10. Clash of Stone and Steel #3
Then those tendrils were clawing at the shield in her mind again. They were much more aggressive now, much more merciless, and Talyn cried out as she felt them tear at her mental barrier in earnest. Without her powers to bolster the shield, it didn’t stand a chance.
“Bressen!” she heard Cyra say, but the pain didn’t stop.
Talyn screamed as the tendrils slashed violently through her shield and laid her bare.
It was as though a seam had been ripped open, and she felt the edges of her consciousness fray under the power of the lord’s insistence.
Somewhere far away she heard Cyra telling him to stop, but she knew he wouldn’t.
She could feel his resolve like iron chains as he held her mind prisoner.
Who are you? Bressen’s voice sounded inside her head, compelling her to answer. She tried to resist the probing of his mind, but her response came against her will.
Talyn of Avril, she said, and the pain eased ever so slightly.
And why are you here? Bressen asked.
Talyn gritted her teeth and tried to throw up her mind shield again.
The second she did, pain like she’d never known coursed through every inch of her body.
She knew she was screaming, knew she must be writhing on the floor, but all of that seemed far away as nothing but the excruciating agony of her body ripping apart from the inside out ricocheted through her mind.
None of that, Bressen said coldly in her mind, or I can make things even more unpleasant for you. Now why are you here?
Sandrian sent me, she answered, to spy on you. To learn whatever I could that might help him.
Help him do what? Bressen asked.
I don’t know his plans, she said. I just do as I’m asked.
And what have you been asked to do?
Talyn tried to resist answering, but he sent another jolt of pain through her.
It upsets my wife to see me do this, Bressen said conversationally. She doesn’t have the heart or the stomach to torture someone. Luckily, I do.
Talyn felt the pain again, this time for longer.
She’d been tortured before, but nothing like this.
Those times the pain had been concentrated in one place, a broken finger, a slash on her leg, a punch to her gut.
But this…this was different. This pain was everywhere, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toenails.
Let’s try this one more time, Bressen said. What were you asked to do?
Talyn tried once more to hold the answer back, but Bressen’s will pulled it to the surface of her consciousness.
Sandrian wanted to know when you’d retrieved the jewelry from the ship, Talyn answered. I told him.
She sensed rather than saw the lord nod, as if he’d expected as much.
What else? he asked.
Talyn fought with everything she had left not to answer the question, but the words were pulled from her mind as if they were a fish on a line.
I was ordered to kill you both four days ago.
The pain she’d felt before was nothing to what jolted through her.
If she’d thought her body was being torn apart earlier, it was being shredded now.
She arched off the ground as her scream reverberated off the walls.
Her ribs were probably breaking fully as her body seized up, but she couldn’t tell because every fiber of her being was driven well beyond the limits of its endurance.
She wasn’t sure how she wasn’t dead yet already, but for the first time in her life, she would’ve welcomed the nothingness simply to make the pain stop.
It wasn’t only her body breaking, but her mind as well. Bressen’s power stabbed into her like knives, burying themselves in her brain and slicing her to ribbons. It was only a matter of time before she fractured completely and her brain simply exploded into mist.
Then the pain eased, and Talyn heard someone else in her mind.
Bressen. Cyra’s soft voice was a balm. Let her go.
Cyra, get out of here now, he answered.
Let her go, the lady repeated.
Cyra, he said, his voice angry but breaking, just do what I ask and leave. I don’t want you to see this.
And I don’t want to see it, she said, but I almost lost you once to the darkness. I won’t lose you this time either.
She was planning to kill you, Bressen said.
But she didn’t, Cyra said, and I presume she had ample opportunities to do so. Please, Bressen. Stop.
There was a long pause before Lord Bressen answered his wife.
No.
Talyn screamed again as her body jerked in pain. She felt as if her joints were separating, and she tried desperately to reconnect herself.
If you have nothing more useful to share with us, Bressen’s voice came to her again, then it’s time for you to go.
Bressen, no! Cyra’s voice cut through Talyn’s mind, and then both the pain and the presences in her head were gone.
Talyn was vaguely aware her body had eased back onto the hard, cold floor, but her head was mercifully quiet. She was relieved to feel only the pain in her ribs and shoulder now, then even that was gone.
Was she dead? Or had she somehow been healed? Cyra had healing powers, but she doubted the lady would use them on her.
Talyn felt someone in her mind again, but it wasn’t the lord this time.
Sleep now, Cyra told her softly, and Talyn had neither the power nor the will to resist.