Page 141 of A Storm in Every Heart
My head pounds, and all my limbs ache, unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Even back in Dyaspora when I spent all day mining for ice and all night freezing half to death, nothing hurt like this. It’s like I was lit on fire from the inside out, and all that’s left is my charred remains.
Slowly, and with enormous effort, I pry my eyes open. I’m still in the dark cave-like room, still strapped to the table…still unable to reach Odessa.
I look up and my eyes find Magnus again through the haze of pain. He’s frowning, looking between me and a large gold pocket watch. “Barely five minutes. Disappointing.”
Was it only that long? I would have sworn the pain went on for days.
I cough, my voice sounding ragged to my own ears. “What the fuck did you do?”
He smiles. “Oh, hardly anything yet, just a hint of poison. I’m told it feels like every vein in your body is burning, but that’s merely a side effect. The real purpose is sedation.”
“Keeping me strapped down isn’t enough? Are you such a fucking coward you need to sedate me too?”
His lips twist in an ugly grimace, but he seems unable to ignore my question. Even now, he can’t resist the urge to lecture me. “There’s this strange thing about magic: even if you’ve trained your entire life to use it one way, under some circumstances, you’ll be able to use it another way…your father taught me that. Once, without even using his hands, he spontaneously conjured a wave to knock me over during one ofour sessions. I can’t have you doing the same, so really, you can thank him for everything that’s about to happen to you.”
He pulls out another long needle and stabs it into my other arm and the burning begins all over again. He watches and waits until I’ve been burning for over an hour, then reaches into the folds of his coat and produces a knife. Not the surgical kind I half-expected, but a wicked-looking, old-fashioned hunting blade. My heart rate triples.
Without a word, Magnus brandishes the knife with a lazy little flourish. I try to jerk away as he reaches for me, but the straps bite into my wrists, cutting off circulation.
He presses one hand into the table by my head, and raises the blade above my chest. The knife tip hovers for a moment as he steadies his aim, then he plunges the blade down, cutting deep gashes into the tattoo of Odessa on my chest.
He doesn’t cut deep enough to reach my heart, but he may as well have.
The pain is instant and total. It’s a white-hot spike that shoots up to my shoulder and explodes behind my eyes. I scream and the sound scrapes my throat raw. Blood seeps out around the blade, mixing with the sweat and salt already pooling on my skin. I thrash and yell in agony, while Magnus looks on with blank curiosity.
And so it goes, for what feels like days.
I fall in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I awake to find Magnus there, and he injects more burning poison into my arms, other times the room is empty and I drive myself half-insane trying and failing to pull myself free.
At one point, I’m awake long enough that I try to use magic, but the burning sedative makes it impossible.
I keep thinking about how my father must have died right where I’m lying now. He had more magic even than I do and was hundreds of years older, but he died anyway, and so will I.
I black out and lose track of time.
Magnus returns again and again, injects me with more poison, and then stabs knives through various parts of me. Once, he drives a blade all the way through my wrist, pinning my arm to the table.
He doesn’t seem to want to kill me, just to cause pain. I don’t know what he’s waiting for—if anything. He never asks me questions or tries to get any information from me, which makes the torture feel almost arbitrary. I don’t know if he’s motivated by hatred for my family, even after all these years, or if he just enjoys torturing. After a while, I stop caring either way.
When I’m conscious, I try to think about Odessa, because her face keeps me grounded in reality. She reminds me that there’s a reason I want to survive this, and wouldn’t be better off just closing my eyes and willing the pain to stop.
I remember her dancing at the Ashwater estate on Alix’s thirtieth birthday, hair and dress twirling, and catching my eye before glancing away. I remember arguing with her when she wanted to fight during the battle in Thorne’s castle. Glaring at each other, while I wrestled with this overwhelming protective urge I didn’t know how to explain, and I remember her kneeling on my bed in my dark room, looking up at me with fire in her eyes.
I remember other things, too. Or maybe I’m imagining them? In my head, we’re walking down the hallway in my palace in Hydratta. We’re sitting in the sun watching a race. She’s standing on the deck of a ship, smiling at me. We’re lying on a beach together, and she’s bending over me, crying.
A part of me knows these visions never happened, while another part is sure they’re real.
“Oh my gods!” Odessa yells in my head. “Kastian, can you hear me?”
I try to blink up at her. She’s crying, and her tears keep splashing my face.
“Kastian!” Odessa says again, sharply. “Wake up!”
More tears hit me. I blink again and stare up into her face, then frown, confused. It’s not Odessa, and she’s not crying. A strange, dark-haired woman is leaning over me, splashing water on my face.
“Fuck!” the woman curses under her breath. “Hang on, I’ll get more water.”
She leaves, and I try to call after her, but can’t make my mouth work. I must fall into unconsciousness again, but wake up again a short time later to more water splashing my face.
