Page 156 of The Queens and the Kings
The words thrashed, nearly incomprehensible in their speed. All the torrents he’d suppressed for the last fifteen years spilled out. His wrists and ankles ached as the curse attempted to fold him. If he hadn’t been an Arcanist, the brawn would have broken his bones.
He resisted.
He silently shouted.
He shoved every previous ounce of pain into his resistance. His teeth gnashed, neck curled. Moans emitted that he didn’t control. Jordaire, silent, stayed true to his promise. The vines wrestled with the curse, locking Pedr in place while agony streaked through him. He focused on Mila.
Sweet Mila.
I’ll save you,he had promised.I’ll save you.
Her memory flared a spark of hope. A moment of reprieve that breathing in her warmth always provided.Mila.
The curse rebounded, straining the arcane ropes. His eyes slammed shut and wouldn’t open. A band wrapped his chest, screwing down like battening a hatch. His heart threatened to explode. Sweat rained off his skin, beading on his neck. The ropes strained to hold him apart, even as every muscle and sinew strained to pull him together.
Tighter.
Tightest.
When would it crack? How? What weakness could he find in the curse? There must be some. No arcane could be so powerful it bound a soul.
Jordaire cried out, “Have you lost it, man? What evil arcane did the Queens bestow?”
Pedr screamed incomprehensibly in his head. On the curse twisted, wrenching, splitting, threatening. Exhaustion swept him as wave after determined wave of cursed arcane poured over him. It would win. Of course it would win. Hadn’t the Siren Queens always won? His jaw sealed shut. He could move nothing, only tremble.
Too much.
He couldn’t do it.
The ropes shuddered. Despair threatened to drown him. It didn’t work. The calm, cold voice of the Siren Queen slithered into his mind, recalled from before.
Don’t waste your life on resistance, you fool. It is futile.
There was no solace in thoughts of his beloved. His heartspace. The portion of his soul abandoned to the darkest depths of the world.Mila,he cried.Mila, I’m sorry. I failed you again.
Pedr slumped. “Let me . . . go,” he begged through clenched teeth.
Jordaire obeyed slowly. The ropes lowered Pedr. As soon as their tension released, arcane snapped his knees to his chest. It locked him down, strapped him tight. He collapsed. His shoulders and body hit the wood with a thud, bundled. He couldn’t straighten.
“Ah, no,” Jordaire hissed. His voice came from farther away. “That’s not good, fool boy. Can you see it? ‘Course you can’t,” he muttered. “The bloody wyverns are loose! All . . . nineteen . . . of them.”
Pedr cursed himself. The Siren Queens. The Wyvern Kings. He’d failed to stop Britt from releasing them, which meant he’d have no leverage to convince the Wyvern Kings to save Mila. He couldn’t make it work . . .
An abject failure.
Again.
Panic thickened Jordaire’s frantic voice. “You see what’s happened now? We’re doomed! The wyverns are loose and there’s nothing we can do to stop the confrontation. I must speak to the Ladylord and render what assistance I can. You can save yourself, you daft bastid, for whatever you did to earn such a curse.”
All fell silent.
Jordaire’s words blurred through his mind.Wyvernsanddoomedandconfrontationdidn’t make sense separately. Didn’t make sense together. Too ravaged to protest Jordaire leaving, Pedr lost himself to an unconscious swirl.
He could do nothing, for the Siren Queens well knew their special form of torture.
Time passed.
How quickly, how archaically, he had no idea. His taut muscles ebbed and flowed with tension, alternating between rolling and tightening. Light passed behind his eyelids, but the agony didn’t fade.
