Page 14 of Shadows of Ruin

True power?

I jerked at the restraints, filled with a primal need to switch the narrative and hold him at knifepoint to learn more.

He lifted the blade, pointing its tip at the edge of the laceration on my arm and pushing it into my flesh, digging before twisting it around inside the open wound.

“The king was the most powerful Fae in all of Brookmere. You pale in comparison,” I said through gritted teeth. “Is that why you’re so upset? Why you need Lana? Trouble getting the Fae to follow a weakling?”

He dug in again, deep enough to feel the rush of more blood and damn it, I couldn’t hold back an audible hiss.

“The king wasnotthe most powerful Fae in Brookmere.” He scraped the knife along the cut, like he’d actually decided to skin me. Nausea clawed at my throat, but I forced it down. “My power, myrightscome from someone far more adept.”

I had to keep him talking. Whatever nonsense he believed could hold the key to what he planned, even if he did sound deranged. No Fae had been more powerful than the king.

His face fell into a blank stare as if he’d expected me to have slipped up and revealed something by now. “Where is Kade Blackthorn from?” Andras asked.

I’d riled him, and now he tried to hide it. He nodded to the two guards who’d accompanied him down here, and they moved to either side of me.

“You should ask him yourself,” I answered.

A hit from the right struck me in my gut. The guard snickered. Andras flipped the knife in front of me. “Ah.” His lip curled. “So it’s not merely the incompetence of my people. You didn’t find anything on him either. Interesting.”

I didn’t bother acknowledging the jab. I knew all too well there was nothing to be found about Kade or his power. Another piece of this puzzle I’d figure out as soon as I freed myself from this cell.

He nodded, and I took two blows in quick succession, one to my gut and another to my face.

Andras reached forward, ripping my shirt down. I jerked against the restraints, desperate to attack him with some part of me. To destroy him. He twirled the tip of the blade above my heart, letting it prick my skin as he did.

“Where would she have run to? Any name, any place she knew of will do.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I spat.

He stabbed the knife in, breaking the skin and dragging it down. I shouted, unable to bite back this time from the injury.

“You will talk. One way or another.”

I shook my head, the pain ricocheting through my entire body. At some point they’d be forced to bring in a healer.

I continued taunting the man in front of me, even through the pain. It served as the distraction I needed to hold on to my sanity down here.

“It must be infuriating knowing a woman with no magic bested you.” I smiled, taking another punch to my jaw. It felt like almost nothing after the gashes the knife had inflicted. “A woman you deemed inferior.”

Another punch.

This one hit too close to my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs, but I refused to stop. “A woman you thought you broke.”

Crack.

That hit broke my nose.

Andras held up his hands, leaning down toward my face. “Your princess left you next to her dead father. She fled. Without you.”

His words held no power over me. I would rather he broke every bone in my body than give him the satisfaction of my reaction.

“She ran off with a man she knew for a few weeks instead of staying by the side of the man she’s known her entire life. Your loyalty, Captain Stronholm, is grossly misplaced.”

With a nod, the guards standing by used me as a punching bag. I lost track of the hits. The pain morphed into a near-constant, blinding sensation, taking over all of my senses. When Andras raised his hand to halt their punishment, I could only see out of one eye.

Despite the bruises sure to mar my body and the blood cascading along my skin, dripping in too many places, I smiled at him. “She will have my loyalty forever,” I wheezed, spitting blood at his feet. “No matter what you throw at us, you’ve never broken us. I won’t break now or ever. You’ll lose.”

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