Scorched Treachery (Imdalind, #3)(47)

But he didn’t. He stayed still, a high pitched wheeze occasionally issuing from his mouth as his chest slowly rose and fell, his skin getting hotter and hotter. The fever that had appeared two days ago was increasing by the hour.

I ran my fingers over his skin, the heat feeling like hot stones in summer under the pads of my fingers. I kept hoping that he would cool down, but so far, nothing I had done had helped. Not that there was much I could do.

I was helpless. With very little water to cool him and no magic to heal him, I didn’t know what I should try next. I wasn’t even able to speak to him. I was trapped in a nightmare of torment, and all the while, Sain’s words still echoed in my head.

It will be soon.

I refused to put thoughts behind the words. I refused to let the meaning behind them move into my mind. Even if it already had, I wouldn’t accept it.

I shifted my weight and crawled slowly toward the filthy glass that sat in the corner of the cell. My fingers clutched at the stone floor, moving over sand, dirt, and bits of what I could only assume were rodent bones, until they gently hit the hard surface of the glass. I fidgeted through the air until my hands wrapped around it, the grit on the glass feeling like slime underneath my hands. I clutched the glass to my chest, the small amount of fluid that was left in the bottom as precious as gold.

I shuffled back to Talon, my knees screaming in horror as my weight rested on them in my movements, the water suspended between my hands. I felt in front of me for the bars, terrified of going too far, of losing my balance and dropping the glass. It took a few tries, and an extraordinarily large amount of pain, before I found him again, the warmth of his skin heating the air around him.

With shaking fingers, I scooped the water from the glass and pressed it against his skin. I trickled it against his lips and into his mouth. Over and over, I moved, pressed, and sprinkled the water over him, only to have it evaporate into the damp air the second it touched his scalding flesh. I held my damp fingers against him, hoping to keep the water against him longer, hoping the chill of my own skin would serve as an equalizer.

Something deep inside of me was pleading for me to accept that this was hopeless, begging me to save the water for myself, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t abandon him. I would sacrifice myself for him until the very end. Half for me and half for him. Always.

“I love you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. It was all I could risk. But it was the most important thing to say.

I let the now empty glass clatter to the stone floor, my body giving out to collapse against the bars and slide across the slime covered surface to the floor the moment my job was done. A small gasp escaped my lips as I hit the stone floor a little harder than expected.

I turned toward Talon, my hands clinging to him as my body attempted to fall asleep.

I would have, if it weren’t for the footsteps somewhere above me, moving toward me. I don’t know if it was the whisper, the clatter of the glass, or the groan as I had hit the floor, but something had reminded them of my existence. I had survived a week in relative security. Now that was being shattered.

The footsteps were faster than I had ever heard and the voices behind them louder, angrier. I clung to Talon, my overgrown fingernails digging into him as someone began their decent down the stairs and toward me.

“It’s only been a week, sir,” Timothy said, slightly out of breath. “You can’t expect him to have finished her off by now?”

“I can expect anything I want, Timothy,” Edmund spat, the footsteps stopping as he spoke, “Don’t make me put you in your place old friend. You have been with me from the beginning, but that does not mean you are on the same pillar as I.”

There was a pause, a pause that lasted an eternity of heartbeats and tingling nerve endings. I had no idea what they were talking about, and I didn’t care. The only thing in my mind was how close they were.

“Sorry, sir,” my father gasped, the footsteps resuming almost immediately. Everything clenched as they came closer, my brain panicking in fear of why Edmund was coming down.

“I gave him a deadline, and I expect results. If he needs a little persuasion, then so be it.” Edmund’s voice grew louder as a bright light blasted through my closed eyelids. I held as still as I could, knowing that no matter how much pretending I did, it wouldn’t stop them. The mere fact that Edmund was down here spelled danger for me.

“But are you sure this is the way?” Timothy said, disgusted.

“You should have seen his face when I threatened to unbind the curse,” Edmund said, “This is the way.”

Their voices were right outside my cell now, their conversation ending as iron bars grated together.

“Put him in that end cell down there, and then you can go.”

Footsteps, the grinding of iron, and the rattling of chains. I heard Sain grunt and I fought the urge to turn toward him, my arm jerking on its own before I could stop it. They had brought him back. Ryland was not with him, which could only mean that they had begun their attempt to kill Joclyn.

“Get up, Wynifred.”

I froze; my father’s voice was deep with warning. I knew I needed to obey, but didn’t want to face whatever Edmund had in store for me.

“Come on, Wynifred,” Edmund coaxed, his voice sweet and condescending. “Listen to your father.”

I didn’t want to listen, but I also didn’t want to push it. I moved a bit and began to push myself up to sit, my weak arms shaking as I lifted myself. My joints groaned at me as I moved, and I gasped before letting my body weight rest against the bars, my head flopping back as I looked at them.