“Lars, pin her shoulders. Correk, ankles. The Lightborne bitch needs to remember who owns her,” Vessira commands and the men do as she bids. Vessira spins on her heel, bounds up the stairs three at a time, and disappears through the door onto the main level of the castle. All I am left with is my own torment. My dread, my anticipation, my panic,my heartbreak. My fucking heartbreak that cuts me deeper than anything Vessira could do to me.
But it doesn’t last long.
Vessira returns, face distorted in menace, and dangling from her hand is a branding iron, tipped with a white-hot symbol or shape I can’t quite make out. Regardless, she stalks towards me like a wild animal, eager to deliver my punishment.
My skin breaks out in a cold sweat, terror gripping my lungs, my breath gushing in and out in rapid waves. No. No.No.
The walls pulse with heat. I swear I can hear my own heartbeat echoing off the stone.
I know he can’t hear me. I know I can’t reach him. But still, I try.Kael,I beg down the silent, empty tether—and I hate myself for it.I need you.
But, of course, he’s not here.
No one is ever there.
Not really.
Not when I need them.
Not when I’m the one who’s breaking.
I thrash against my captors, like a cut beast—if she’s going to treat me like one, I’ll become one. But they’llneverhear me beg.
I hold my tongue, unrelenting, teeth biting down on it and drawing blood.
What’s a little more?
“Hold her steady, men,” Vessira laughs with disdain.
It’s only me and the fates now—no gods left to beseech, save for Morrathys, but I’m not ready to meet the Final Gate yet.
Her boot presses into my lower back.
My fists squeeze into tight balls—bracing myself.
She will not see me hurt.
She will not break me.
No one gets to see my pain anymore.
The only place it’s safe is in that dark, hollow thing inside my chest—buried in the hole where my heart used to be.
If pain is a god, then defiance is my prayer.
Then she brands me.
The iron hisses against my skin—a serpent striking flesh.
Lightning tears through me.
I stifle the scream.
The smell of burnt flesh hangs in the air.
Fuuuuuuuck.
My shoulders are pinned. My ankles braced. My stomach pressed into the floor, and the branding iron still searing my skin between my shoulders.
