“Because you don’t have any art inside you.” My teeth clench around the bitter knowledge of him in my mouth. “Of course you don’t understand. You don’t grow things. You only take and destroy.”
It’s the worst insult I can think of. But his features remain unchanged. Not even a squint of annoyance.
Then he asks, “Are you ready to make your choice, or would you prefer to add further to your punishment?”
This moist psycho. I want to tell him off again—but my arms are already going numb. Getting on with the punishment wins out over dragging this out.
“Fine. What’s the choice?”
“My shadows can only be wielded in this manner until sunsrise,” he says. “Thanks to your so-valiantly-declared willingness to take on any punishment my staff invited with their squabbling… I can either leave you like this all night, or…”
He trails off, wielding the silence like a spirit-breaking weapon.
I don’t want to ask. Don’t want to play his cruel game.
But I need my arms to garden tomorrow. I can’t risk losing my last day of life to recovery.
“Or what?” I grit out.
He pulls out the time glass again, dark-red sand sloshing inside. “Or you can agree to let my shadows mete out your punishment. They will do whatever I want them to until the sand runs out.”
Whatever he wants.The burning in my arms turns cold, and I have to work to keep the quaver out of my voice. “Will it hurt?”
“Yes.” His answer is blunt, his black lips curving cruelly. “But perhaps not in the way you expect. They will draw no blood.”
New ways of hurting me—ways I’m not expecting—don’t exactly sound better than the ones I know.
But the garden…
“Will I be able to move tomorrow?” I ask. “Will your shadows do anything I can’t recover from?”
He actually considers the question, tilting his head. “Physically? No. Mentally?”
He shrugs. “Well, I can never be sure how easily your kind will break.”
Moons, I hate him.I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone so much. Not even Princess Seraphyne and her out-of-the-blue slaps made me feel this furious.
But IknowI won’t recover from a punishment that physically wrecks me. If mental torment is the price of mobility, it’s the only choice.
“Fine,” I spit. “I’ll take the time-glass option. Just know, I’ll never forgive you. After this, I’m going to hate you for?—”
“Noted and dismissed.” He flips the bulbed sand glass with a flick of his clawed hand. “Your time begins now.”
That’s all the warning I get before the shadows holding my wrists pull me back into the air, then split off… their tendrils vining down my body.
Two wrap around my breasts, squeezing in a way that feels almost like a massage.
Yet nothing like a massage.
“No! No—stop!”
The shadows freeze, then set me down on the floor, lowering my arms just enough to give me some relief from the pain of having them raised above my head.
But the king on the throne says nothing.
Leaving me to ask, “What… what are they doing to me?”
“Punishing you. I thought I made that clear when I gave you your final choice of the night.” Veyrion’s voice is dipped in condescension, like he’s speaking to a daft child.
