Chapter Eleven Inara Feuer #2
She only offered him a small smile back.
He had no idea the scope of her mental strength, she would let him think that it was a learned skill, not an inherent power.
Do your worst.
Darius's face morphed from beautiful to revolted as he applied his weight to her chain hands.
Adan couldn't stop the shriek that followed the sound of bones pulling and breaking.
Two in her right arm, by her guess. She huffed and breathed through the pulsing pain, and shut her eyes tight.
He again slapped her face, bringing her back to her reality.
His smile twisted again, a small warning before he broke one of her finger bones.
She grunted, grinding her teeth, her body shook with the shock it.
The unmistakable feel of his hand connecting with her face kept her present.
He worked his way up her arm, cracking the bones, shattering others.
All the while, make sure to slap her face in between the onslaught.
He didn't stop until the arm was limp and disfigured, sagging in all the wrong places.
She was whimpering now, but kept her screams and tears in check.
She had bones broken before, but this was calculated.
Poised to cause the most damage. Tears threatened to roll down her face, and Darius's came back into view.
She blinked and one of those shinnying droplets fell.
She didn't even try to pull away when he licked at the salted tear.
She tunnelled into herself, even if every hit brought her back.
She was shocked back to reality hard and forcefully when the wheel at her feet began to turn.
Causing the ropes to pull, causing all her freshly broken bones to grate against each other.
She almost passed out from that pain, but Darius slapped her again, and again.
Still, she would not give him her screams.
She would die before she would let that happen.
He started working on her other fingers when someone was violently ill in the back of the throne room.
The king stood, "Enough, Darius." And turned to leave in his usual dismissing fashion.
Darius fumed silently at his father's command.
He wanted nothing more than to keep playing with his new toy--he was far from done.
He turned from her limp body and followed his father.
The guards stepped forward, and untied Adan, and she was free to go.
She stayed there unmoved, even if the throne room had never cleared out quicker.
She couldn't move, the pain up and down her arm was some of the worst she had ever experienced.
She knew just trying to sit up, she might black out from the pain.
But the edges of the room blackened, and she couldn't help but slip into the welcoming darkness.
--
She awoke on her stomach, the softest cotton sheets brushed her cheek.
Instantly, she knew she wasn't in her bed when she couldn't find one of her daggers hidden away under the pillow.
She lunged from the bed, and screamed out.
The blinding pain threatened to put her under again.
Thankfully, someone had put her arm in a sling, which helped lessen the jolt.
The bones were still healing, and she had no idea how long she'd been out.
"Serves you right." Lennox said from leaning on the threshold.
He pushed off the door frame and stalked towards what must have been his bed.
By the view out the large windows, she knew she was in his hotel.
"What in the hell were you thinking?" He was obviously furious.
No doubt, at her turning herself into a spectacle, again.
Which obviously reflected on him, but Lennox wouldn't—couldn't understand.
"Tell me what happened with the girl?" He gritted out through grinding teeth.
"She saw me coming and combusted." Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, but she managed the words with no more than a rasp.
"Bullshit." His fury rising. "I told you not to lie to me, and you've done it again— blatantly." His green eyes burned like acid.
"Then take me to the king then. Do whatever fucking horrible thing you're going to do to reprimand me. I'll heal. I'll be fine." She rolled her neck, and blinked the sleep from her eyes. When was the last time she had water?
"The king was truthful in his command. You are not allowed back in the castle unless you hold one or both the heads he has demanded we find. He had all your belongings delivered to the Sicarii. I brought you here because it was closest, and the Incubus I had keeping you under is now drained.
It appears that you have very strong mental walls."
He waited for an explanation from her, but she ignored him and threw the covers off her.
She was thankfully still wearing her leathers.
She looked around for her jacket, but a hand, wrapped around her chin, stilled her.
"You can disobey him, can't you?" She snatched her face away at the shock of his question.
He saw that shock, what it meant. "You can."
His eyes widen. "And yet, you still do his bidding?"
He seethed, those beautiful green eyes narrowed in accusation.
"Even if I could... if I showed Cias that I can disobey him... it would be fucking foolish on my part. It would get me killed, or worse." She looked around for her boots, having given up on her jacket. "Where are my boots?"
"By the door," he moved, revealing them. "You saved that little girl, didn't you?" His tone loosened on his anger.
"Shut the fuck up, Lennox!" She grabbed her boots, and shoved her bare feet inside. "Don't fucking ask me anything else, don't—just shut the fuck up." Those questions would be death to both of them. He was far too perceptive for his own good.
He silently studied her as she struggled to get her shoes on with one working hand. "Love, you're playing a dangerous game. If they find out what you did. What you can do, this will seem like a pleasure cruise." He pointed to her sling.
She snapped her head up at him, leaving her boots untied. "Save the 'look out for yourself speech'. I'd rather have a soul at the end of all this, then a husk."
"That soul will cost you everything." He dipped his head as she walked to the door.
"Then so be it." She stormed out of his hotel.
It wasn't until she was down the block that she realized that she had just given Lennox Hollow enough ammunition to bring her to her knees.
If—when he decides to tell the king about her mental gifts, she will be done for.
The king could not afford to allow Adan to live if she disobeyed him.
The fact that Lennox knew about her mental walls, that was devastating.
If he didn't have power over her before, he certainly did now.
—
The crisp wind of winter seemed to be fading, snow still clung to the ground, but it would fade soon enough.
The countdown to spring solstice was Adan's cut off day, she called it that because she might very well lose her head.
Lennox still hadn't gone running to the king with the information he had uncovered.
It didn't mean that he wouldn't. Adan surmised that he was holding on to it for the perfect moment where it would hurt her the most.
It had taken Adan almost two weeks to regain full movement of her hand and arm.
She spent her time locked away in the Sicarii, training and reading, reading and training.
Osho seemed to be her only friend, not that she sought Czandra.
After she let a bomb slip with Lennox, she sent word to her that she should lie low.
To make sure that Rose got out of the city.
That was all that mattered now. Especially if people believed she was a real phoenix.
What most people didn't know about phoenixes, was that when they die, or combust, they have to want to come back.
to be reborn from the ashes. It was one of the king's flaws in this war.
He thought that they would be forced to regenerate.
That he would have an endless supply of phoenixes to burn for their ash.
If any did come back, they learned quickly for the next time.
It was how the king went so quickly through his trove of ash.
Adan almost missed the quiet life of the Sicarii when—
"You really should get back out there and look for your marks."
Osho smiled, sitting down with his dinner tray.
The mess hall was abnormally quiet, there were only ever eight assassins living at the Sicarii.
Today there were four present, plus Osho and Adan.
She chewed on her bread as she read through another book.
She was going through them at an alarming rate, that was never a good sign.
"Don't Osho." She wasn't in the mood.
"Don't what?" He dug into his beef stew. "Tell you that you're wasting time. To tell you that, I would rather not see my friend's head on a pike atop the castle battlements. Tell you I'm done watching you sulk—"
"I'm not sulking..." she droned, not even bothering to look up from her book.
"What is happening to you? I never see you anymore, and when I do, you're a mess. Even with you back living here. Normally, I wouldn't be worried, but normally, you would talk to me. And lately, you barely say more than three words."
Oh he was mad and Osho never gets mad, but when he did, it was something to behold.
That is how it is with people that have infinite patience when it finally dries out.
"Most of it I can't talk about." She tried to be empathetic, but with everything she had going on, it sounded fake. Osho's eyes narrowed.
"Well, maybe you should find somewhere else to stay until you want to talk."
Adan slammed her book closed, and the four other assassins glanced over, quickly looking away. She rose from her bench, about to let a cruel retort flow from her tongue. She wrangled it back in before it past her lips, turning away and left.
Fine.
She quickly packed a small bag, and grabbed her jacket.
She would throw herself into work then. Training wasn't doing it, the books were just a way of hiding.
She couldn't go to the castle under the king's order.
She couldn't go to the Forge for fear of seeing Lennox.
She couldn't go to the Pearl, Czandra would be able to pluck those secrets from her with ease.
She and nowhere to go, so she made her way to the roof, and leapt into the night.
--
Adan lost track of the time she spent outside, leaping from one roof to another.