Chapter
Twenty-Four
Malyr Past, Tidestone Dungeons
ime crept through the darkness of the dungeons, each day marked with beatings from the cane, the whip, and occasionally, the jailor’s fist. Twice, some human captain had transported me toT the outskirts of Vhaerya, locked in a cage and poisoned to near-unconsciousness with gray devil bark, demanding I removed my kingdom’s shadowy veil.
I’d refused.
Or at least, that was what I’d told myself each time the shadows hadn’t listened, feigning pride where I knew I only deserved shame.
My gaze wandered to Harlen’s corpse, where he’d been rotting away for who knew how long now, but I stopped myself. Not for the pale-greenish tint I knew his face carried, or the maggots falling from the corner of his mouth, or even the way his flesh had begun to sink in.
No, it was those empty eye sockets I couldn’t stomach, pecked a little bit cleaner to the bone each time I woke against a wall I couldn’t recall having fallen to sleep against.
I swallowed past a wave of sour bile and nausea, lest my stomach would rid itself of the moss I’d tediously scraped off the musty corners and eaten to avoid more unconscious shifts. My unkindness
was starved, frantic.
“Lorn?” I wrinkled my nose, disgusted by the stench of my breath, and placed my fingers into the gap at the bottom of the wall in search of hers. “Did you wake?”
Her trembling fingertips touched mine. “Would I be so lucky and just not wake?”
I leaned my head against the stone, my core sinking at the defeat in her voice, all that fight she’d once carried extinguished. “Once Asker comes to free me, I’ll take you with me far away from this place. Maybe across the ocean, where we—”
“Please stop…” Her voice was a little above a whisper, yet it hung so heavily between us, it burdened my shoulders. “The only Ravens coming in here are deathweavers and voids. This won’t stop until they have Valtaris, and even then, it will end in death for us. Unless you finally use your shadows.”
My jaws clenched. “They’re not mine to yield, which is why they don’t listen. It’s that curse running through my bloodline. The way for our goddess to make me pay for what my ancestor had
stolen.”
“It’s just a tale, Malyr.”
“A tale?” I scoffed. “I told you what they’ve done to my parents, have I not? To our homelands?”
“Because they’re angry,” she ground out. “We are deathweavers, Malyr. If we don’t feed death to our shadows, they will feed on whatever is in reach. Stop. Fearing. Them.”
My head sunk, giving me a good whiff of my body odor, the tatters of my tunic stiff with dirt, my skin sticky with old sweat. How could I not fear them? They had killed my hound, my parents… Not to mention the many times they had tried to kill me when I was a child.
Oh, the little prince will grow into them, everyone had said. Except, my shadows had continued to grow with me. Only Mother had ever understood, for she had allowed me to syphon some of my shadows into her void under trembles and tears. That I had once shoved my anoa into a flour sack and tried to drown him in a river hadn’t exactly helped my relationship with that bird… Bright and playful, a sudden burst of energy fluttered through my core, fading the pain, the agony, the hunger. What was this?
Pressing one hand to my chest, I gripped the wall with the other and struggled to my feet, stumbling along it guided by… I wasn’t sure. On instinct, I stopped several steps from the next corner.
I stared up at the damp ceiling. Stared and soaked up this sense of serenity.
Until it disappeared, leaving nothing behind but hunger pains, sore muscles, and a twinge between my ribs, its loss… harrowing. Where did it go? I wanted to feel it again. Wanted to— Hinges creaked.
I spun around and dug my fingers into the crumbling mortar, fully expecting a punch in the face.
None came.
The jailor was still busy locking the iron door from the inside when another guard lowered a wooden bucket with water to the ground between himself and Lord Brisden. The sight alone narrowed my parched throat, making me suck my tongue.
“Get rid of this corpse before the other half of the prisoners succumb to sickness.” Lord Brisden wrinkled his hooked nose at Harlen, that longer brown hair he carried slicked back, the hunting outfit he wore embroidered with green waves. Brisden colors. “They’re dying faster than we can cart them to Vhaerya. Not that any of them are likely to prove useful.” His strong gaze settled on me. “Except for our young prince here.”
A series of cramps roiled through my stomach, one for each step he took toward me. “You took me to Vhaerya twice. I cannot… cannot—” A cough scraped along my throat like sand, eyes going to that
bucket. I was so thirsty. “I will not lift the shadows.”
“Yes, so you have said, but having a prince for a captive is never a bad thing, so I decided to keep you.” Arms folded behind his back, he slowly paced before me, eyeing me with an intensity that chilled the blood in my veins. “Same with that… rabid girl next to you. Her shadows are strong.” He stopped and turned to face me fully. “But not nearly as strong as yours, Malyr. Is that not so?”
I licked my cracked lower lip, my eyes on that bucket. “I will not lift them.”
“M’lord!” The figure of a guard shifted behind the tight weave of the iron door to my cell. “It is the Lady Galantia. One of the guards found her sneaking along the bailey again.”
“What is it to me?” Lord Brisden barked. “It is her mother who grows hysteric whenever that girl escapes her nursemaid. Ask my wife what she will have you do.”
“M’lord, Lady Brisden is currently… Well, with the healers.”
“She couldn’t hold on to this one more than a few weeks, could she?” Lord Brisden gave a severe shake of his head. “Lock my daughter in her room and find that darned nursemaid to make sure she stays there.” Lord Brisden pointed at me. “Strap him to the barrel and flog him.”
“No!” I shouted, pulse exploding in my ears. “No flogging. Please! No flog—augh!”
Strong sets of arms grabbed mine, flaring up the pain of old bruises, dragging me toward the barrel that stood at the center of my cell. Until, at a burst of adrenaline and panic, my shift went through me.
My form scattered into my unkindness. We flapped and screeched, scratching on the walls for hold, bending our feathers on the ungiving stone. Out! We wanted out!
“Bloody idiots,” Lord Brisden snarled. “Whack them. Whack them!”
Leather lashed down on us, ripping us to the ground. My chin hit the hard stone, making me chomp down on my gums. Iron seasoned my teeth and blood drooled from my mouth, thick and sweet and warm.
“Up you go, little bird.” The jailor gripped me by my matted hair, pulled me onto my shaky legs, and shoved my chest against the barrel. “Tie him down nice and good while I beat the wings out of
him.”
Smack!
Dozens of leather strings nipped at my back, making my shoulders pull tight while chains
tightened around my wrists and ankles.
Leather smacked.
Fabric ripped.
Liquid fire melted across my back, making every muscle in my body convulse until I rose onto my toes, but there was no escaping the brutal pain. It pelted down on me, repeatedly hitting the same spot until I felt my skin peel, giving way to trickles of blood that ran down my back.
“Enough.” Lord Brisden stepped in front of me and leaned over, the reflection of the torch they’d brought flickering across his hazel eyes. “There is no beating the stubbornness out of this one, as we all know.”
My eyes fell to my amulet that hung on a leather string from his neck, making me want to clench my eyes shut in shame. The white stone dangled inches from my face, worthless to anyone in this
world… but worth the world to me.
It belonged to my anoaley.
My fated mate.
“What a pretty face. I daresay you are quite the handsome young man, if given a good soak and a comb.” Brisden lifted his hand to my face, making me flinch in anticipation of a whack, only for his
finger to stroke a black strand behind that ear where he’d marked me with ink. “Tall. Long, black hair.
A lithe, graceful figure that has not yet grown into its full width and strength. Do you not agree, lads?”
“A pretty Raven boy,” the jailor said.
The guard chuckled. “Looks like a woman from where I’m standing.”
All my senses sharpened as my heart drummed in warning, making me turn my head to escape Brisden’s strange touch. This felt wrong… Terribly wrong.
“I have to say, pretty Raven boy, I am growing rather impatient with this nasty… shadow business around those cursed lands of yours,” Brisden said. “I need them gone. Now. And you, Malyr, will do it.”
My parched, dry lips trembled more than they should have. “I will not remove them.”
Brisden straightened, walked to the wall across, and leaned his back against it. “He reeks like shit and death. Get that stench off him.”
One second the rope on the bucket squeaked tight, the next, a splash hit my flogged back, burning, searing, stabbing into my spine, and ripping a scream from me.
Because it was not water, but vinegar.
Sharp, biting vinegar, sending the fire of five hells across my back. Its acidic odor crept into my nostril, bringing with it the memory of grunts, curses, scream. No. No, no, no… I bucked against the barrel, fighting the constraints of the chains. “No!”
Brisden once more came closer, whispering by my ear, “I will break you, Malyr. And you will give me Valtaris.”
When someone yanked my trousers down, I fought in earnest, kicking, screaming, cursing. Another splash of vinegar hit my buttocks, only to burn its way down along my scrotum and penis.
Big, rough hands gripped my hips. A foot kicked my legs apart, letting chains rattle and clank.
Cotton wiped over my asshole.
The barrel tipped slightly beneath me as the first stab violated me, burning and ripping, letting a shout tear from my lungs and urine trickle down my inner thigh. He forced himself deeper until his skin slapped against mine, hurting me, grunting in pleasure while I whimpered in pain.
“Do you want to know what is worse than being forced to endure the most depraved acts?”
Brisden looked down at where I’d wet myself, grinning. “Liking them.”
And I knew then that it wasn’t urine the man forced from me one thrust after another. He cut through my body, past my decaying mind, and straight into my soul. And I felt it crack. Sensed it shatter into a million pieces, filthy and corrupted, never to be whole again.
