Chapter 17
Crushing her fingers was the hardest thing I’ve done.
They were so small, so soft. They will heal over the next few days after she had a bit of the Lizard, but causing her pain nearly swayed me.
Nearly. By the end, she had run out of tears, and still, this eight-year-old did not break.
She would make an incredible Priest if that were possible.
~Rhaskar Thorne, personal journals
Fiona
I’m bound to a steel X, my wrists and ankles tied securely with leather to the metal.
There are strange steel wires running over my body that connect to the cross I’m bound to.
I’m in a dungeon of some kind, deep underground.
Torchlight flickers from somewhere behind me, giving me a good view of everything to my sides and in front of me.
The walls are covered in instruments of torture. Different sized blades and hammers are the simplest. Many other instruments hanging from the walls are strange mechanisms that I don’t even understand.
My heart’s racing as I look around me, and I try to relax. Pain is all that will happen tonight. Not death. Not failure. Only pain. That’s simple. My father taught me how to ignore pain long ago, one of the first things he taught me.
Once again, Nyxthos’s voice echoes in the chamber, coming from everywhere and nowhere. “Your word is Rhaskar. Say this word, and you die. Keep it to yourself, and you live.”
So, he knows I’m Rhaskar’s daughter. He knows I hold the Priests’ secrets. He knows everything, but he can’t tell anyone else because I’m in his trials.
An iron door swings open and closes behind me.
Heavy boots walk across the stone floor, and I track them instinctively.
I know when my torturer is close enough to touch me, and I want to cringe at my vulnerability, but I don’t.
I will not be weak. All that’s going to happen during this trial is pain.
Instead of touching me, he walks around to my front.
My torturer looks like he was once human, but the power of Nyxthos obviously flows through him, as his eyes are completely black.
His pale head is devoid of any hair, and it’s been replaced by an intricate geometric tattoo which wraps around to his cheeks.
He wears the black robes that Nyxthos’s Mages wear.
“Good evening, Fiona,” he says with a smile.
“My name is Corentin Maroux, your questioner for the evening. I have been given a simple task: to extract a word from you. I will use any method I wish to extract that word, and…” He looks around the room at the instruments of torture with a smile. “I have many options.”
I don’t say anything to him, just as Darian suggested, and he runs a smooth finger over my cheek where tears would run.
“I have been commanded to inform you of what tonight will entail. My task is simple. I may do anything I want to you as long as you don’t die.
If, at any point, you tell me your word, I’m required to stop everything I’m doing. Do you have any questions?”
He says it all so cordially, as though he’s explaining Khorra to me rather than informing me he’s going to spend the rest of the night making me wish for death.
Again, I say nothing, and Corentin’s smile grows. “Fantastic. The longer you last, the better it is for me.”
He moves to a wall and pulls a blade not much larger than a dinner knife from it and moves back to me. The blade cuts through the cord that holds my cloak across my neck, and it falls to the ground. The volume of fabric silences the vials holding my Infusions.
As if he were caressing a lover, he runs the blade across my cheek. The sting from it is unpleasant but not unbearable, and I strain against the bonds holding me to the steel. I can’t see it, but I can feel the thin stream of blood running down my neck to the gray linen of my tunic.
“Oh, you’re pretty when you bleed.” He leans forward and licks the river of crimson from my cheek. A shiver of disgust runs through me, but I do my best to stare forward. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop what’s happening, so the best thing I can do is ignore it.
“Delicious,” he whispers. “This is going to be a wonderful night for me. I hope you don’t tell me your word until dawn is almost here. Then I’ll be both rewarded by Nyxthos, and I’ll be able to enjoy your screams.”
He runs his knife over my tunic, cutting it down the middle, and that’s when I realize something I hadn’t considered before.
He’s going to strip me to have more canvas, and he’s going to see my Marks.
Even if I don’t say a word, even if he doesn’t know what they are, he’ll know enough that I’ll never be able to keep my secrets.
I cannot let him leave this room alive. The realization hits me like a hammer to the face.
The rules are simple. Say my word and die; keep it secret and live.
No one said Corentin had to survive the night.
Since he and Nyxthos are the only ones watching, those secrets will die with him.
If I kill him, he won’t Return which means no one else will ever know.
I consider using lightning to kill him instantly, but then I realize why the little steel wires are wrapped all over my body.
Nyxthos’s trials are for the Godforged. Why wouldn’t every Stormbringer or Burning One just kill their torturer?
Those wires will absorb any magic I use, and they were developed to hold far more powerful creatures than Priests.
I won’t be able to use my Marks. If I could get to my Infusions, I might be able to do something, but that’s not a possibility with my hands bound the way they are.
Anything I do to escape my bondage will have to be based on my training as a Priest rather than my abilities. Corentin slowly peels the tunic back and my armor comes into view. Hopefully, he’s never seen a Priest’s armor, or that would be a giveaway.
“What’s this?” he says, his curiosity piqued, and I look at the leather that binds my wrists to the steel rather than straight ahead. The knot is intricate, not something I’ll be able to untie. The leather’s thick enough that it’s obvious no human could have tied it so tight.
Part of me begins to truly panic, but I shove that part away.
I don’t have time to panic. I feel the leather buckle that holds my breastplate together being undone, and I ignore it.
“You know, Fiona, these pieces of armor are rather interesting. Far harder than they should be. It’s almost as though they’re enchanted, but where would a human acquire enchanted armor? Did King Rhion make this for you?”
Instead of testing the knot that holds my arms by pulling outward, I pull them downward, seeing if I can scrape the leather against the steel. The edges are rounded, but maybe…
The right one slips. Not a lot, but enough that a spark of hope shoots through me.
The next buckle is undone, and I know he’s about to pull the breastplate open.
Then he’ll see the Spear that crosses my collarbone.
Even if he doesn’t know what it is, he’ll know that there’s something very different about me.
I try my hardest to slide the leather cord back and forth fast enough to cut through the leather, but it’s not working. It moves, but it’s not enough.
“This is even more interesting,” Corentin comments.
He runs his finger over the gold tattoo.
“What is it? It doesn’t feel like magic, doesn’t smell like magic, but there is something distinctly not human about it.
Has Rhion found a way to enchant humans?
Is that why they still try to save them when your kind is so utterly useless other than as a tasty meal? ”
A tiny shadow, no bigger than a razor, appears for just a moment before cutting through the edge of the steel I’m bound to.
Then it’s gone. It doesn’t touch the leather, doesn’t free me, but it does create the smallest blemish in the otherwise perfectly smooth metal.
If there wasn’t physical proof of what had happened, I’d swear that I’d hallucinated it, but that tiny cut is exactly what I need.
Corentin stands up, and I turn my attention to him instead of the blemish in the metal. “What are these tattoos?” he demands. Again, I don’t say a word, and he smiles.
“Well, tonight is going to be far more interesting than I’d expected.” As if he were trying to be sensual, he slowly undoes the wrap that covers my chest. His eyes are focused on his task, and I do my best to drag the leather cord across the flaw in the steel.
As soon as the linen leaves my body, a sense of vulnerability flows through me.
Not at my nudity, but at the fact that my Marks are open for a stranger, for a Godforged, to see.
The Lantern on my right bicep. The Spear across my collarbone.
The Phoenix over my left breast. The Coin peeks just over my right hip, and the last Mark I received, Peace, is on my right breast in the shape of a tiny skull with flowers growing from it.
Corentin looks at the Marks for several seconds as he thinks, his attention keenly felt. All the while, my arm is moving silently back and forth over the blemish. I keep just enough pressure that I can feel the sharp spot catching on the leather.
“There are so many of them,” he whispers.
“What could they mean?” He looks up at me, and my hand stops immediately.
“Never, in eighty years, have I ever seen someone with these tattoos. I have questioned thousands, including many humans. Each of these markings feels different, as if there’s just the faintest hint of a god’s power there. What are they, Lady Fiona?”