouldn’t dare hurt me.
“I won’t help him hurt the clan, I told you that. I wouldn’t betray them like that. Betray you like that.”
His eyes darken, and his hand drifts up my side softly. “If it stops them hurting you, do it. You have my full permission to do so.” I shake my head and he grabs my chin gently, running his thumb across my cheek. “I mean it… I … I can’t take you out of here yet, so please just do as they ask.”
“They will use it to hurt you.”
“So be it,” he says without any hesitation.
My breath stutters.
“You have to do it, Alara. If anything, it buys us more time to figure out how to get out of here, how to end The Games for good and save all the dragons and our own people.”
“Ours?”
He tilts his head. “They have been yours since you told my dragons to sit.”
Despite everything, I smile at that. “And they did.”
“They fucking did.” He shakes his head, grinning. “You turn them into puppies.”
“With wings, claws and huge teeth.”
“You love them.”
I sober at that. “I do,” I say quietly. “Very much.”
He runs a hand over my hair. “They miss you already.”
I sniffle. “I miss them, too”
“So work with Halen, take your time, be smart and vigilant. Give him a little but not enough while we plan. Watch and learn, they won’t suspect a thing, Alara. And then he will stop hurting you.”
“But he wasn’t the one who…”
I start to shake, my vision blurring and he pulls me even closer.
“I know,” he tells me. “I know who was in here with you, he told me as much.”
I make a choking sound.
“He won’t be touching you again,” his tone is deadly.
“H-how can you be sure?” My teeth chatter, unable to help it and my palms sweat.
“Does Halen know about the underground? His involvement?” he asks.
“I don’t think so, he kept asking me that.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“Nothing, I gave him my silence.”
He tips my head back, eyes bouncing between mine.
He looks at the bruising around them, the cuts on my face.
“You really didn’t tell him anything?” I shake my head and he closes his eyes. “You amaze me.”
I tuck my head back under his jaw.
“He deserves nothing from me.” I say, feeling a coldness settle in my bones.
“He doesn’t, but we have something to hold over his head now.”
I blink, thinking. “That he’s part of the underground.” I frown. “I thought as much when he kept asking me. He’s anxious about what I’ve told the king, especially because he had me and there are other elves in the underground. If Halen finds out, he will die for hiding us from him.”
“Correct,” Rohan says. “But his death is not Halen’s to take.”
“What… what do we do then?”
“We make a deal until we get out of here, and then I will rip him apart.”
A shiver rolls down my spine at the coldness in his tone, but then a bang makes me jump, and my nightmare walks through the door.
Rohan growls, holding me closer and I squeeze my eyes shut, body locking up, hiding my face in Rohan’s neck.
“Ahh, you’re both awake.” I hear the grin in his voice and I want to throw up.
I can’t look at him, I can’t see the delight on his face after what he did to me.
“Are you ready to cooperate?” he asks, and I stay silent as Rohan picks up my hand once more, running his thumb across my wrist.
“Are you ready to make a deal?” Rohan asks.
He laughs, and I try to control my breathing. “Do you think you are in any position to make one with me?”
“I do.” Rohan says.
“And why is that?”
“Because otherwise, the king will know that you have had elves in the underground for years, right under his nose while he’s been at war with them, trying to capture one.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Emerish seethes, and I whimper, burrowing even closer to Rohan.
He holds me tighter.
“I would. Now,” Rohan says, a deadly rumble coming from him. “Lower your voice as you agree to my terms before it’s your tongue that I’ll be tearing out.”