Page 67 of The Prince's Captive

But they left her ankles strapped down as the woman moved back to Marcella’s left shoulder. She brushed her hand over the clasp to the cloak and her fingers moved, a rune lighting up the air. Marcella tensed, but nothing happened to her.

She was still completely paralyzed from the neck down. Completely helpless. Then the woman was able to undo the clasp and one of the Inimicus men pulled Marcella up into a sitting position. Prince Nikias grabbed the cloak as it started to slide off her shoulders and ripped it away.

Marcella should be grateful they were taking it. She didn’t want it. She had been trying to take it off hours before in her cell.

But now she felt cold.

It had to be because her peplos was half undone, exposing part of her side and back to the air.

They undid the straps on her ankles and the woman made a gesture with her hand.

Instead of gaining any movement back in her limbs or being removed from the table, the men flipped her onto her front and started strapping her back down.

No. No. They’d said—

Marcella choked and she tried to turn her head but she couldn’t catch a glimpse of Prince Nikias.

“Let me go!” Marcella screamed despite knowing it was a pointless endeavor. They were Inimicus. They had no honor. “I answered your questions! Get me off this table!”

There was a murmuring, then in her language, “Everyone comes off the table eventually.”

Oh, how stupid was she?

She’d known his brother was a liar. Why would she think Nikias would be any better?

Before she could even open her mouth again to curse him, her left arm wasn’t being strapped down. Instead it was wrenched up and laid on the table flat and outstretched toward her head and where the heretic stood, and she screamed.

Nikias hovered behind her shoulder, his arms crossed as he held the cloak with one hand. “—shut—voice the same—no use—”

“You—” Marcella started, but the heretic just silenced her with her fingers flying through the air and Marcella choked on nothing as the runes pressed into her throat, burning her voice into silence.

The heretic flashed Prince Nikias a smug grin, and he just huffed. “—on with it—”

The heretic rolled her eyes and gestured for one of the Inimicus men to hold her left arm down at the elbow. Marcella had a hard time seeing from her position and how her curls were falling into her face, but the heretic started examining her left wrist. She took off the limiter cuff, but even though Marcella could now feel her vitae at least partially, she couldn’t do anything with the metal contraption keeping her fingers from moving even if she wasn’t also paralyzed.

Then Marcella watched as the heretic cast a rune over the leather and metal bracelet around her wrist, then reached forward to try to take it off. The lines on Marcella’s arm started to glow like they had when they’d first appeared and the second the heretic touched the bracelet, there was a surge of vitae. She let out a yelp and jerked her hand back, hissing like she’d been burnt.

The spike of vitae hadn’t come from her. It had come from the lines on her wrist.

Prince Nikias barked something and the heretic shook her hand out and snapped at him before stepping away for a moment and returning with a knife. Marcella could only grind her teeth and brace herself, sucking in a sharp breath and waiting for the heretic to begin using the small sharp tool to flay her open.

But instead, the heretic slid it between Marcella’s skin and the leather strap and started slicing at the leather and not her.

Marcella expected the small knife to slice right through and for the bracelet to fall to the table, but instead it slid against the leather and right into the woman’s hand, causing her to cut herself instead of the leather.

The prince barked again, “—said you could—not the same—Sordes magic—”

The heretic dropped the knife and it clattered to the ground as she dealt with the cut she now had. “—course I can—shouldn’t be—”

The heretic held her bleeding hand out toward the prince, who scoffed and raised his hands, casting a rune. The cut started to heal, jagged and rough and not at all like the way Gavril had healed her. The heretic scoffed. “—thing you all—commanders and not healers—you’re awful—”

Nikias snapped, “—remind me—”

The heretic paled and jerked her barely healed hand back. She turned back to Marcella and her eyes narrowed in on the lines on her arm whose glow was ebbing again. “—sever it from—”

The woman stepped away once again and came back with an even smaller, more precise knife. She could see it had runes etched into the metal.

The kind Marcella was told she should pray to never see. The smaller the knife, the more dangerous it was in the hands of a heretic. Especially if it was etched with runes.

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