No one touches it.
No one dares.
The doors slam shut, and darkness swallows everything at once.
The sound echoes through the space, then dies, leaving only the low, uneven rhythm of my breath and the distant murmur of voices beyond the wood.
I lie where they have left me. The pain no longer comes in waves. It is constant now, a deep, pulsing burn that fills my body, that erases everything else. My thoughts slip, catch, dissolve. My vision dims at the corners, darkness creeping inward even as my eyes remain open.
I tremble without control.
Tears slip sideways into the straw, unnoticed, unheeded.
The darkness shifts, or perhaps I do.
And then, slowly, mercifully—
it begins to fade.
Chapter Four
I surface slowly, dragged upward through layers of dark that cling and resist. My body follows after, piece by piece. First the weight of it. Then the ache. Then the pain.
It comes back in fragments.
A pulse in my leg, deep and wrong. A burning along my scalp where hair was torn free. The tight pull at my wrists. The sour scent of the barn settles into me last—hay, damp wood, old sweat, something metallic beneath it that clings to the back on my tongue.
I try to move, but the attempt breaks apart before it begins.
My eyes open with effort, the lids heavy and swollen. Somewhere close, a candle offers the only light, its flame wavering just enough to make the shadows breathe along the walls. For a moment everything swims, shapes blurring into one another, until a small, still figure steadies at the edge of my sight.
Ilinca crouches before me.
Her face is half-shadowed, the candle catching only the line of her cheek, the shine of her eyes. She looks smaller than I remember, as though the darkness has pressed her into something quieter.
Her hands move to reach for the cloth at my mouth, fingers working gently until the knot loosens and the pressure releases. The gag slips free, soaked and heavy, falling against my chest.
Air enters.
I gasp, the breath catching and breaking as it fills me too quickly. My throat protests, the dryness flaring into pain, but I pull it in anyway, greedy for it.
Ilinca does not flinch.
She lifts a small cup to my lips.
Milk. The scent of it reaches me first—faint, sweet in a way nothing else in this place has been. My mouth parts without thought. She tilts it carefully, just enough, letting me take it in slow sips so I do not choke. It coats my tongue, my throat, softening the rawness there, easing something I had not realized was clenched so tight.
I swallow.
Again.
My body leans toward it, seeking more.
Her fingers steady the cup, patient, unwavering, waiting for each breath before offering the next. When it is empty, she sets it aside and reaches into the fold of her apron.
Bread.
A small piece. Coarse. Torn by hand.
