Chapter 8
Cannibals.
The stories of them were like fables, a scary tale you told a child after the feast on Dísablót or álfablót, but not something that was real.
My murky brain struggled to make sense of it, but terror overrode any rational thought I had left. Screams in my head came out only as broken wails, my body vainly tugging against the chains. But the more I fought the more I sagged into the wall.
“Wasting your energy, sweetheart.” He set down the saw, moving around the table and adding more sharp objects onto it. “But go ahead. Scream and wail all you want. No one will hear you. Though fear does make the meat a bit tougher.” He turned for me, strolling back.
“No.” Vomit pooled on my tongue, my breath clipping, every word no more than a slurred mumble. “No, please.”
“How delectable it was when you asked me for help. To get away from him.” He uncuffed me from the wall with a chuckle, nodding to the floor above where we had left the Northerner.
“When I was your biggest threat.” He grunted in trying to scoop me up, my body squirming against him.
“Stop fighting me!” he barked, my frame slipping from his hold and dropping back onto the ground.
Never.
“Dammit!” He gripped the back of my head, slamming it into the leg of the table.
Pain burst behind my eyes, my muscles going limp.
I could feel blood leaking down my face as he lifted me onto the table, restraining my limbs.
Everything was hazy around me but his face.
The face that was going to kill me, chop me up in pieces and bake me in a pie.
“Why?” I somehow asked.
His nose wrinkled, leaning over me. “Because you learn to survive when the Shadow Rift claims more and more of the crops each year, when food is scarce because the little you do raise around the borders, King Vorian seizes for his own. He takes everything that can still produce. We adapt or die.”
That was a lie. My father didn’t take crops this far north; we had plenty of food. So much, he ships out to other villages and hamlets. He was adored for it.
“You learn to adjust what’s on the menu.
” He trailed the tip of a knife down my face to my arm.
“Until you crave it. Salivate for it. Want that more than anything else.” The blade sliced into the skin at my bicep.
Shrieking, my howls curdled and I spat in agony, my back arching, tears flooding down my face.
“Stop . . . stop.” Sobbing, I pleaded with him as he cut deeper into my arm, taking a portion out of my tender flesh. I choked on my bile, my limbs straining against the restraints.
His gaze fully on me, he popped the piece into his mouth, his lids closing in bliss as he chewed and swallowed.
“You taste so sweet.” He leisurely licked my blood off his knife with a groan.
“I might not even share you with the rest.” He licked the last drop of my blood from the blade.
“I will need to hurry before they arrive. Though I really wanted to take my time with both of you. Brand you.” He grinned, exposing my blood and flesh stuck between his teeth.
“You’d think I’d start with your companion, bigger guy, but really, muscle is the worst meat to tenderize.
Guys like him offer very little for the effort.
But hey . . .” He cackled. “Beggars can’t be choosers, right? ”
He was insane.
His laugh died and he went still, glancing up at the ceiling as if he’d heard something. He held for a moment before shaking his head and returning to me with a crisper focus.
“Do I start here,” he tapped the razor-sharp edge to my heart.
“Make it quick and easy?” He dragged it down to my gut.
“Or here. Raw liver is one of my favorites. But you will be awake for the whole thing.” His eyes glinted with excitement, his hand moving over my bodice.
“How they beg and scream. Every. One. Even the toughest guys like your companion upstairs break down and weep for their mamas.” He reached for my bodice.
A frown formed on his lips when he realized my corset couldn’t be undone from the front.
“Muninn.” He swore under his breath. “You two made me alter my usual way of handling everything, but as you saw, I am very good at improvising. Can’t waste the opportunity when livestock walks straight through your door.
” He placed the sharp blade between my breasts, starting to cut at the material.
He stilled again, his gaze lifting toward the ceiling again.
All I could hear were the screams stuck inside my head, tumbling out in choking sobs.
“They must be here already.” He huffed in irritation. “With how much I drugged your friend, he is certainly dead.”
A strange knot twinged in my gut at his declaration, imagining the Northerner dead. It wasn’t sadness, but the last threads of hope slipping through my fingers.
How ironic that I wished for the Night Raven to save my life now.
“Guess I’m going the quick way.” He yanked at the bodice, displaying more of my chest, positioning his knife above my heart. “I promise this will hurt a lot.” He raised the blade high, about to plunge it back down.
A gasp stuck in my throat, terror so overwhelming that I shut my eyes and sheer nausea controlled my body. My mind drifted off, already soaring in the breeze with Huginn and Muninn if they allowed me.
“What!?” the man screeched, popping my lids open with a jolt. “There is no way!”
As if I had conjured him from the dead, the Northerner stood right behind him, wielding one of the large saws that had been hanging on the wall. Sweat glistened off his forehead, skin pallid, his stance unsteady.
“It can’t be possible with how much I gave you!” the flesh-eater exclaimed. “You should be dead.”
“I should be dead many times over already,” the Northerner sneered.
“There is no way you could burn through the poison, unless you are a—”
The Northerner roared, swinging the saw for the man. The sound of the jagged teeth shredding through skin and bone. The man gurgled out a cry, blood spraying over the room as his throat opened, his head sloping to the side, hanging on by tendons before his body crumbled to the ground.
The Northerner’s chest pumped up and down, blood covering him, his attention on the dead man. “Hrafnasueltir.” He spat on his body.
Raven starver. It was the gravest of insults to our kind, a slur men killed each other over without thought.
The Northerner’s attention lifted to me, his expression severe, hiding any emotion.
His jaw strained, breathing ragged. He stepped over the man’s body, his legs wobbly as he came up to the table.
His gaze traveled over every inch of me with intensity, landing on the deep gaping wound in my arm.
His nose flared, a sound working up his throat, but he didn’t speak, not asking me if I was all right.
I was alive. That was good enough.
His hands reached for my cuffs, unbuckling the restraints from my limbs.
The moment I was free, he stepped away from me, moving around the room.
I sat up slowly, my head whirling with drugs and adrenaline, vomit still threatening to emerge from my guts.
Taking long inhales, I quietly watched him explore the shelves, opening and smelling various bottles until he found the right one.
Grabbing cloth from a basket, he returned to me, stepping between my legs.
Briefly his attention lingered on the branding tool hanging near my leg, zeroing in on the J, his throat bobbing.
I managed to speak. “What?”
He jerked his head back to me, unplugging the bottle in his hands.
The scent of rubbing alcohol singed my nose.
It reminded me of Elvina, how many times she had to clean my wounds when I was a child.
Before puberty set in, Sarina and I were jumping from trees and running through the forest, getting up to mischief at every turn.
“This is going to fucking hurt.” His throat made every word coarse, his eyes lifting to mine with a challenge, holding the damp cloth in his hand.
Swallowing, I nodded for him to continue.
He dabbed the disinfectant around the open gash on my arm. My molars crunched together, a cry tearing at my throat, nausea burning the back of my lids, the pain sharpening the haze.
“If you need to vomit,” he growled, “do it that way.” He nodded toward the slaughtered figure on the ground. Blood pooled around him, flesh, bone, and tissue in lumps around his exposed spine. The man’s open, petrified eyes were glossed over in death.
The sight had me dry heaving, the emptiness in my belly shredding at the lining of my stomach. Retching up broth and bile, my eyes watered, a sob hiccuping in my throat.
In the last three days, I had been subjected to an arranged marriage, kidnapped, my friend murdered in front of me, almost drowned, starved, and now I had been seconds away from being slain and eaten by a cannibal.
My resolve crumbled into choking sobs. The Northerner didn’t react, continuing to clean and wrap up my arm, letting me have the moment of weakness.
The king had instilled in me detachment from sentiment, the need to keep my emotions buried inside.
Always royal, always showing strength and fortitude.
It was a moment before I could recoup, quieting myself down, my father’s voice barking in my ear.
“It is how we have to be, Wrennlyn . . . if we show even the slightest hesitation or weakness, those who have been hiding in the shadows, people you might consider friends, will strike. Show nothing to the outside world, too many will use it against you.”