Page 75 of Caress of Fire
Fedryc pulled gloves from his belt, then carefully lifted the lid. Inside was an innocuous white powder, shimmering like it was lit from within. He knew what this was.
“Venemum Ardere.”
Behind him the guard took a step backward, so great was the fear of the poison. Fedryc put the lid back down on the cup, then walked past the guard whose face was now ashen.
Isobel stood in the middle of her ransacked room, her eyes wide and her hands squeezing the folds of her dress compulsively. She opened her mouth to speak but Fedryc lifted a hand to silence her and she obeyed. Fear poured out of her skin like perfume and she darted a nervous glance at the door but didn’t move. She knew there was no escape.
Fedryc closed his eyes, summoning the face of the girl, Asha, lying dead on her chair. Of Isobel, acting as though she had loved her. Of Rela and her broken body. Of Devan, tortured and left for dead.
Of the refugees and their terrible, gut-wrenching fear.
“You are a monster.” Fedryc looked at his aunt, his voice as cold and merciless as the beast inside. “There will be judgment. Nothing can save you now.”
Isobel’s knees gave way and she fell, her head lowered in despair, but no sound left her mouth. She was too well-bred to lend herself to the indignity of begging for mercy.
The Draekons had none.
Chapter 25
He should be awake by now.
Devan’s external injuries were healed thanks to the Delradon medical technology, and his blood infection was a thing of the past. The skin on his back would always bear the traces of the abuse, but it was closed and pink. Healthy. Devan was healthy. He was still bone thin and pale, and his cheeks were hollow, but he wasn’t at death’s door anymore.
Still, he did not wake up.
Devan lay in the bed, his eyes closed and his body limp. He looked like he was sleeping but his sleep was like a maze, one he was lost in and couldn’t make his way out. As Marielle stared at his slack, swollen features, she couldn’t help but think he looked like he was calling out from somewhere deep inside his mind but no one could hear him.
It made her want to scream and shake him until he finally opened his eyes and talked to her.
A catatonic state, dissociation of the mind and body caused by trauma, that’s what Dr. Ylco called it. Because nothing else was wrong, the final wound had to be in Devan’s mind. There was no cure for it, not even in the Delradons’ medical arsenal. Devan’s mind had been fractured during his torture and there was no saying if it would ever be mended.
“Wake up,” Marielle whispered, bringing her forehead to Devan’s, just like when they were little. “Please, open your eyes. I need you to wake up.”
But only silence answered and her heart sank a little more. She hadn’t thought it was possible to hurt more, but every time she looked at Devan’s skeletal, bruised face, it overlapped in her mind with the childish sleeping face of the boy he had been, and another cut shot right between her ribs. Her heart bled and bled until she was sure she would die from the pain, but it was still beating steadily in her chest.
Her hands went to her stomach, and she stroked it absently.
How can I protect you when I couldn’t protect my brother?
Pain and despair washed over Marielle and she lost herself in her fear. Fear of losing her brother all over again, even though he was asleep just in front of her. Then a noise came from behind her, a child’s muffled cry.
Marielle pulled back from Devan, from her pain and her anguish. There was nothing more she could do for him but she could still help others. The refugees from Virhot had been sorted earlier and the sickest sent to the medical room to received much-needed help.
Marielle cast a wide glance over the cramped medical suite filled with broken, sick bodies. Everywhere she looked, children and adults sat or lay down on narrow cots, some crying without making a sound, some staring at the empty air with remote, absent eyes. Eyes that had seen too much and now looked faraway. Eyes that would never unsee the horror that had ripped their lives apart, leaving only bloodied stumps behind.
They were not as damaged as Devan, but not far from it, either.
And she could help.
Dr. Ylco worked tirelessly, buzzing between patients like an overworked bee, his face paler, thinner than usual. The man was taut like a string and he would snap at any time. No one could work as much and not break. No one except a Draekon, maybe. Isobel had done this to Devan, done this to all of them.
I hope she dies slowly and painfully.
The thought made her uneasy, because she meant it. Since Rela had been found, beaten and left for dead, a new emotion had blossomed inside Marielle. It had grown and grown like a stone between her ribs, searing cold and invasive until it was all she could feel. It was hatred; hatred for those who hurt the weaker, the innocent.
And now her hatred had a face, had eyes, a mouth, silky black hair and a name. Isobel Haal was a monster like no other.
Marielle pulled on the skin at the corner of her fingernail and pain answered, as reliable as ever. Her fingertips were raw by now, raw and bloodied, but she couldn’t control picking at them any more than she could control her hatred for Isobel Haal.
