Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 32
I nodded, my throat tight. “I didn’t even know who Molkan was—that he was my father. Florian never told me. I found out when one of your spies was captured and brought to the estate to be tortured, and I snuck into the dungeon.”
Avrin’s frown deepened. “Frensroth.”
“Yes,” I said.
“His head was delivered to Molkan amid a wagon of fresh produce riddled with his bones. Straight to the palace gates.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t thought I’d still have the ability to be horrified. Nevertheless, my blood churned, and my stomach quaked. Exhaustion, heavy and unexpected, followed.
I stumbled back to the corner of the cell, tripping over the cot.
Avrin watched, his brows remaining low. “Are you injured badly?”
“Would it matter?” I slumped to the bloodstained blanket on the cot, dizziness deepening the dark of the small cell. “What will happen to me now?” It was all I could think to ask, all I could manage to ask, as my bones seemed to melt and adrenaline faded into dust.
Avrin didn’t answer. I supposed he didn’t need to.
He gave me one last assessing look as his jaw tightened further, then he left.
I hadn’t intended to sleep.
My body apparently hadn’t cared. I woke with a scream when a warm hand gripped my arm and tore me from the cot. I didn’t know how long the brief respite had been until we left the dungeon and I closed my eyes against the harsh glare of the rising sun.
Sleep hadn’t helped. The heavy weight of weakness had only seemed to worsen, and when I recalled all that’d happened the night prior...
My empty stomach quivered with my knees.
Glimpses of halls were fleeting. I was led up another flight of stairs that seemed to never end to a room tucked away behind a locked door. Shelves filled with various vials and baskets lined the walls. Two windows displayed the bright-blue hue of a new day.
I feared it would be my last as I was tugged into the room.
The guard’s grip firmed when I stumbled over the edge of a coarse carpet, an impatient grunt leaving his gnashed teeth. Not carpet. A large strip of hessian fabric. Atop it stood a metal type of table.
“Lie face down on the bench,” the guard ordered.
I turned to him as he released me, his dark red hair aglow in the early morning light and his scarred lip curling with disgust. There would be no asking him questions.
I looked back at the bench as steps sounded.
“Get on, or I’ll force you,” the guard snapped.
“I’ll take it from here.”
Avrin.
I was shoved forward by the guard.
Avrin growled, “I said I’ll take it from here, Jellinson.”
Thoroughly warned and dismissed, he left. I looked from the awaiting bench to Avrin, unsure what to do as the door closed with an intentional slam behind the guard.
“Climb on,” Avrin said.
“What will happen when I do?”
A dark brow arched. “You don’t really have a choice, Princess. Climb on and just make sure you answer what is asked of you.”
I gnawed at my lip, fear stampeding through every tight muscle. My heart stopped when the door opened again.
Molkan entered, throwing the wood closed behind him. “Get her on the bench.”
Avrin seized me.
I shrugged him off. Still only wearing the cloak, I climbed atop the cool metal.
Metal rings glinted on either side of the carpet. I stared at the fibers, tense as Molkan clipped brisk instructions to Avrin behind me. The cloak was tugged from my body, and I tried to sit up to reach for it, but a heavy hand pushed me down.
Molkan’s hand.
My neck protested as my head swung harshly over the edge. “Restrain her now,” Molkan ordered. “Then hand me the stencil.”
I didn’t bother fighting the inevitable, and that should’ve shamed me. I’d grown too numb, too accepting of this nightmare I couldn’t seem to wake from, to feel anything, as Avrin chained my wrists to the metal loops within the stone floor.
He did the same to my ankles, the iron forcing my teeth to grit. A large piece of soft material, then the brush of something wet and sticky, met my back.
From my shoulder blades to my lower torso, my skin was carefully decorated with swirling patterns.
My teeth unclenched, though I didn’t relax. Then they met again with a clack when a sharp blade sank into the painted skin. My back arched as the knife dragged.
I cried out for them to stop, writhing but unable to move as Molkan finally did stop and said, “Another set here.”
More chains were wrapped around my upper thighs, bound tight beneath the metal bench.
Gathering enough of my bearings, I sobbed, “What are you doing?” But the question broke into a scream that scraped claws over my lungs as another slow drag of the blade curved through the skin of my back.
“For every refusal, you will earn a mark.” Molkan’s tone was that of the king who’d spoken in the throne room while he’d allowed his loyal subjects to torment me. “Easily understood, so let us begin.”
My eyes were closed tight against the overwhelming burn radiating up my back, but I sensed movement. Avrin now stood in front of me when he said, “What did Florian ask you to do before he sent you here?”
“He didn’t send me here. You even found me in Crustle your—” I screamed, my eyes bulging wide and blackness entering the edges of my vision, as Molkan carved into my back once more.
“Where does he intend to strike next?” Avrin asked before the blade had even left my skin.
I could scarcely breathe, let alone talk.
My silence was taken as a response.
Molkan sliced again. This time with a circular shape between my shoulder blades that seemed to never end. The entire room swam with red and black before my eyes closed. My limbs pulled taut, attempting but unable to move.
Avrin’s gritted voice forced me to remain in this wretched reality. “How many units of warriors await his orders in the Frostfall Mountains?”
I couldn’t have answered if I’d wanted to, and as the blade returned to make another circle over my shoulder blade, anger kept me conscious. And I knew, even if I did know anything, I would give them nothing.
They deserved nothing.
None of these assholes who’d taken advantage of me and my foolish heart would get a scrap of what they desired before my last breath left my lungs.
Sweat gathered at my nape as soon as the knife left my skin. Molkan tutted. “A shame. Truly such pretty skin.”
As if it mattered when I would be dead before I could worry about what horrors might forever scar my back.
My breath shook, and my legs twitched uncontrollably.
“How weak you are. You fed from him, didn’t you?” Molkan asked, and when I didn’t respond, he sighed and resumed his torment.
I must have lost consciousness.
I was slapped awake by his hand over my battered flesh, a whimper fleeing my clenched teeth. “Feeding from humans is one thing, but to feed from your own kind when the consequences can be so fatal...”
My ears rang, barely hearing his words. Deep grooves in my palms from my nails leaked blood when I uncurled them and drew in a breath that choked.
“Lilitha went mad, you know. First from abstaining from her mate and then from drinking from another when she’d bound herself to me. Blood is a poison that ruined her, and she had no one to blame but herself.”
Confusion warred with blistering agony as I tried to match what he’d told me during our walks throughout the palace grounds with what he’d just said.
So gently, it hurt, the male who’d sired me swept his fingers over the wet mess of my back.
Over the blood.
“This is but yet another result of her rash and bold decisions.” A chuckle, both dry and light, preceded his next words. “My, how she would enjoy the unending mayhem she caused.”
Avrin cleared his throat.
Molkan ignored him. “That is why the court of Hellebore is cursed—damned by Mythayla herself for their immoral acts. Nothing but death and doom blooms in the winter realm, and giving yourself to another in such a way will only damn you, too.”
Avrin shifted.
Another laugh from Molkan. “But I suppose it already has. Just look at you.” The tip of his knife dug into my skin, then he pulled. “Weak and filthy creature.”
Mercifully, I lost consciousness.
When I came to, it was to the sound of a foreign and urgent voice. “...been poisoned. Blood froths from every orifice.”
Molkan cursed. “Nulbon’s gone?”
“Yes, Sire. But they timed the concoction well, for he was sent back to deliver a message before he ceased breathing.”
“And?” Avrin clipped. “What is the message?”
“He comes.” A harsh swallow. “And a sparrow arrived just minutes ago from Chip, who says the outposts along the border are nearly empty. The frost moves southeast.”
I didn’t open my eyes. I hadn’t the energy, and to do so would bring forth more punishment. I had no desire to even remain awake as every inch of my torso throbbed in fiery waves.
“Ready the encampments,” Molkan said after a long moment.
“Sire?” the messenger questioned, a touch of alarm in his voice.
“We won’t need them. She will be long gone before the frost can even cross the marshes.”
The door closed, and the sound of shifting opened my eyes. Boots, drops of blood speckling the rounded leather toes, laced around tight brown britches.
Avrin still stood before me. “She’s awake,” he said.
“Let us resume,” Molkan said, as though he hadn’t just been given word that armies were potentially heading toward his kingdom’s most populated territory.
I didn’t delude myself into thinking Florian’s decision to march upon Baneberry had anything to do with me. Rather, I was willing to wager I was positioned perfectly for the next stage in his meticulous planning.
I was the excuse he needed.
Providing the news delivered to the king was even true. Judging by what Molkan had said, this was not the first time the royal city of Bellebon anticipated an attack from the winter king.
“Where does he intend to strike first, Tullia?” Avrin asked. Then, “The city or the surrounding towns and villages?”
I said nothing, and though I’d braced for it, the return of the knife to my skin was worse than ever before as it carved through torn flesh and marred the rest in a vicious circle.
Molkan’s patience had come to an end. “Wake her up.”
“She is awake.”
I finally drew a breath, a cry leaving with it.
Avrin asked with a hint of his own impatience, “Where are Florian’s spies hiding, Tullia?”
I blacked out again right as the blade left my skin after another circle was made upon my other shoulder blade.
A light tap on my arm brought me back—brought everything screaming back without mercy. My entire body shook, my teeth clacking with each trembling breath.
Crouching before me, Avrin lifted the curtain of my hair. The gentle action was a painful contrast to the agony he’d helped inflict. “Answer,” he said, almost pleaded. “This is not a brand you want to wear, Tullia. Answer, and it will cease.”
“I cannot answer,” I rasped through my teeth and groaned as my back spasmed, “when I do not have the information you fucking seek.”
I could have sworn Avrin winced as the king attacked my back yet again. Could have sworn my response made the king dig the blade far deeper than necessary.
Endless, the questions came, and the knife followed.
My body was reduced to nothing more than a half-numb burn. So much so that when it stopped, I nearly failed to notice.
Avrin had moved what might have been hours ago to stand against the wall and ask me questions he knew would remain unanswered. All the while Molkan’s fury seemed to cloud the room with the copper essence of my blood and the smell of something acidic that had been delivered and set somewhere behind me.
Then the stool he’d been using tumbled from the makeshift carpet absorbing my blood to the stone floor, as Molkan rose with a flare of temper he tried to keep from showing within his rough tone. “Last chance,” he warned. “Once iron is poured over the wounds, you’ll forever walk the realms with the mark of a traitor.”
“Not just any traitor,” Avrin said—seemed to urge. “But that of a betrayer to their own kin.”
It was a snake.
I knew without asking. Without much room for any thought at all. The lines and shapes made by the blade had already told me as much.
So again, I remained quiet, save for that of my labored breathing.
But my silence and the agony I’d grown familiar with were erased when Molkan made good on his warning. Not that I’d thought he wouldn’t.
Painstakingly slow, hot iron was poured all over my back.
The last thing I heard was my unending scream and Avrin’s brittle curse before I tumbled into the safety of bleak nothing again.
This time, blue eyes were waiting and aglow in the dark.
It seemed the goddess I’d unknowingly pissed off was not content for me to escape anything, for those eyes remained a constant light during the abyss of unconsciousness.
I was eventually dragged away from them when the chains keeping me trapped against the metal bench were unwrapped from my body.
Avrin crouched before me again, whispering, “Time to get up, Princess.”
I couldn’t imagine doing any such thing.
The pain was so absolute, so endlessly depthless, I closed my eyes against it and silently pleaded for unconsciousness to take me again.
Avrin released a tormented-sounding groan, and I felt him move to my side.
A scream scraped my raw throat as he carefully hauled me into a sitting position. He may as well have forced me up by my hair. I wouldn’t have felt anything but the torrential ripple of flames engulfing my torso.
I hunched over, bile rising. Nothing left my mouth. There was nothing left within me to evict. Still, I heaved and whimpered and swayed.
Avrin took my wrists. Something heavy and scalding was fastened around them. Then he said, his voice a little hoarse, “We need to go.”
“Fuck you,” I mumbled absently, staring at the dried patches of crimson upon the mesh-like fabric beneath my hanging feet. Blood dribbled down my legs, catching between my toes.
A soft huff, and then he pulled on my bound wrists. “If I help you stand, it will only hurt you more. Better to do it yourself.”
“More,” I said, laughing then groaning when I lifted my head. Tears fell as I pushed off the metal to my feet. They were numb. My legs wobbled, and I gripped the bench. A cry parted my lips but created no sound.
I made it into the hall filled with guards before my knees buckled.
One of them laughed, but he fell quiet when Avrin bent low to maneuver me over his shoulder like a sack of rain-ruined grain.
My eyes closed, each step Avrin took sending flares of fresh pain throughout my entire body. If they were going to kill me, then I silently prayed to Mythayla that they would hurry up and do it. I wouldn’t survive another round of their torture.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t want to.
Minutes that felt like decades later, cool air hit my cheeks and stirred my hair. My head turned at Avrin’s upper back. A procession of guards trailed us—spread themselves along the drive as we left the stone terrace.
“I’ve done all I can,” Avrin said, barely a whisper. “This is it.”
I was set down on my bare feet.
Not wanting to but unable to help it, I clung to Avrin’s tunic as my legs failed me. He let me until the king made his presence known by barking, “Open the gates.”
Then Avrin gripped my upper arm, and I was delivered through the gates to the awaiting road and bridge beyond. Across it, the royal city of Bellebon shone beneath the late afternoon sky. Civilians and buildings dotted the river like stones against sand.
The breeze grazed my butchered skin. It was then I finally had enough awareness, and the ability to feel more than pain, to realize I was still naked.
There was little point in trying to shield myself against the eyes behind me and what awaited in the city outskirts ahead. So much of me had already been seen by too many, and it was the least of my concerns.
Avrin gently pushed me toward the bridge.
Agony raged through my limbs from the battlefield made of my back.
A guard stood waiting before the curving mixture of wood and sandstone granting passage over the river. He came forward to meet me as I concentrated only on placing one foot in front of the other.
If I thought of anything else—if I stopped—then I would crumple like wet parchment.
“Let it be known that not even blood can save a traitor, and Florian’s supposed wife means nothing to us,” Molkan boomed from atop a guard tower, his shadow cast across the sandy ground absorbing my trail of blood. “His capture and corruption and defiling of this creature were in vain.”
I didn’t turn to take one last look at the home I’d always longed for—nor the parent I’d been so eager to meet.
I walked on as the gates closed behind me with a blood-chilling creak.
Left with no choice, I followed the guard across the slow arching bridge.
On the other side, more people in the streets ceased their afternoon activity.
They began to flock to the river’s edge as I stumbled down the crest of the bridge and into the city encircling the palace in the shape of a sun-bright horseshoe.
I expected to be paraded through the streets naked and bearing the sign of a traitor before I was beaten by my own people and left for dead. I hadn’t expected the guard to spit at my feet before turning on his heel to cross back to the palace.
There was no relief. I would still need to walk through the city naked and bloody and marked. A mark I would forever wear due to the wounds being iron-infused.
The brand of a traitor. A traitor to the people surrounding me.
