Page 49 of Blood Weaver
I frowned at the monster who stood at the door of my cage. With wicked delight, he whistled for the guards to unlock my cell.
“Bring her out,” he commanded.
Two guards entered my cell and pulled me up roughly. I grimaced and groaned as they dragged me out, my wounds screaming for relief. A shiny trail of blood marked my passage as I continued to cough, evidence of the internal damage that had been inflicted.
Caelan watched me, his brows raising to his hairline in surprise. “Who hurt you, little healer?”
My head lolled to the side and I fixed him with a pain-glazed stare. “Prince Marcellus.”
The guards remained silent as they dragged me into a room that had been outfitted for torture. Torches placed every couple feet along the wall provided the only light in the dim, dank-smelling place. I wondered how many times they’d witnessed or even participated in the torture of prisoners, and if they did it eagerly or saw it as part of their job. In the end it didn’t matter; the result was the same. Shoving me down onto a heavy wooden chair, the silent guards latched my wrists and ankles to the legs and arms of the chair with heavy iron manacles.
Caelan laughed. “Wow, you even got Marcellus mad enough to hurt you?” He perused a metal table nearby that was littered with a variety of torture implements and reached for a pair of pliers. He approached slowly and snapped the pliers in front of my face for added effect. “What do you think? Should I send your teeth back to him?”
I scoffed. “Do you even know where he is?”
His eyes gleamed in the firelight. “No. But you’ll tell me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything. You’re wasting your time.”
“I don’t think so,” Caelan mused. “I think you knowexactlywhere he is and what his plans are. You think I don’t know about the army he’s amassed on the eastern side of the Central Plains?”
I fought to maintain an emotionless expression. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Caelan’s mouth twisted into a cruel sneer. “If that’s the game you want to play, so be it.” He switched out the pliers for a poker that was being heated on a fire. Donning a thick leather glove, he grabbed the red-hot poker and aimed it at my face. “This is your last chance, Leila. I really don’t want to hurt you.” Something flickered across his eyes as if he truly meant it.
I stared him down and lifted my chin defiantly. Either way I wasn’t scared of his taunts. I’d been through worse. “Do what you have to do,Prince.”
He paused for a moment as if disappointed at my answer. “Very well.” He inched closer and slowly pressed the poker to my arm.
I gritted my teeth against the pain and my stomach roiled at the smell of sizzling, burning skin. If I clenched my teeth any harder, they would splinter and chip, but I refused to scream.
After several searing seconds, he removed the poker from my skin. “Come on, Leila, just give us a location,” Caelan cajoled. “I really don’t want to do this.”
I gasped and sweat trickled down the sides of my face. “You already know his army is on the east side of the Central Plains. What else do you want to know?”
He leaned close to my face. “Everything.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything!”
The prince rubbed his chin and seemed to contemplate my response. “You see, I don’t entirely believe that. Maybe you need a bit more incentive.” Leaning in, Caelan pressed the poker to my arm again. I grimaced and pulled against the chains, but there was no escaping the skin sizzling assault. “Have you had enough?”
I laughed and gritted out, “Not even close.”
His brows rose in surprise, and he tossed the poker with a clatter and picked up the pliers again. He snapped them a few times in front of my face. “I heard that pulling out one’s fingernails can be quite painful. Want to try it?”
I shrugged weakly. “This is your party … I’m just here for the ride.”
For the first time since Caelan arrived in Lomewood, I looked at him – trulylooked– and came to a startling realization. Ronan was right. The man standing beside me so callously inflicting torture upon the town’s healer wasn’t the same gentle boy I once knew. Whether he’d morphed into this monster tosurvive his own harsh reality or for some other reason entirely, I wasn’t sure, but the childhood friend I knew was long gone.
It was a good lesson.
“Why?” I mumbled as I looked up at him. He frowned in confusion. “Why are you like this, Caelan? What happened?”
The shock of me using his name so casually made him widen his eyes. And although he could have corrected or tortured me for disrespecting him, he only stared back as if lost in a trance.
“What did you say?” he asked softly. His demeanor and voice were a complete contrast to how he was just a minute earlier. For the first time, I could see the slight look of regret cover his face, but he was too far gone to turn back now.
I cleared my dried, parched throat. “I asked what happened for you to become like this. I doubt this is the person your lost princess once knew.”
