Malignant Intentions #2
And beneath the guilt was fury. It burned through her like wildfire, consuming everything in its path.
Someone had done this to him. Someone had taken this man who conjured fire in his palm, who spoke to her of books and gardens and made her feel like she might belong somewhere, and they had tried to break him.
They had chained him and beaten him and wrapped half his face in bloody bandages, and they had done it deliberately, methodically, with malignant intention.
She wanted to storm up the stairs, find every person responsible and show them what the Order of Blight had made her. She wanted them to understand exactly what kind of monster they had summoned by touching someone she cared about.
But that would have to wait. Right now, there was only Rion.
“Rion,” she breathed.
No response. He remained pressed against the wall, his one visible eye staring at nothing, his body held in the rigid stillness of someone who had learned that movement brought only pain.
Lark crossed the cell and knelt before him, forcing her hands into a steadiness she didn't feel.
Up close, the damage was even more apparent.
Burns and deep cuts marked his arms in patterns that suggested deliberate placement rather than accident.
Bruises in various stages of healing mottled every inch of visible skin.
His wrists were raw and scabbed from the manacles, and his breathing had a shallow, careful quality that suggested cracked ribs.
She cataloged each injury with as much professional detachment as she could muster. It wasn’t much, even as something inside her screamed in rage at the unfairness of it all, even as she made silent promises about what she would do to Theron Duskwood if she ever had the chance.
“Rion,” she said again, more urgently now. “It’s Lark. I’m here. We’re getting you out.”
His eye focused slowly, tracking toward the sound of her voice, and he simply stared at her, his expression empty and uncomprehending. Then fear surfaced in that single green eye.
“No,” he whispered. His voice was rough, broken, the voice of a man who had screamed and screamed until he had nothing left. “No. You’re not real. This is another trick.”
“It’s not a trick. I’m here. Pippa and Darian are here. We came to bring you home.”
He shook his head, a small, jerky movement that made him wince. “They show me things. People I know. They wear their faces and say their words and then they …” He trailed off, his eye sliding away from her face.
Lark reached out and took his hand. He tried to pull away, but she held on, softly but firmly. His skin was cold beneath her touch, and she could feel the tremors running through him.
“Feel that,” she said quietly. “Feel my hand. I’m here. And I’m not leaving without you.”
Rion looked down at their joined hands. She watched his face as he processed the sensation, the warmth of her skin against his, the pressure of her fingers. His brow furrowed.
“Lark?” The word came out broken, unsure.
“Yes.”
The sound he made was not quite a sob. His hand tightened on hers, the grip weak but desperate, and she blinked away tears at the rawness of it.
“I didn’t think anyone would come,” he whispered. “I thought I was going to die here. I thought …”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand again, more gently. “But we’re here now. We need to go. Can you walk?”
He tried to stand, and as he did his legs buckled, but Lark was ready for it, catching him and pulling his arm across her shoulders. He leaned heavily against her, breathing hard from even that slight effort.
“Darian,” she called softly.
He appeared in the doorway a moment later, Pippa close behind. Pippa’s hand flew to her mouth when she saw Rion, and Darian’s face went stony with anger before he composed himself.
“Help me,” Lark said.
Darian moved without hesitation, ducking under Rion’s other arm and taking the bulk of his weight. Rion sagged between them, barely conscious, his head lolling forward.
They started back down the corridor. Rion’s feet dragged more than they stepped, and even with both of them supporting him, the pace was agonizingly slow.
Every few steps he stumbled, and every stumble cost them precious seconds.
His weight seemed to double with each passing minute as his strength failed.
Lark’s arms were burning by the time they reached the first stretch of cells. Her shoulders ached. Her grip on Rion was slipping, her fingers were cramping from the effort of holding him upright.
And then she saw Colm Brannock’s cell.
He was sitting at the bars, waiting for them. His face was bright with hope and relief, with the desperate gratitude of a man who had been given a second chance at life.
Then he saw Rion and the hope died in his eyes.
He looked at Lark and Darian, both of them straining under the weight of Rion held limply between them, their faces slick with sweat. Then his eyes moved to Pippa, who couldn’t meet his gaze.
“You can’t carry us both.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m sorry.” The words felt like broken glass in Lark’s mouth. “If we try to take you both through the sewers and across the moat, we’ll all drown.”
Colm’s hands clenched the bars, his knuckles white.
“You said you’d come back.”
“I will. Once he’s safe, I’ll come back for you.”
“No, you won’t.” His voice was quiet. Flat. The voice of a man watching his own death approach. “You’ll get out and you’ll run and you won’t stop running until you’re far from here. And I’ll die in this cell, and no one will ever know.”
Lark wanted to argue. She wanted to promise him, to swear on whatever honor she had left. But the words stuck in her throat because she could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t believe her. And she wasn’t sure she believed herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. It was all she had and no comfort to either of them.
Colm stared at her, and she saw anger flicker across his face, then despair, and finally hatred. Then it all drained away, leaving nothing but exhaustion.
“Just go,” he said. “Get out.”
He let go of the bars and dragged himself back from the door, using his arms to pull his useless legs across the bloody straw. When he reached the far wall, he slumped against it and turned his face away.
He didn’t watch them leave. Perhaps that was easier.
Lark forced herself to keep moving. One foot in front of the other, as Rion’s weight dragged at her shoulders, as the corridor stretched ahead of them, endless and dark.
Behind her, she heard Pippa’s sobs, but none of them spoke.
The dungeon corridors seemed longer than before, the shadows deeper, the silence more oppressive. Lark kept waiting for shouts of alarm, for the pounding of boots from above, for the disaster that would mean they had been discovered.
But the dungeon remained quiet. The dead guards remained undiscovered. And slowly, painfully, they made their way back to the sewer grate.
The smell hit them before they reached it, that stench of filth and decay, and Lark heard Pippa swallow hard against her rising gorge. Rion stirred slightly in their grip.
“What …” he started.
“Don’t ask,” Darian said grimly. “Just hold your breath.”
Lark went down first, lowering herself through the grate and into the waist-deep murk below. She reached up to help guide Rion down, taking his weight as Darian lowered him through the opening. The cold water made Rion gasp, a thin sound of shock that cut off as he struggled to stay conscious.
Darian dropped down beside them, steadying Rion from the other side. Pippa followed last, pulling the grate back into place above them with shaking hands.
Then they began the long wade back toward the moat.
Lark tried to tell herself she would go back for Colm. That once Rion was safe, once they had reached the foothills and found somewhere to hide, she would return to the citadel and finish what she had started. But she knew it was a lie.
She had saved Rion. That was what mattered. That was what she had come here to do.
But Colm Brannock’s face would follow her out of this place. It would join her collection of ghosts, the faces of everyone she had failed or killed or left behind.
Some weights you never set down. You just learned to keep carrying them.