Chapter 9 #2
He made a shushing sound and covered her hands with his free one while still stretching his bone sword in my direction. This image of them together like this, intimate and familiar, knotted my stomach.
“Don’t upset yourself,” he purred. “We’re just going to talk.”
Just talk.
We stared intently at each other, communicating silently, recalling the memory of the last time we saw each other there, a truth alive between us. There would be more than just talking happening outside this tent. Much more.
I dug in my heels, stopping myself from being dragged outside. The soldiers gripping my arms grunted, discovering that I was not so easily maneuvered.
“You can talk to me inside,” I suggested.
Stig cut me a severe look. “Our talk is better suited for outside.”
I laughed bitterly. “Indeed? Is it the same kind of talk you had with those people outside Porthavn? I saw your handiwork there.”
Alise looked back and forth between us. “What happened to the people in Porthavn?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing, my sweet,” he said placatingly, patting her hands. “She’s just trying to offer a distraction. Don’t let her divert you. She’s a clever imposter.” He glanced to his soldiers again and snapped, “I said outside with her.”
This time I did not resist as I was dragged from the tent, leaving the warm, candlelit air behind. To resist any further would be to reveal the full extent of my strength and power.
I heard the low rumble of Stig’s voice inside the tent, consoling Alise as I waited with the soldiers in the cold night. There was scant light, only that cast from random campfires or the occasional torch held aloft by a gawking soldier.
My keen ears picked up the soldiers’ low whispers and quick, serrated breaths. Their hearts beat fast and eager in the darkness. They were hungry, impatient for the coming show.
Stig soon joined us, stopping in front of me. “Tamsyn, my dear. Where have you been all this time?” There was an edge to his mocking tone, a cutting cold that reached into my smoldering core.
I held his gaze, studying the shadowed face I knew so well.
He’d changed little since I last saw him.
He wore his hair a fraction longer, the mahogany strands brushing his collar, but he possessed the same close-cropped beard and rich brown eyes.
In the eyes lived the difference. They were flat, dead.
Not a flicker of emotion stirred when he looked at me.
“I’ve been around.”
His features didn’t crack. He showed no outward reaction to my nonanswer. “What happened to Dryhten?”
Quite a crowd had gathered by now. Soldiers quit their meals and card games, moving away from their fires to form a circle around us, blocking out the light and plunging us into darker night.
“You mean the Lord of the Borderlands?” I countered, unable to help myself.
He rocked back slightly. “I’m the Lord of the Borderlands now.”
“I see,” I replied amiably.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Do you?” Clearly my lack of fear troubled him. I did not beg or cry, and I knew he had expected that. He had probably envisioned this moment countless times over the last year, and I was not properly playing the role he had assigned to me.
I nodded. “I see that it is good to be the lord regent’s son.”
Somewhere in the crowd, soldiers snickered and chuckled.
Stig’s nostrils flared.
I fought down a smile.
He swept a glare full of venom over his soldiers. They all fell silent. He turned back to me. “Tell me, dragon, did you kill Dryhten?”
I let out a huff of sound. Not even bothering to acknowledge how he chose to address me. “I did not kill him,” I said succinctly, as though it was the most absurd suggestion. “He was my husband.”
“Was?” He grabbed hold of the word. “So he is dead.” There was the smack of satisfaction at the pronouncement, and I realized the notion of Fell showing up someday to reclaim his title and all the rewards therein had been a real dread. Fell was beloved in the north. His followers were legion.
I lifted my chin. “Convenient for you, is it not?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Even if alive, he presents no threat.”
I did not bother reminding him how Fell got the better of him and would have killed him if I had not intervened.
Stig went on. “The Borderlands are better off without him.”
“And better with you? Is that what you tell yourself?” I made a sound of disgust. “How did I ever think you good and noble?”
“And how did I never see that you were a monster masquerading as a girl?” he countered, looking me over as though I was a hideous thing and not someone he had kissed and breathed in like air.
I compressed my lips and stared him down, defiant, assessing his handsome face, the brown eyes I had always thought so warm and tender.
“I’ll have the truth from you this night,” he continued, his voice hard enough, loud enough for all to hear.
“Everyone will finally see what you showed to me. Go on.” He lifted his bone sword again, extending it between us, the tip now inches from my collarbone.
“Show everyone what you are and tell us how many more of you are left—and where we can find the other dragons.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” I forced a laugh, proud that my voice rang strong and sure, especially as I was shaking inside. “Too bad I can do none of those things for you … because that would be impossible.”
Even in the falling night, the flush that crept above his beard was visible. “Do not think me the same gentle—”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re gentle,” I interrupted. “I don’t think you were ever that. I think this is the real you. Brutal and heartless.” Intolerant. Hateful to those different from yourself. “Strange, isn’t it?”
After a beat, he asked, a cautious edge to his voice, “What?”
“You’re the monster you believe me to be.
” I looked out at the watching soldiers, calling, “I rejected him and married another. That is why he does this, invents wild stories insisting I am a dragon! Dragons are dead, magic is gone, but he seeks to stir hysteria and build his repute!” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I’m a woman.
Two arms! Two legs! No scales and no wings!
He is unhinged, looking for justification to do me harm! ”
He didn’t speak for a long moment, didn’t even blink as his gaze pored over my face.
Then he leaned in, allowing the tip of his sword to graze the hollow at the center of my collarbone.
It would be easy. Just the slightest pressure more and he’d run me through—a wound from which I would never recover. I’d be dead.
And yet he did not do it.
“What you fail to understand, Tamsyn … is that I do not need justification. I can do whatever the fuck I want to you.”
I gulped. The sword point tickled my skin. “What do you intend to do?” I asked.
“Nothing that hasn’t happened to you before.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
“A whipping,” he elaborated.
I almost smiled.
Not, apparently, the reaction he wanted.
He leaned forward, hissing into my face, “I intend to whip the dragon out of you this time, so there will be no mistake about what you are. Everyone will see. All the eyes looking at me now thinking me mad and you the unfortunate victim of my wrath … Well, they shall soon know the truth.”
He stepped back then.
Without looking away from me, he snapped his fingers. “Find a tree.”
The crowd parted to make a path for us. Two soldiers dragged me off until they found what they were looking for. A single tree standing in the middle of the camp.
My thick tunic was pulled over my head. Someone supplied rope. I frowned down at it. The tether did not look like the usual ropes. This rope was pale but glistening, practically glowing, almost like pearl struck by sunlight.
“Ah, this?” Stig shook the coiled loops. “This is not your ordinary rope. This is dragon rope … made from the sinew of your kind. You’ll not break free from this. Ever.”
Bile rose up in my throat. My wrists were bound separately, the sinew of my slain ancestors used against me, no consideration given for tightness. Hard hands seized the back of my under tunic and yanked down, rending the fabric in a loud rip, baring me to the waist.
My hands went to the front of my shift, holding it protectively over me. Apparently, I still possessed some sense of modesty.
It was a horrible echo of another time, another place. All those instances when I’d pressed my sagging gown to my chest with my back exposed to the air and to eyes and the blows. I could almost hear Kelby’s panting breaths. Blinking hard, I shoved away the memory.
The soldiers looked to Stig, awaiting final instructions.
“Bind her,” he decreed, motioning to the tree.
I was shoved chest first into the tree, forced to wrap my arms around its width and hug it. The circumference was so wide that my fingers did not meet, so they tethered me in place using more dragon rope, connecting it to the bindings cutting into my wrists.
I pressed my cheek into the scratchy bark, grateful for its solidness, for something to lean against.
And just like that, I was back.
Full circle.
Once again, the whipping girl.