Page 80 of Ocean of Silver

I didn’t know how long we sat in the dungeon cell together. The drip of Tezya’s blood was intertwined with the drip of water from the corner of the room. I couldn’t tell which was more steady, which was stronger. The once brown concrete floors were now stained red. The bottom of my slip was soaked in his blood as it started to make a path toward me. I could feel the blood turn from warm to cold as it penetrated through the silk and absorbed into my own skin. I wondered how long it would take for both of us to scrub off his blood from our bodies.

Athler didn’t let me move, so I stayed chained to the floor in front of Tezya with nothing to do but watch as he was forced to perform his own twisted punishment. The soldiers left after the tenth time the blade slid into his thigh. Kole didn’t last long after that, leaving only Tezya, Brock, Athler, and I to listen to the sound of the blade hitting flesh. Even with Kole gone, his compulsion lingered. I tried again and again to speak, to say anything to comfort Tezya, but no sound escaped my lips. And I knew it wouldn’t until the time was up.

I didn’t know how much longer that would be. There were no windows in here, no way to tell how much time had passed. No way of knowing what hour Tezya was at. It was another sick form of torture. How could a father do this to his own son? My stomach threatened to spill. I caused this. He was protecting me by withholding the information from the King, and look where that got him.

Athler crept back into the shadows at some point. The only thing that was visible were his opal eyes that never left us. I focused on Tezya to avoid the eerie, iridescent glow.

I started to count the number of times the dagger met his flesh. Within sixty seconds, Tezya stabbed himself twenty-two times. Two minutes he was at forty-four. Only ten minutes in, and he was up to two-hundred and twenty. I counted and counted, but I had to stop because the number got disturbingly high. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to let my weariness and weak body take over and pass out on the floor. I wanted time to speed up. I wanted to rip out of my chains only to grab the dagger out of Tezya’s hand, storm the castle and plunge it into his father’s heart. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t stop what was happening. I couldn’t even speak.

I studied Tezya as he studied me. He stopped looking down at the spot on his thigh as if he had memorized it. He had done it enough times to know the exact angle he needed. His gaze never left mine now. We looked at each other for strength to get through this, for a distraction, for something else to concentrate on—so I memorized him. I was transfixed on him. My gaze roamed everywhere, exploring every inch of his skin except where the dagger kept going in and out.

His crystal blue eyes were glazed over in pain but still looked at me with longing. I was left shivering in his cold blood as every inch of him was covered in sweat. The top of his white hair was slicked to his forehead. His chest was completely drenched. From the perspiration, I could make out the black flames from his markings. I memorized them, too, until I knew his markings so well as if it was my own skin. It was rare for markings to appear on someone’s face, but his flames reached the tip of his scar. The symbols over his bare abdomen moved in time with his breathing, giving the illusion as if the flames were alive and moving.

I watched as a large bead of sweat rolled down his temple, to the thickness of his neck, and then down his muscular chest and abdomen. I watched until the droplet met with the small amount of hair at his pants line and disappeared within. Then I looked back up, scanning his face until I found another droplet to trace.

I was so delved into the next sweat droplet that I didn’t notice Athler moving. He came up behind me and pulled on my chains. I tried and failed to escape his hold, but I couldn’t. Another one of the straps on the back of my dress snapped as my slip fell lower.

“I was thinking,” he purred softly, “twenty-three hours is a long time, and I’m growing bored.”

Tezya growled at Athler as the dagger drove yet again into his thigh, unable to stop the action through the compulsion Kole left behind. Brock stiffened behind him but didn’t say anything.

Fear, unlike anything I’d experienced, worked its way through me. Every pain I had ever felt amplified and flashed before my eyes. It cleaved my chest in two, taking away my sanity with it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted Tezya to burn everything around me so the world could feel this agony. But I couldn’t. My mouth flew open. My breath left me, but nothing came out.

I heard Tezya talking, but it was muffled and distant. All I could focus on was the pain. It was devouring everything inside me.

Athler’s laugh was vicious. “The fact that you don’t like me messing with her makes it all the more fun.”

“If you lay another finger on her, I don’t care about the consequences, I will murder you right here.”

“I’m not even touching her.” His chuckle deepened. “Just messing with her pheromones a little. Giving her a little taste of fear. Nothing serious.”

“I will kill you.”

“I think you’ll find it hard to do anything with that compulsion working through your system. I can do anything I want to the girl, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” I felt hands roam over my body, but my vision was still too consumed in the shadows and agony of Athler’s ability. “You would just have to watch as you continue to stab yourself. I could do anything I wanted to her. Make her feel whatever pleases me.”

“I will murder you,” Tez repeated. I’d never heard his voice sound so low, so murderous.

Athler dropped the chains, and I fell forward. Dots peppered my vision, and my breathing was ragged. Tezya stopped driving the dagger into his flesh, leaving it lodged into him as he glared at Athler. His hand tightened around the blade so hard that his fingers turned white through the blood that coated it.

Athler smiled.

I looked at what Athler was inspecting. Tezya’s thigh. The blade had nestled into his flesh in a different spot, about an inch from where his mark should have been. He tsked. “You’ve grown sloppy.”

Tezya barred his teeth at the King’s second, then looked worriedly over at me, scanning my face with such desperation.

“Well, it looks like you’ll have to start over. You were five hours in too. What a pity. Your soldiers left, so I guess this one will do.” He motioned for Brock to retrieve the whip.No, no, no.This couldn’t be happening.

I couldn’t stop my tears now. Only five hours. He made it only five hours. I took in the amount of blood on the floor and wanted to faint. He couldn’t start over. I wanted to scream. I wanted to beg and plead and offer anything in return for Tezya not to have to go through this.

“He shouldn’t have to start over if you were the cause for the slip up,” Brock sneered.

“Really?” Athler grinned. “Do you think you get a re-do in battle if you are distracted?” His grin dropped as his attention tore through Brock. “Because you don’t. If you are careless in war, you die. I would think you would understand what it means to lose someone, Brockwich. I still remember the feel of your mother’s pulse as I took her life. Then your fathers.”

Brock hesitated for a moment longer before he picked up the whip. I tried to plead with my eyes to get Brock to notice me, to try to convince him not to do this. But he refused to meet my gaze.

“That’s what I thought,” Athler said. The whip flexed in Brock’s strong grip, and I knew there would be nothing left of Tezya’s back after this.

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