Chapter 5 #3
I know, dimly, that this isn’t over. That there will be guards. A cell. More questions later. But the pain is enormous and immediate and my body has had enough.
The last thing I register before blackness takes me is her voice, calm as frost. “Be careful with him. I want him conscious next time.”
Then the room vanishes.
Consciousness comes back like a tide that can’t decide which way it’s flowing.
For a while, I drift somewhere in the middle, caught between the heavy black quiet of unconsciousness and the burning edge of pain waiting on the other side.
Each time I surface, something drags me back under again—exhaustion, shock, the body’s desperate attempt to hide from what it already knows is coming.
The first thing that reaches me is the arm.
It’s still broken.
My brain doesn’t need sight to confirm it.
The injury pulses with a deep, nauseating heat that spreads from wrist to elbow, a slow throb that beats in time with my heart.
Every movement sends needles of agony shooting up my shoulder and down through my fingers, the bones grinding in a way that makes my stomach turn.
I try to shift and immediately regret it.
My arm is bound to my chest with rough cloth strips, tied harshly enough that I can feel the pressure cutting into my ribs. Someone has wrapped the break crudely. Not well or kindly. Just enough that the bones won’t slip further apart if I move.
It’s the sort of treatment meant to keep someone alive.
Not comfortable.
Alive.
I force my eyes open.
The cell swims into view slowly, like a picture dragged through muddy water. The same stone walls. The same bolted cot. The same bucket sitting quietly in the corner.
But the light under the crack of the door is different.
Darker.
Which means time has passed.
How much time is impossible to tell.
My throat feels raw when I try to swallow. My lips are cracked and sticky with dried blood. I try to sit up, but the world tilts violently.
Pain slams into me in layers—my ribs, my shoulder, my arm, the back of my skull where the guards knocked me out in the street. My body protests so loudly, I almost give up and collapse again, but stubbornness is one of the few things I still have left.
So I sit.
Slowly.
Carefully.
My broken arm throbs with every breath, and memory follows right behind the pain.
Queen Serresta. Her hand around my throat. The casual, effortless way she had twisted my arm until the bones gave way like dry branches.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.
She hadn’t needed to ask questions. That’s the part that keeps circling in my mind.
She didn’t ask. She didn’t threaten. She simply explained what was going to happen.
Incentive.
The word echoes unpleasantly in my skull.
I don’t hear the moving bolts first. I hear the boots. They’re heavy and deliberate. Three sets. The cell door opens.
The guards enter without speaking. Two Glowranth and one human, all wearing Crown colours. The human keeps his eyes carefully averted from mine. The Glowranth don’t bother pretending.
They haul me off the cot before I can react.
My feet hit the floor awkwardly, balance thrown off by the bound arm, and I nearly collapse before they drag me upright.
“Easy,” one of them mutters in a voice that suggests the word has no real meaning here.
They don’t take me out of the cell. Instead, they shove me against the wall.
The first blow lands before I even realise they’ve started. A fist slams into my ribs hard enough that my vision explodes with sparks. I fold instinctively, gasping as pain rips through my chest.
Another hit follows immediately—this time across my shoulder. The broken arm lights up like someone has set fire to the inside of it. I scream before I can stop it. The sound tears out of my throat, raw and humiliating.
The guards don’t react. They don’t ask any questions. They don’t say a word.
They simply continue.
A knee drives into my stomach, folding me over. A backhand cracks across my jaw, followed by a boot slamming into my thigh when I try to stay upright.
Each hit is calculated enough to hurt but not enough to kill. Bruises bloom under my skin in rapid succession, the impact of each blow rippling through already battered muscle and bone.
And still—
No questions.
Not one.
That’s when it sinks in: This isn’t interrogation. This is theatre.
They don’t need answers from me. They need noise.
Pain.
A message.
The Queen wasn’t lying.
They’re waiting for Varek.
I slide down the wall eventually, unable to keep my legs under me anymore. The guards let me fall. One of them grabs the collar of my shirt and yanks me upright just long enough for another punch to land square in my ribs.
The crack of impact reverberates through my chest. I gasp for air that won’t come, and my broken arm jerks against the binding. White agony flashes through my skull.
Still, no questions come. They’re not even pretending.
One of them drags me across the floor by the back of my shirt and dumps me against the cot frame. The metal edge slams into my spine.
I curl instinctively around the broken arm, breath hitching as waves of nausea roll through me. My body wants to shut down again. I don’t let it because if I lose consciousness too often, they’ll escalate. They’ll have to.
They need this to continue long enough for word to spread…
I suppose in case Varek doesn’t feel my pain like they hope.
For rumours to move through the city. For someone to carry the story to the rebellion and for the commander of the Riftborn to hear what’s happening to the human he apparently cares about.
My stomach twists. I press my forehead against the cold stone floor and breathe through clenched teeth.
Don’t come.
The thought forms automatically.
Don’t come.
I know the bond doesn’t work that way. I know Varek can’t hear my thoughts the way some mates can, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
Don’t come.
Don’t be stupid.
Don’t walk into this trap just because they’re hurting me.
The guards drag me upright again. This time they use a baton.
The first strike smacks across my thigh with a cracking snap. Pain flares instantly. The second hits my shoulder, and the third slams into my ribs again.
Every blow drives the air from my lungs. Each impact feels like it might finally be the one that breaks something important.
I grit my teeth and force my mind somewhere else—the warehouse, the canal district, Varek standing in the morning light with that stubborn, infuriating patience of his while he waits for me to stop being angry at him.
Don’t come.
Please don’t come.
Another hit follows. Then another.
Eventually they stop. Not because they’re tired, but because they’ve decided that’s enough for now.
One of the Glowranth crouches beside me and grabs my chin, forcing my head up so he can study my face. Blood drips from my lip onto the stone.
“Still breathing,” he says.
His companion shrugs. “For now.”
They drag me back onto the cot, the movement sending fresh lightning through my arm. I nearly black out again.
Time blurs after that.
They come back.
Leave.
Come back again.
Each visit is the same.
Blows.
Pain.
No questions.
The worst part isn’t even the injuries. It’s the waiting. Knowing exactly what they’re doing and being powerless to stop it.
Hours pass. Or days. My sense of time dissolves completely.
At some point I wake to the sound of voices outside the cell door. Two guards are talking. I’m too exhausted to move, so I lie still and listen.
“…won’t take much longer.”
“Commander will come.”
“You think so?”
“No doubt about it.”
A pause.
Then the words that freeze the blood in my veins.
“The Queen says when he arrives, we destroy the human’s other arm.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
No.
No no no—
The door opens, and a guard steps inside. He notices my eyes open. “Awake again?”
I try to push myself up. I realise it’s a mistake as the room spins violently.
The guard sighs like he’s dealing with a stubborn animal. “Sleep.”
Something hard cracks against the side of my skull, and the world goes black again.