Koerlyn was going to peel my skin away. If not mine, then someone else’s, and he’d make me watch and tell me it was my fault. And it wouldbemy fault—for coming here in the first place, for not evading capture, for being so sorely insufficient for the eyes and knowledge I bore.
Someone handed the man a rope, and he took pleasure in tying the rough bindings around my wrists tightly enough to numb my hands.When he was done, he gripped the ropes and yanked, forcing me to stumble forward. “Move.”
Someone else’s hand shoved between my shoulder blades, and I tripped, only catching myself at the last second.
“Fall, and we drag you,” he sneered, taking his post beside me as we began to travel back along my tracks, the group an impenetrable cage around me.
There were plenty of hilts available to grab and turn into a weapon. I knew I couldn’t kill them all—maybe just one, if I was lucky—but it would be something, at least. It might result in a death more merciful than what awaited me with Koerlyn. Yet even that fruitless endeavor wasn’t a possibility, not with the dogs panting on my heels, waiting for me to flinch in the wrong direction.
That numbness in my hands pervaded my body as we trudged through the woods, veering toward the river and traveling along it, marching closer and closer to something that would be worse than I could even imagine.
Just a few weeks ago, I thought I knew suffering. It was nothing compared to what was to come.
Every few minutes, a rough hand would shove me, and when I flailed and stumbled to catch myself, someone would chuckle. Beside us, just paces beyond the circle of men, that river thundered and roiled, a warning of the violence to come. I didn’t know how long it would take us to reach Koerlyn. Minutes. An hour. Whatever length of time it was, my mind would continue using it to torture me with fear. And yet I knew I should embrace it, that period of waiting, before the pain began.
One of the dogs suddenly lurched forward, its deadly canines reaching toward my pocket. I recoiled, bumping into the soldier beside me, as spittle flew from the animal’s mouth.
But it didn’t attack.
As I was shoved back into place, I looked down at its wiry body in confusion, noting once more the clear ridges and dips of bones against its brown coat. When its snout nudged my pocket again, a thick glob of drool hanging from its mouth, I realized.
The bread.
It smelled the pieces of meat-stuffed bread in my pockets.
And it was starving, as was its friend.
If I could distract them with food, maybe I could get past them and to one of those hilts. To die fighting here would be a far more merciful fate than what I currently faced.
Continuing to walk, I awkwardly reached my bound hands beneath my cloak and into my pocket, flinging out a few chunks of bread. The dog yipped, and both of them dove for the food, scooping it up without breaking stride.
The two men on horses ahead of me circled wide to the left around a lower-hanging branch. To their likely dismay, it was high enough that I wouldn’t bash my head into it.
Returning my attention to the dogs, I loosened more crumbs from my pockets, and they greedily lapped them up. One of their tails swayed back and forth.
That was a good thing, right?
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the man who’d bound me demanded.
Ignoring him, I released two more pieces of bread from my pocket. That tail continued to move side to side.
“Hey! Did you hear me?” He gripped my arm and thrust me forward. I crashed onto my knees, throwing out my bound hands to catch myself.
The dogs barked, enraged, deep sounds that sent me into a protective ball.
“Hey! Calm down, you little shits!” someone yelled.
I peered up from the cover of my arms. The dogs were damn near losing their minds, overcome with aggression, but not toward me. Rather, they faced the man who’d shoved me, malnourished bodies jumping with each bark.
“Attackher, you stupid dogs!”
But they didn’t listen, and it didn’t take a genius to know why. These men were clearly starving them. I was feeding them. They were protecting their food source.
Cautious hope slithered around that ball in my chest.
The man and those around him backed away, unsheathing swords as the dogs’ aggression ratcheted higher. He swore, a string of cusses that were lost to the animals’ agitation. One of the horses whinnied, front legs kicking high as its rider fought for his seat.
Above me, that low-hanging branch beckoned. It was sturdy, solid-looking. The rare kind that belonged to an older tree that’d had time to grow strong and resilient before the Domus sucked the life from it. I followed that branch to a thick trunk, which gave way to more branches that extended toward—
