“Do you think I haven’t checked Loxley myself? Haven’t had hunters stationed around its ward? The Stones aren’t there.” He glances over his shoulder and gives a gesture to the guard behind him.
My heart races as I spot the small vial placed between his fingers, one I’ve become all too familiar with.
“Make this easy on yourself this time.” Galen exits, leaving only me and the guard and the poison that will null any bit of strength I may have left. As if the iron around my wrists isn’t already doing a great job of that.
Coward.
The guard’s hands shake as he reaches for me. I smile, wide and feral, at the indent my teeth made on his hand the last time he came.
The guard moves swiftly, capturing me and forcing my jaw open. The tasteless tonic slides down my throat and when I try to spit it out, he holds my jaw tightly until I’m forced to swallow.
“Good girl,” Galen says from safely behind the bars. “Now let’s go, no time to waste.” He whistles a tune as he skips up the stairs. The guard drags me behind him, and my head lolls.
Do not give up, susi.
The room isthe same as it was before. Sterile and cold, despite the oil lanterns lining the white walls. There are several metal work benches pushed against the walls. Each one is filled with glass vials and liquids of all colors.
The guard straps me to the metal bed, the iron stinging against the exposed skin of my neck. Galen whistles the same tune as he mixes various liquids together, a pungent sting hits my nose.
My heart races as the guard leaves and it’s only Galen and I. The straps around my wrist rub against the open wounds from the shackles.
Galen stands over me, his icy eyes calculating. “Ready to cooperate?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He smiles, and the sight of it makes my skin crawl. “There’s always a choice.”
He props himself onto the table, crossing his arms over his chest. “When my sister was sick, the Healer had a choice.” Hepulls the enchanted blade from the belt on his waist. “They chose not to help her. They chose to let her die because what good was she to them?” He wipes the blade on his shirt, polishing it only for it to get dirtied again.
“She had no magick,” he says. “Not an Enchantress, just a girl with a faulty heart.” His eyes meet mine and for a moment there’s something there. A small flicker of emotion that reminds me that despite the cruelty of the last few weeks, he was a child before all of this. A person with a family and hopes of his own.
“I have said it before”—I keep my eyes locked on the blade—“I’m sorry for your sister. But perhaps there was noth?—”
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t defend them to me.” He shakes his head. “She was everything to me.” He runs the tip of the blade up and down my arm, carving a small line into my skin.
“You know,” he says, “Rose was the only good thing in my life until one of you took her away.” The blade hovers over the wounds on my wrists.
“We had a deal, she and I.” He sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. My heart races, my eyes watching the knife. “We were to run away together.” His eyes snap open. “I was finally going to be free of my father.Wewere finally going to be free of him.” He shakes his head again. “But of course, that didn’t happen. And I spent years and years under his scrutiny and fists alone.”
The blade slides against my skin without warning, digging deep into my flesh. I cry out in pain, blood spilling onto the table. “Galen, please!”
He digs the blade farther and the enchantment it’s laced sets to work.
Its poisonous magick seeps into my blood. Rooting and searching. Looking for something to take with it. I scream again as he angles the blade up and under my skin.
The tonic he’s given me has silenced my magick but under the pain and the potion, something slithers inside of me. It retracts further into my being with every push of the blade.
After a few more moments, a few more desperate pleas, the pain sears through me and I’m tumbling into a pit of nothingness as darkness overtakes my vision.
Two
Sorin
“We’re here, girl.”I give Amis a quick rub on the nose before tying her to a nearby tree. We rode straight through from Wickersham, only stopping for necessities. She more than deserves the rest.
Despite it being the first weeks of Autumn, the forest is alive today with sun and birdsong. The yellowing leaves littering the ground and the crisp air, the only reminder of how long it’s been since Elora and Galen were taken.
Weeks.
