Page 37 of Devoured
Even across the centuries, I felt it—the moment they created that other place. The Realm Beneath. The reflection where suffering never ends.
“Every madwoman, a potential bride,”Varnarmurmured. “Every confession, a test.”
“And if it takes centuries?” Someone asked.
Varnar’s smile was cold. “Then we feed him for centuries. What else do we have but time?”
The scene dissolved. Time yanked me back.
But I understood now. Every woman whohadbeen brought to this place for healing had been tested. Broken. Offered. All of them auditioned for a role only one could fill.
I crashed back into my own time, gasping on the narrow bed. My whole body shook with what I’d seen.
We were all just meat for something ancient and hungry—waiting to see which one of us would finally become the Bride of Sorrows.
Chapter 12
In the morning, when the door opened and I saw Isaac, I ran to him and gripped his shirt. My whole body trembled with anxiety, with a desperate need to know what happened to Marion. Tears were already streaming down my face, and I couldn’t stop them.
“Zahra?”His voice was alarmed, like he was trying to understand why I was falling apart in front of him. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”
The concern in his voice was real—genuine in a way that few things were in this place. But he didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know. Isaac worked morning shifts, came in when the sun was already up and the worst of the night’s horrors had been tucked away behind closed doors.
“Isaac, where is Marion?”The words tumbled out between sobs, barely coherent. My hands twisted in his shirt, holding on like he was the only solid thing in a world that had tilted off its axis. “They hurt her last night. They hurt her so bad—”
His face changed instantly, the color draining until he looked almost gray. His hands came up to grip my shoulders—not hard, but firm enough to steady me.
“What? What do you mean, ’hurt her’?”
I didn’t have time to explain. Couldn’t find the words to describe what I’d seen through that frosted glass—Marion on her knees, the scalpel, thespeculum,Dr. Alan’s delighted face, Varnar’s casual cruelty. The images were burned into my brain, but my mouth couldn’t shape them into sentences. Instead, I just grabbed his hand and pulled, nearly stumbling in my desperation to move.
“Show me,”he said, his voice tight with sudden fear. “Where is she? Zahra, where is Marion?”
We ran down the corridor together. Patients scattered out of our way, pressing themselves against the walls like prey animals avoiding predators. A nurse called out for us to stop, but neither of us even slowed down. Isaac’s breathing grew harsher with every step, and I could hear him muttering under his breath—prayers or curses, I couldn’t tell which.
“The medical wing,”I gasped as we turned another corner. “She has to be in the medical wing.”
The medical wing was just another large room with beds lined up against both walls, separated by thin curtains that offered only the illusion of privacy. Some curtains were drawn, hiding whatever misery lay behind them. Others hung open, showing empty beds or patients too sedated to care about visitors.
I searched frantically, checking each bed, yanking aside curtains. Behind one, an old woman moaned in her sleep. Behind another, someone had knotted their sheets and was muttering about spiders.
Then I saw her.
Third bed from the end.
When Isaac saw Marion, he made a sound I’d never heard from a human being before. It came from somewhere deep in his chest—raw, animalistic—like something inside him had been torn apart. His entire body went rigid for a moment. Then he was moving, crossing the room in long strides to reach her bedside.
“No,”he whispered. Then louder, more desperate: “No, no, no—”
Marion lay unconscious on the narrow bed, and the damage was so extensive I could barely recognize her. Her face had swollen beyond human proportions. Her left eye was entirely hidden behind purple-black tissue. Her lips were split in multiple places, crusted with dried blood. Fresh bandages wrapped her arms, but they couldn’t hide the dark stains seeping through the white gauze. Her breathing came in tiny, pained whimpers—like even unconsciousness couldn’t protect her from what had been done.
Isaac’s hands hovered over her broken body, shaking violently. He seemed afraid to touch her, afraid he might cause more damage to something already so ruined. When he finally let his fingers brush her swollen cheek, the gentleness of it made my chest ache.
“Marion?”His voice broke completely on her name. He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching hers. “Baby, can you hear me? It’s Isaac. I’m here.”
She didn’t respond. Just that terrible, labored breathing that sounded so wet. I could see Isaac cataloging each injury with professional eyes, even as tears ran down his face—the defensive wounds on her hands, the precise cuts that spoke of deliberate torture rather than simple violence, the bruises in the shape of fingers around her throat.
“What did they do?”He wasn’t asking me. He was asking the universe, asking God, asking anyone who might have an answer that could make sense of this. “What did they fucking do to her?”
