Page 1 of Tortured

Chapter 1

I’m still human. I’m still human. I have to be human.

I pull my cheek smooth and draw the knife across my skin. Brown hairs nearly two inches long drift into the creek where I kneel. The setting sun provides just enough glow on the fluff of snow to illuminate my task.

Keenly alert, I suck in a breath of frozen air. Staying focused doesn’t take much effort even though I’ve been awake for six days, moving south across the plains after my escape from the citadel. With my new heightened senses, every screech, every crack, every snap of the sparse shrubbery by animal or human digs into me.

I am Kenrik, second prince of Talfryn. I am a human.

Sound will not leave me alone.

All because of Niawen’s light, which is inside me.

A light that should not be inside a mortal.

Is this what it is like for an immortal emrys? How could Niawen live with her hearing so acute and not go insane?

Niawen’s light couldn’t have made me like her. She couldn’t have given me her immortality. I am a mortal!

I picture Niawen, weakened and fragile because of her loss of light, as she takes off into the forest to the west. Her ashy blond locks gleam behind her in the moonlight. She stumbles in boots too large for her. We stole what we could to keep her warm as we smuggled out of the city.

I continue shaving. The scrape of metal against my own skin rakes through me, but I have to get rid of the beard. It’s a painful reminder of my imprisonment by a madman.

By the Lord of Rolant, Caedryn, who continues to send his assassins after me.

Let them come.

As long as Lord Caedryn thinks Niawen is with me, that we are continuing south, she will be safe.

That is my only aim in life.

Stay alive to protect Niawen. Trick Caedryn into believing she is with me. Draw his attention away from her as she flees west. I will gladly be hunted forever, just to keep Caedryn’s wrath away from her.

Nothing else matters.

I finger the chain around my neck and pull the dragon stone from beneath my jerkin. The pearlescent gem glimmers with beauty I am unworthy to carry. I wish Niawen did not give me the stone. She needs the protection of her dragon. I do not, especially since her light gives me the strength of twenty men.

I am still human.

Just keep telling yourself that.

I am still human.

Please tell me I didn’t take her immortality.

I finish shaving at the creekside and rise to my feet.

A crunch to my left immobilizes me.

Someone found me.

I’m not surprised. Caedryn sends new assassins before I even dispatch the last ones. They come in pairs, and when I kill them, Caedryn sends them in swarms.

I hold my breath. This will be another night of no sleep, but despite the frantic pace I set and the nights and days of looking over my shoulder, I’m not tired.

All because of her light, a power I have yet to fathom.

All I know is that it has changed me—

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