Reveni.
A hard voice shattered the black void. The peaceful nothingness splintered like glass, and reality came crashing back.
Pain.
Unbearable, all-consuming pain.
It slammed into me from every direction at once. My back—god, my back felt like it had been flayed open. My ribs screamed with every shallow breath. Bones had shattered. Muscles had torn. Everything hurt. Everything.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but drown in agony.
Anguish pulsed through my backside where the cane had struck over and over. My stomach lurched and sloshed, rebelling against the trauma my body had endured. Blood raced up my throat—hot, metallic, wrong.
I vomited onto the floor. Onto the pool of my blood that had already gathered beneath me.
My fingers curled against cold stone. Where was I? Still strapped to that barrel? No—I was lying down now. On something hard and unforgiving.
A whimper escaped my lips before I could stop it. I wanted to crawl back into the darkness. Back to the void where nothing could touch me.
But that voice wouldn’t let me.
Someone was here. Someone had woken me.
And whoever it was, I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful or terrified.
Rough hands dragged me off the floor and I groaned—a broken, pathetic sound I couldn’t hold back. The slightest movement sent waves of agony whirling through me like a tornado, tearing through muscle and bone and nerve.
“Drink.”
The voice was distant. Muffled. Like hearing someone speak underwater.
Fingers clamped around my jaw like I was an animal, forcing my mouth open. Something salty and sweet poured between my lips—thick, coating my tongue with a taste that was almost pleasant beneath the iron tang of my own blood.
I coughed. Sputtered. Liquid ran down my chin, and I nearly choked as it flooded my throat.
“Swallow, damn it.”
I couldn’t. My body was betraying me. Everything was betraying me.
“If you don’t drink, you’ll remain in pain forever.”
I knew that male voice. But it wasn’t Darius. Who?—
My mind was too contorted in agony to figure it out. Thoughts scattered like shattered glass every time I tried to grasp one. Right now, I didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop.
More liquid forced its way down my throat. I swallowed once. Twice. Then the flow stopped and I gasped for air, my chest heaving.
The man released me, and I fell onto the cold floor.
That’s when the healing began.
And it was almost worse than the beating.
Fire erupted across my back—not the sting of open wounds, but something deeper. Bones grinding together, fusing, knitting back into place. I screamed, my back arching off the floor. Muscles twisted and reformed beneath my skin. The lash marks burned like someone was pressing hot irons against each one.
My ribs cracked—then shifted. I felt them moving inside me, realigning, and bile surged up my throat.
I thrashed against the cold stone, unable to control my body as it stitched itself back together. Tears streamed down my face. Sweat soaked through what remained of my clothes.
