Page 18 of Scourged

The low, unexpected echo of footsteps from the hall beyond her cell chilled her far more than the stone floor against her skin.

The fresh scars on her back itched as the light of anallumelamp seeped into the hall, illuminating two familiar guards and a pair of tanzanite eyes that had her sinking further into the floor.

Her physical wounds had healed, but to forgive the hand that dealt them … even if he’d meant more to her than her own life, she was far from being strong enough for that.

Make love your retribution.

She straightened her spine, leaning against the rickety frame of her bed. She searched Andrian’s expression for a flash of that familiar fire she’d sworn she’d glimpsed the last time she’d seen him.

Nothing lingered in his eyes but emptiness. Bottomless and cruel.

She watched him with a mirroring hollowness as he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked her cell door. The two guards swept in around him.

“Stand up,” the foul-tempered one—Ellis—said, his beady, hate-filled eyes narrowed.

Mariah wanted to fight the command.

But she could feel Andrian’s empty stare on her, and her fury was pulled away. She deflated, withering into herself asviolent memories of a metal-tipped whip whistling through the air dragged against freshly mended scars. The words from the goddess had enlightened her, empowered her with renewed vigor … but it had only lasted for a moment.

She quietly unfolded her legs, hands still cuffed and raw in that sickening black and gold stone, and stood. The guards grabbed her arms roughly, pulled her through the cell door, and halted before the tall figure lurking in the shadows.

Andrian eyed her with muted disinterest. “You’re looking better than we anticipated.”

Mariah didn’t answer. Only stared up at him, desperately trying to rationalize this stranger with the man who’d shared his face. He shrugged, turning, and only then did she find her voice.

“Where are we going?”

There was silence for a moment as the guards pushed her after him down the hall, towards the treacherous stairs leading to that makeshift throne room.

“You’ve been invited to join the Royals for dinner. As theirhonoredguest.” Andrian’s flat voice answered, and only her desire to move and keep warm kept her limbs from locking up, from collapsing to the ground.

This invitation wasn’tone she would’ve ever wanted.

Instead of being welcomed into the dining room, offered a chair at the table, she was pushed into a corner. The guards made quick work of forcing her to her knees, of binding her arms behind her back, of tying those binds to her ankles so she couldn’t move or fight.

The gag was the worst of it. Once she was bound, they shoved a strip of cloth in her mouth and wrapped it around her head.It was foul-tasting and dirty, and she coughed and choked the moment it touched her tongue.

The guards only laughed.

“I thought you had experience being gagged?” Ellis said, his grin baring yellowed teeth, his eyes too meandering.

“You forget, El. She’s only okay being gagged by a cock.” The other one—Konnor—chimed in before kneeling before her, eyes bearing a similar dark gleam. “If that’s what the little whore queen wants, though, perhaps after the feast, we can indulge her.”

“Ellis, Konnor, leave our guest alone and join us.”

Mariah knew Andrian’s voice was too dull and emotionless to be any sort of rescue on her behalf, but a sick, pathetic part of her couldn’t help but feel grateful for it.

The two guards glanced over their shoulders before rising to their feet. “Maybe next time, little whore,” Ellis sneered in farewell before sauntering off, joining the rest of the Royals and their guests at the table.

Leaving Mariah blessedly alone. Uncomfortable, sure. But alone and forgotten was, again, the best she could hope for in a situation like this.

So she sat. Forced to listen and watch as the wealthy around her ate and drank and indulged, the delicacies splayed across the table a picture of tantalizing excess.

And because she had not eaten a real meal in weeks—months, even—her stomach panged angrily against the walls of her ribs, her too-thin frame shaking with hunger.

But she did not ask for food. Nor was she offered any, but that was no surprise.

“Miss Salis!” Shawth’s raucous voice rang out across the hall, pulling everyone’s attention first to him, then to her.

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