Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(56)

The king laughed and rose, dragging me up by the collar as I cried out in pain. Everything was red, and I couldn’t even raise my arm as he sent a fist flying toward my face.

I stumbled back against my cell.

Everything went black.





12





The next day, I learned why the rebels chose to take their own lives before the Crown’s Army dragged them away to interrogations. I learned why giving up everything was better than clinging to hope.

I learned what Derrick had withstood while I’d thrown tantrums inside the palace begging his surrender instead.

I learned what it meant to bleed.

I lived with nightmares in mortal flesh.

They had me wasting away on hallucinogens, watching over and over as everything and everyone I knew died. They submitted me to devices I didn’t even know the Crown possessed.

“N-never.” It was the last word before I was flooded with darkness. Again.

Those brief moments when everything ceased to be… I yearned for them more than anything. But I think Mira knew that.

My world was a flood of pain.

I knew nothing else.

I was drowning, and I just wanted it to stop. I finally understood the release of death.

My lips were cracked. All I could taste was my own blood. The little water they gave me was stale and warm, and the bread was covered in mold.

The room stank of pungent flesh and acidic buckets of waste. I felt each old wound reopen when I shifted in my manacles or slept. My shift was worn to rags.

There were parts of my body that couldn’t react. Parts of me that were numb. Parts that ached and burned and sent needles down my spine when I turned.

I couldn’t hear anything. The world was a jumble of noise, sharp and soft, colliding with my thundering pulse; they had to shout into my face for me to hear.

When it got too bad, they called a healer.

Only so they could begin anew.

Questions, silence, and pain.

Over and over, minutes and hours melded together, and I lost all sense of time.

There was some sort of commotion when I awoke. I couldn’t see it. My eyelids refused to cooperate.

But suddenly I could hear. A healer must have come while I was fading in and out.

“She’s refusing to cooperate.”

“We should just kill her now.”

Blayne and Mira were somewhere inside.

“No.”

My lungs stopped. I knew that voice. I knew it so well, and somehow I had almost forgotten it in the hours that passed.

“Darren—”

“She’s my wife, Blayne!”

“Brother.” The king’s voice lowered sympathetically. “Why do you want her alive? Look at her. She betrayed you. She betrayed all of us.”

Silence.

“If you want her for other things, there are plenty of ladies in court who would be more than happy to warm your bed.”

“That’s. Not. It.”

“Don’t you dare tell me you still have feelings for the traitor.”

“I don’t feel anything.” The prince’s snarl echoed across the cell.

“Then that settles it.” An order: “Mira.”

Someone jerked at my chains and pulled me up off the floor. My eyelids fluttered as Mira shoved me up against the wall, one hand holding my throat as a conjured blade rose in her fist.

Did I scream? Her blade pressed into my neck and something wet slid down my shoulders as every inch of me shuddered and burned.

“If you don’t feel anything,” the king said loudly, “let Mira finish the job for both of us. Let’s put the traitor behind us once and for all.”

Silence. Again. Not that I truly noticed with a blade cutting into my neck. A dull, throbbing pain exploded just above my chest. Is this what it feels like to die? I wondered. Like your pulse is being taken right out of your throat? Like someone— “Give me a week.”

“Darren—”

“I’ll interrogate her. Please, if she doesn’t give us the answers—” There was a pause, “—I’ll execute her myself.”

The blade left my throat; I wished it hadn’t.

Up until that moment, I’d forgotten the boy with the garnet eyes.

But hearing him… I felt everything.



*

The next time I opened my eyes, I could take a breath without shattering my lungs. Slowly, cautiously, I extended my arm, first one, then the other when the pain didn’t make me cry out. My legs came next.

With effort, but not so much that it brought me to tears as before, I drew myself to my knees. My arms trembled and a burning sensation ignited in my limbs, but eventually I was able to stand, pulling myself up with the bars.

When I could finally breathe, I dared myself to look.

There was a silhouette in the shadows watching me.

“I had a healer see to the worst of your wounds,” it said. “If you try anything, I’ll make them worse than before.” The Black Mage took a step from the darkness so that I could see his face amidst the flickering flames. “Much worse.”

I swallowed, taking a heavy lungful of air.

“You will not speak.” His order stole the words from my lips. “Unless it is in direct reply to a question.”

I folded my arms and instantly regretted it. There was an ache in the side of my ribs.