But he doesn't stop there.
"You made her into a toy," Thoktar snarls, each word punctuated by devastating impact. "Youpaintedher like she wasproperty."
Vitti tries to crawl away, black blood streaming from his mouth, but there's nowhere to run in the small chamber. Thoktar follows with inexorable purpose, his fists methodically destroying the creature who dared to turn me into an object for his collection.
"You touched her,"crackgoes Vitti's spine. "Youchangedher,"snapgo his fingers, one by one. "You were going to make herwatch," and his skull caves in like an eggshell.
Only when Vitti's body stops twitching does Thoktar turn toward me, and the transformation in his expression is instant. The killing rage vanishes, replaced by desperate tenderness as he takes in my partially porcelain form.
"I heard you," he whispers, kneeling beside me with hands that shake despite their recent violence. "I found you."
His fingers trace the edge where porcelain meets flesh, and I feel warmth there—not enough to break the coating, but enough to remind me that I'm still alive underneath.
"Can you feel this?" he asks, touching my real hand.
"Y-yes," I manage through a throat half-transformed. "Can't... can't move the rest..."
"We'll fix it," he promises with absolute certainty. "Whatever this stuff is, we'll find a way to reverse it."
He examines Vitti's supplies with clinical focus, finding bottles of solvents and acids among the madman's tools. Most are too dangerous to use on living flesh, but one—a clear liquid that smells of herbs and hope—makes the porcelain soften when he tests it on my arm.
Drop by careful drop, he applies the solvent to my transformed skin. The porcelain coating dissolves like morning frost, revealing pink flesh beneath. Sensation returns in waves of pins and needles, but it's the most beautiful pain I've ever felt.
"There," he breathes as the last of the artificial skin falls away. "There you are."
I fall into his arms, sobbing with relief and reaction. He holds me against his chest while I shake, one hand stroking my hair, murmuring words of comfort and rage in equal measure.
"I'm sorry I took so long," he whispers. "I'm sorry you had to endure that."
"I knew you’d come," I manage between sobs.
"Always," he promises, his voice fierce with conviction. "I will always find you."
Around us, Vitti's chamber of horrors feels smaller somehow, less threatening. The porcelain dolls on their shelves are just painted clay now, robbed of their power to terrify.
The monster who made them is broken meat on the stone floor.
32
THOKTAR
The sunlight feels like a gift from the ancestors after the horror of Vitti's underground hell, warm and clean against skin that still remembers the cold weight of chains. I breathe deeply, filling my lungs with air that tastes of freedom instead of madness and despair.
Forla emerges beside me, blinking in the brightness like someone waking from a nightmare. Her clothes are torn, her wrists marked with rope burns, but she's whole. Alive. The porcelain coating that threatened to steal her away is gone, leaving only pink flesh and the fierce spirit I fell in love with.
"How do you feel?" I ask, reaching out to touch her face with hands that still shake from what I did to her captor.
"Alive," she breathes, leaning into my palm. "Real. Human."
We stand there in the dappled forest light, just existing together. The rage that consumed me in Vitti's chamber has burned itself out, leaving something cleaner in its wake. Justice. Protection. The simple knowledge that the monster who dared touch my woman will never hurt anyone again.
"We need shelter," I say eventually, though part of me wants to stay in this shaft of sunlight forever. "Somewhere to rest properly."
She nods, understanding. We're both running on the last fumes of strength, held upright by willpower and the desperate need to survive. But we're together now. Whatever comes next, we face it as one.
We're picking our way through the forest when Forla stops suddenly, staring at something on a nearby tree. I follow her gaze and see it—a flash of crimson silk tied around a low branch with deliberate care.
"Someone marked this tree," I observe. "But why?"
