Wrong answer.
I hit him again … and again … breaking bones one at a time. His nose, his cheekbone, his jaw.
The impact shudders up my arm. The wet, meaty sounds of flesh splitting reaches my ears. And satisfaction floods through me. I’m enjoying this. I’ve been waiting for this.
How many of my people died in your forest? How many did you turn into trophies for human walls? How many names did you never bother to learn?
Cowen isn’t screaming any more. He’s making small animal sounds. Broken whimpers that barely sound human.
Power surges through me. Magic flowing like liquid fire through veins that have been empty for too long. Metal flows over my skin, black and gleaming, chased with silver thorns that catch the light wrong.
Armor … armor manifesting out of nothing, settling into place with a buzz of rightness.
Finally.
The satisfaction is bone-deep.
Cowen’s eyes go so wide, the whites show all around the irises. Blood bubbles from his ruined mouth, and whatever hope he’s been clinging to dies.
I drag him to the fireplace, where the poker, glowing red, sits in the coals.
“Three hundred years.” My not-voice is conversational. “That’s how long I wore a collar. Do you know what iron feels like against fae skin?”
I wrap my fingers around the poker, draw it out of the fire, and press it against Cowen's cheek.
A scream tears out of him. His body convulses. The smell of burning flesh makes me smile.
That’s one.
I pull the poker away. Bits of flesh come with it.
“How many times did you stand there watching? How many of my people screamed while your mage worked?”
The poker comes down again. Different spot. Same scream.
Two.
“Do you know what it feels like? Bone forcing its way through your skull?”
Again. Burning a line down the front of his tunic and along his ribs. Cowen’s body jackknifes.
Three.
I drop the poker. It clatters against the hearth, still glowing, while I haul Cowen up and drag him to the wall of trophies and slam his face into the nearest plaque. The brass edge opens his forehead to the bone.
Again. And again. Blood smears across the wood, and drips down.
“These were fae.” Each word is punctuated by another impact. “They had names.” Crack. “They had families.” Crack. “They had lives before you took them, and your hunters put arrows through their hearts.”
I let him drop. The huntmaster crumples to the floor, blood pooling beneath him.
I curl my fingers, and a blade appears in my grip. Black as night, chased with silver, gleaming in the moonlight. I place the edge against the first knuckle of Cowen’s index finger andpress down, letting him feel every fraction of the blade sinking through flesh and bone. His scream is a ragged, broken thing. When the finger comes free, I hold it up in front of his face.
“One. You have nine more. And then we move on to other things.”
The second finger. The third. He stops screaming somewhere around the sixth. His voice has given out, leaving only wet, whistling sounds that escape through his broken teeth. But he’s still aware, still watching. And that’s all that matters.
I want him to feel every moment. I want him to understand exactly what he held here.
