Selecting the strongest salve available, I shove it into my pocket and hasten up the tower stairs as quietly as possible. Upon reaching the landing, I mince toward the solid steel door. To my left, the single window reveals the waves that grow blacker as autumn’s chill sets in. Late is the hour. The prisoner likely sleeps. Carefully, I open the slot and push the tin of salve through.
Immediately, the container is hurled back through the opening. It bounces across the ground with a sharp clatter before rolling to a stop.
As I reach down to pick up the healing balm, I’m suddenly wrenched forward. My body slams against the door, pain rupturing near my shoulder as something shoves my face against the freezing metal. I struggle against a nameless, faceless captor to no avail.
“What did you put in the soup?”
The voice is low, encased in ice. It rasps along my bare arms, drawing the hairs to shivering points.
“N-nothing.” When I attempt to twist my face away from the door, the pressure increases, drawing tears to my eyes.
“Do not lie to me, mortal.”
“I d-didn’t put anything in the b-b-broth!” I manage, molars clenched in pain.
There is a silence, unbroken except by the rapidity of my breathing.“Very well. If what you’re saying is true, then surely you would have no objection to consuming the meal you served me?”
I scan the area wildly. There is no hand that I can see, though it certainly feels like one—five sturdy fingers wrapped around my throat. The snap of the metal slot sounds, and suddenly the bowl of soup I served the prisoner yesterday hovers before me in a sphere of wind. A pitiful mewl slips out of me. What is this sorcery?
“The less you struggle, the less pain you will experience.” His next words emerge as a growl. “Drink.”
I shake my head. If I were not so paralyzed by terror, it might have occurred to me to scream.
Something pinches behind my jaw. I whimper. “You’re hurting m-me.”
“As I said, the less you struggle, the less this will hurt.”
“Her l-ladyship ordered me to poison you. I p-p-put the antidote in the s-soup to negate the effects,” I choke through a tightening airway. “I s-swear it.”
The pressure around my throat eases, but I remain pressed against the door, trembling. Eventually, the prisoner says, “Why would you act against your employer?”
“I’m n-not working against her,” I rush to say.
The silence speaks. It tells me he does not believe a word I utter.
And yet, this god releases me. I fall forward, panting hard as I rub behind my jaw, along my neck. Not hard enough to bruise. I know what sort of pressure a bruising requires.
“If you’re not working against her, as you claim,” he says, “why add the antidote?”
“I don’t kn-know,” I whisper.
“A likely story.”
Before I can defend myself—though truthfully I’m not certainwhatI would say—he goes on, the resonance of his voice managing to vibrate through solid steel.
“If this is a ruse designed to beguile me into lowering my guard, I warn you: it won’t work. She cannot break me. And neither can you.”
Nothing I say will prove my intentions are noble. Mainly because I understand the sentiment. If our positions were switched, I wouldn’t trust him either. And yet—
“Why w-would I seek to cause you additional h-h-harm? You are already captured. I hear how her l-ladyship tortures you. If you give her what she w-w-wants, there would be no reason to keep y-you here—”
I fall silent as an eerie, ragged gasp gathers strength from inside the cell.
Laughter. I have never heard so spiteful a sound.
“Do you honestly think that witch will let me walk free once I give her the information she wants? Do you think she letsanyof the immortals she imprisons walk free? Tell me, does she give them a hearty send-off before dumping their bodies over the cliffs?”
That’s not… Lady Clarisse sets the prisoners free. She has told me this. When I think deeper on the matter, however, I realize I’ve never witnessed this with my own eyes. I have simply taken her word for it.
