Lib Novel Page 13
“Kyreagan will find me,” I reply faintly, although I’m not quite sure of it. What if Ky thinks I made my own arrangements to leave Ouroskelle? What if he realizes I’ve been taken but doesn’t care about my fate, since I was planning to leave him anyway? What if he cares, but he can’t figure out where I am?
“Kyreagan is no longer your master,” repeats the King of Vohrain in that steady tone. “You are my pet. You do as you’re told. When you do as you’re told, you receive good things, like water. Say it.”
They’re only words. And I’m so thirsty it’s becoming difficult to think about anything except sweet, cold, clear liquid running down my throat, rehydrating the parched tissues, renewing my mind, clarifying my speech. I feel as if my brain itself has shriveled up. To have my faculties again—to survive—I must do this. I must yield a little more.
“Say it,” urges the King quietly. “Five times. And you’ll have all the water you can drink.”
Just a few phrases. I don’t have to believe them. Saying them doesn’t make them true.
I form the mantra with my thirst-thick tongue, hating myself with every word. “I am your pet. I do as I’m told. When I do as I’m told, I receive good things.”
I say it five times. After the fifth time, the King leaves the cell for a moment and returns with a pitcher and a ladle. He holds the ladle to my lips while I drink deeply of the fresh water within. When I ask for more, he refills it without demanding that I call him “Master.”
With two basic needs taken care of, my body switches focus to the pain in my foot, my stomach, and my shoulder. I haven’t been able to rest much since I birthed the eggs, and if I can’t lie down soon, I think I might faint.
“Could you unhook me from the wall?” I ask. “I need to sit.”
Rahzien pretends not to hear. He pours the remaining water from the pitcher over the floor, where it darkens the stone and pools in the cracks.
“You’re a cruel bastard.” My voice trembles. “Why are you doing this? Do you enjoy demeaning and humiliating women? I heard what you did to my mother, you heartless beast.”
“You call me a beast, and yet you wish to return to one who is truly a beast, in every sense of the word,” he says calmly. “What does the Dragon Prince offer that I cannot?”
I chew my lip, unwilling to share my new, tender feelings for Kyreagan with this brutal king. Finally I settle on the simplest of responses. “He was good to me.”
“I will be good to you as well. You are my pet. You do as you’re told. When you do as you’re told, you receive good things.”
“Stop saying that.” I shiver involuntarily.
“I’m offering you all the comfort and luxury you’re accustomed to, as long as you submit. I will give you another lesson to repeat, and if you say it well, I will permit you to lie down.”
Instead of refusing him outright, I wait, my good shoulder propped against the wall, my thighs trembling with weariness.
Rahzien sets down the pitcher and steps back, folding his arms. “You will say the following: ‘I did not save my people, nor can I save myself. I am worthless. I am foolish. I am alone. I have no value, and no one wants me.’”
The words echo in my head.
I did not save my people, nor can I save myself.
I am worthless. I am foolish. I am alone.
I have no value, and no one wants me.
Each phrase is a frozen dagger, a slim shard of poisoned ice piercing my heart, melting and spreading lethal venom. These words have greater power, because they’re doubts I’ve battled ever since the conquest of Elekstan… and perhaps longer.
“Say it,” says the King. “And you may lie down.”
My whole frame quakes at his words. Tears slip down my cheeks, but I force myself to say one word. One small defiance. “No.”
He takes the lantern and the pitcher. Slams my cell door, locks it.
Something chitters in the inky blackness, and tiny feet scamper near the ceiling. I shudder violently, then sag against the wall, my wrists spiking with pain. Tears flood my eyes, spilling the precious water from my body even as I try to hold them back.
“Kyreagan,” I whisper brokenly. “Kyreagan, please.”
5
The only illumination in our gloomy cell is a distant, watery glow from a lamp in the front room. Hinarax has been pacing for a while, watching as the light from the window at the end of the hall faded. It’s dark now. Nearly time for our explosive escape.