70 | ACT IV, SCENE IX

P R E V I O U S L Y

And then, her white fingers picked up the black Bloodstone knife and thrust it right into my side.

[TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS EXPLICIT DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.]

EDWINA

I REGAINED MY CONSCIOUSNESS WITH a thudding headache, eyes closed against the dull pain. The back of my skull throbbed wretchedly, but more painful was the raw sting of the Bloodstone buried deep into my right side. It burned worse than a branding iron, slowly eating into my flesh. I let loose a curse.

Then I tried to move my hands.

They didn't move.

Something was restraining my arms. My ankles as well. I tried to make out where I was, but there was blackness all around. So dark, it was. So dark. I seemed to be restrained spread eagled on some sort of cross, but it was impossible to make out the actual thing. How long had I been out cold? I cracked open my eyes, but blackness continued to engulf me.

Blindfolded as well.

I was blind, sightless, motionless, restrained. With the Bloodstone sunk into my body, I could no longer call for help. I could not contact Tristan mentally. My powers would sink and curl up into themself. My wounds would stop healing and start burning even more, unless someone pulled the Stone out.

No one could help me now.

My breath came in short, uneven gasps - dry and pained, screeching across my skin in a tangle of injured nerves. I was thirsty, so, so thirsty. I knew I was as good as dead, a lamb awaiting slaughter. I tried wrenching my arms free and felt burning chains dig into my flesh.

Ekrite.

It sawed in deeper and drew blood, but I was too far gone to notice it. My every instinct forced me to fight this unseen enemy, to escape these bonds, to run free once again. I thrust upwards with every muscle I had, gritting my teeth. I could feel the metal groan in strain.

Nothing happened.

"Hmm... looks like our Queen is awake," someone said near me, voice brimming with excitement. A set of dragging footsteps echoed in the darkness. Soft breathing. Someone nudged my hip painfully, a questioning prod from the shadows. I shirked away from the sadistic touch.

"It does seem so," a male voice said, crisp and frigid.

This time I recognized the speaker.

Alaric Everly.

"You bastard," I spat, before a hard fist jerked something over my head, ripping my hair out. Bright illumination wormed its way through my eyes and into my brain, eating away at my nerves, biting them raw. I blinked harder as my eyes stung and everything finally came into view.

It was a musty, dark torture chamber.

I was bound to a cross with iron fetters, wrists and ankles slid into those heavy chains. The crown was off my head and on a chair in the corner, its armrests dark and heavy with blood.

Alaric was standing just in front of me, a sadistic smile etched on his cruel face.

My blood ran cold as the god of war coolly fingered the blade in his hand. His dark violet eyes lit up like candles as he observed me like a predator hunting his prey. An array of sharpened knives rested on his leather belt, tips pointed and gleaming in the dim light.

"Like them?" he whispered in a soft purr. "I've spent many nights thinking of things I can do with these knives... things I can do to your body."

Waves of panic shot up in my body as I hissed fiercely at him. Alaric laughed ominously, flicking a thumb over a dagger, testing its fine tip. A dusky, smoky voice joined the laughter as Drusilla Everly stepped out of the shadows and joined her brother. Beside her, another male emerged from the darkness.

"Missed me?" Favian Rotavelle chuckled.

"A bastard like you? Fat chance," I barked harshly.

Brusque and brutal, Favian's hand shot out to grip my neck tightly, pressing harder and harder as the lights blurred. My vision began to blacken as a string of curses left my lips, when a shrill voice tutted disapprovingly.

"Now, now, brother... I need to welcome our guest... personally."

My blood turned to ice.

It was Celestina.

"Celestina!" I croaked, "You need to get out of here, they'll-"

"-quiet, Queen Regnant," she softly tinkled, pressing a pink finger to my lips. "You still need to get settled into your new home."

I realized that the Rotavelle bitch was with them.

"You little fucking traitor!"

"Shhh..." the red haired goddess cut me off, "there's still so much you don't know, you poor thing," she said sweetly, smiling a smile of honey and sugar. "Poor thing," she tutted, clicking her tongue, making her emerald eyes glimmer like poison. "Poor, poor Edwina - little girl!"

"Get away from me, you bitch!" I snapped, trying to escape from the biting, painful leather keeping me tied in place. The leather cut my skin in places, making the sizzling pain from the Bloodstone worse, nearly making my eyes roll up my head. I spat in her face as Favian roughly yanked me off her. Alaric pressed harder and harder on my throat as I struggled to breathe, making my body flop helplessly from the lack of air. I was going to die - I was going to be choked to death-

"I said that's enough," Celestina's voice rang out loudly, and her pincer sharp nails raked down my bruised skin, hard enough to draw blood as I struggled free of her grasp. She gave me a sickening smile as she wrapped a hand around me - it could have even been an embrace had I not been chained in shackles of Ekrite. "Easy now. That's enough pain for one day," she joyfully chimed.

I could have gouged the eyes out of that sick face of hers.

"Why?" I croaked, my voice rustling with dryness.

"You see, Edwina... we've missed you a lot," Alaric said, his voice a caress of danger. "So much..." he held up a crude whip of burnished leather. "See? This whip has been waiting for you since days." Then he loomed in so close to me that our noses touched, and I could see fury glimmer in his hard, mean eyes. "Ready?" He growled at me.

"You wish," I hissed furiously.

"Ah, really?" Drusilla hissed from the corner. "Before I'm done with you tonight, Edwina-" she loomed closer to my face, frost on her features, "-you'll be begging me to give you a quick death."

Then she chose a curved flaying knife, probing the tip to test its sharpness, and then turned to me with vengeance shining in her eyes.

"You," she tilted her head to Celestina, "better get going back to the Ball before your damned husband notices you're missing."

Llewellyn!

"My damned husband is too busy getting into his dear Nessa's pants to notice me gone," Celestina snapped, her voice octaves higher. Then she again arranged her innocent face into an epitome of purity, giving me a coy smile. "But I will be back here occasionally to make sure my little girl doesn't get too lonely - you won't miss me too much, will you?" she demandingly pushed my chin up, and I glared right into her eyes. "Make sure you get rid of her," she beckoned to me.

"Don't worry, sister. Our Edwina is in... good hands," Favian cackled with a sickening smile. His fingers loomed closer and closer - and closer.

"Yes," Alaric drawled. "I do remember the terms of our agreement."

"Of course, cousin. But I have one wish. Our captive here seems to be a bit sad. Can I cheer her up?" Celestina asked sweetly, wringing her hands.

"Sure," he said generously, handing her his knife, but she waved it over and came to me.

"You never really got to know, did you?" she asked, positioning herself over my leg. Her smug lips curled up again. "All this time I was in your court... and you never really got to know."

"Get away from me."

"Gladly. But first let me add a finishing touch," she whispered. Her fingers enticingly ran up my leg, making me automatically reel from disgust. A loud tear resonated as she tore my dress up, almost to my hips, and saw my legs encased in the black stocking.

She gave me a poisoned grin before cleanly snapping my leg into two.

I could have screamed with the pain, I could have howled for all the good it would do me - because the pain was impossible to register, impossible to comprehend - such pain I had never experienced, had never felt.

"You monster," I groaned, biting my lips shut. The bone was cleanly broken, and the Bloodstone at my side made it impossible to heal.

My stomach rose as I saw the blood trickling down my broken leg, down the tendons which were so miserably torn apart. The white of the bone poked cleanly through the place where she had snapped it - I would have fallen to the floor in a pool of my own blood had the chains not been holding me back.

"I know," Celestina cooed. "I'll come back in a while and tell you everything," she promised, hitching up her skirts and bowing to me with a mocking grin. Before I could say another word, she left for the Ball, leaving me tied to the cross in immeasurable pain.

The endless wave of pain surging through my nerves was so great, I hardly noticed as Alaric broke my other leg.

"I'm obsessed with symmetry, you know?" he explained nonchalantly as I writhed and thrashed in the cuffs.

Agony was all I knew.

"I'm going... to kill you-"

"-so desperate, aren't you?" Drusilla murmured lovingly. A hint of a smile flickered on the corners of her stained lips, and wickedness flared bright in her vivid, pretty eyes. Her fingers slowly trailed across my hard jaw. "It's going to be glorious watching you burn."

• • • • •

HARTINGTON CASTLE, ALNWICK, STORMHOLT.

TRISTAN

"You look bored, Tristan Valmont," Nyx said to me, clad in all black. "Nothing interesting you here?"

"No," I muttered acidly. "We all just sat here playing cards. Llewellyn took up belly dancing."

She flinched slightly.

"Well, there is tomorrow afternoon. Your wife's trial..." Nyx said uncertainly, rolling the word around her tongue, toying with it.

"You consider the death sentence of your granddaughter to be some sort of entertainment, huh?" I roughly bit out. She flinched a bit, flustered.

"She's my family - but what she did-"

A string of curses rested right on the tip of my tongue, ready to lash out as she awkwardly let her voice trail off into the silence. I curtly dismissed her and strode away well out of her reach.

"The fireworks will start going off in an hour," mother said to me, when she saw me standing on the stairs.

"I know."

"Where is your wife?"

"I don't know."

"Call her here. She can't run away at such a crucial moment," she ordered firmly.

"We are done."

"What?" she asked. "What do you mean by done?"

"Done," I hissed. "Done, as in the past participle of do. Ergo, something that is no longer happening or existing. She fucking left me."

"I told you, she is a mur-"

"Leave me," I said tersely. "I have better things to do. My ears are ringing." She gave me a strange look and walked away.

And then, all of a sudden-

A single scratch of metal rang in my ears.

A woman screaming in pain.

I turned around.

There was no one, only the crowd dancing their merry waltzes.

It was a light, distant ringing - and it stopped as soon as I tried to hear for it again.

No one was carrying live steel in the crowd.

It could have only been something I misheard.

Perhaps my ears really were ringing.

• • • • •

EDWINA

"How long," Drusilla coldly stared into my eyes, "do you think it would take you to die if I simply left you all alone to rot in this place?"

My chest tightened.

"You need people to talk to," she whispered. "You'll go mad without them. You've always disliked me so much, maybe I should just let you be alone, huh?" she tilted her head, her gaze cold, calculating.

"You wouldn't do that," I wheezed. "There's no point winning a trophy if no one can see it."

"Let's make a bet on that, shall we?" Favian sauntered to me, his gaze lethal.

Nausea rose up in me at the mere thought of him touching me, touching me with his filthy fingers. The chains rattled again as my body shook and flailed of its accord.

"Now," Drusilla said softly, "you will be quiet and help us with something."

Another man stepped in from the shadows, dressed in dark clothes. I could not see his eyes, but he took something out of his pocket, little squares shining.

The cube.

He had the cube!

It was mixed randomly, the pattern to unlock it was not arranged, but he had the cube!

And if we lost the cube... it contained the Logogram - if we lost it - we lost our lives.

Alaric took the cube from the man in the shadows.

"Tell me how this opens," he ordered.

"You stole the cube as well," I snapped.

"I didn't. Celestina did it for us."

"She stole the cube for us, provided that we killed you for her," Drusilla yawned. "You're a terrorist," she jabbed a finger at my chin, "I'm a terrorist," she continued. "And this city isn't big enough for the two of us."

One had to die.

"I don't know how the damn thing opens," I hissed, lying through my gritted teeth. "I've never seen it before."

"Liar," Drusilla bored her eyes into mine. Her palm moved out to strike my cheek in a stinging slap, throwing my senses out of control.

Red. I only saw red.

"I know you know the pattern that opens this... thing," Alaric's voice washed over me like poison. "Celestina saw you open it - she knows you can unlock the thing."

"Why in hell would I tell you?" I demanded, making an painful effort to raise my neck. It hurt, straining my distressed muscles. "I wouldn't tell you, even if I knew."

The man sitting in the back, wisped in the darkness - he snorted.

"Who is he?"

"That is none of your concern," Alaric snapped, brushing it aside. He picked up his Bloodstone knife in one hand, the cube in the other - and shoved it right under my nose. "Now tell me how this opens."

"Never."

"Would you like me to carve out your eye, Edwina?" Alaric threatened, cruelty dripping down every syllable. "Or fifty lashes of my whip to loosen your tongue? His voice raised to a dangerous growl, soaked in malice. "I'd like to mark your pretty, pretty skin with my whip-" he leered, "-and gift your bloody body to your husband. Would you like that, Edwina?"

"Burn in hell, you bastard!" I cursed.

"I'll hurt you so badly -" he hotly whispered in my ear, "- so badly, you will scream and beg me to kill you-"

"You can avoid all that by telling us how this opens. Tell me what is the pattern that opens it," Drusilla sweetly coaxed.

"I won't."

"I-"

"-my younger brother clearly lacks the tact to make his victims talk," Aeneas Everly said, striding into the room, the splitting image of his brother, Alaric.

Danger emanated off him in waves, sending pulses of panic reeling into my blood.

"You are supposed to take action. Make her talk," he continued, walking to me with a proud smile and curling his hands around my neck. I felt cold steel against my skin. "Tell me, Edwina Tremayne. Tell me how it opens."

"Never."

Aeneas thrust his steel knife right into my lung.

A hiss of breath made its way up my throat and knocked out of me as I felt my organ collapse, punctured and bleeding - the pain worsening and worsening. I felt the agony of a thousand knives piercing my skin, making it harder to breathe.

The knife dug further into my throat and I felt the flesh give way to steel.

"Tell me," Everly crooned.

"Cunt."

This time, the knife slashed right into my throat, tearing the tissue covering my windpipe. Blood rolled down like rain, soaking every inch of my injured skin as a scream almost worked its way up my lips. I was scared - more scared than I had ever been.

Every breath I took felt like inhaling a shard of glass.

"Thumbscrew," Aeneas calmly ordered, snapping his fingers.

More blood - blood everywhere.

"I assume you know what this does, cousin?" he asked, holding up the gleaming instrument, showing me its polished, wicked jaws.

Crush the bones of the fingers.

"You still have time to change your mind," Drusilla purred. "You don't need to keep such a wretched secret for just the sake of Endollon. Just say it - say how it opens and I will let you go peacefully."

I tried to speak, but there was blood - so much blood - blood on my neck, my throat, blood in my mouth. My stomach rose in nausea as the metallic taste filled my mouth.

I spat it right at her feet.

"Break my fingers if you want. Kill me if you want. But I'll never tell."

"Well then..." Favian softly laughed, his gleeful eyes settling themselves on my rings. No, not my rings, I wanted to cry out. Not my rings.

He ripped my dead mother's signet ring off my trembling finger and threw it on the floor. It clattered and spun before coming to a stop as something inside of me broke forever.

"Hmmm... your wedding ring next, Edwina," Drusilla said, rubbing her hands, and she wrenched it off my helpless hand and flung it away.

"Not Tristan's ring!" I shouted, tears filling my eyes, and it took all I had to stop them from spilling over as the four of them laughed. I almost cried out due to the immense pain and forcefully pulled it in, sucking my breath.

"You can still tell us," Alaric said generously. "Tell me how the cube opens."

"In fact, Alaric, I think it's time I showed myself to her," said the man in the dark corner.

Quietly, he stepped into the light, eyes twinkling.

I barely managed to muffle my hysterical scream.

It was my brother, Aidon.

• • • • •

OUR GIRL IS IN THICK, THICK SOUP. EDWINA IS LOW-KEY DOOMED. PLEASE PRAY FOR HER. NEVER SAW AIDON DOING THIS TO HIS SISTER, HMM??