Page 85 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
Ruelle grips my arm, her terror evident in the panicked pressure of her fingers. “Kneel and apologize,” she whispers.
I crash to my knees, bowing low before Vienne. “Your pardon, Highness. I spoke without thought of my true position—a worm at your feet. I crave your forgiveness.”
Sharp-nailed fingers graze my scalp. Vienne grasps a handful of my hair and jerks my head back. “I should put out your eyes permanently, thrall, for daring to hold my gaze for so long, and for presuming to adviseme, your future Queen.”
Two fingernails of her other hand dance closer to my eyes. Terror roils in my gut.
One jab, and I will be blinded.Permanently, she said. She won’t allow me to be healed afterward.
“No! No, please!” Ruelle falls to her knees beside me, bowing with her forehead to the floor, assuming a slave’s posture at her sister’s feet. “Please, my—my Queen—please, I beg you. Mercy.”
What it cost her to say that, no one but she and Vienne and I will ever know.
“You would abase yourself for him?” Vienne huffs a chuckle. “Oh, I like this.”
My heart sinks, because now Vienne knows what Ruelle would do for me, and I have no doubt she will use me as leverage again. Instead of Ruelle’s strength, I will be her weakness, her punishment.
“I crave your forgiveness on his behalf.” Ruelle’s voice is thin, strained.
“Very well,” says Vienne, tapping her chin. “He’ll get ten lashes and a night in the dungeon, and tomorrow you may have him back.”
“Pardon, Highness, but I had hoped to borrow him tonight,” says a voice—Cowen.
Ruelle looks up, surprised.
“You have two thralls,” snaps Vienne. “You can wait to enjoy this one.”
Cowen bows, his medallion swinging against his thick chest. “As you wish, your Highness.”
Vienne snaps her fingers, and guards come forward. They strip me of my chain-shirt, pants, and boots, leaving me with only my black undershorts, the slim gold chains around my hips, my collar and leash, and my bracelets.
I’m dragged away from Ruelle before she can speak to me—not that there’s anything to say. This is Vienne’s mercy.
I was whipped twice during my service in Yurstin’s army—just a few lashes each time, for repeated infractions of impatience and levity. Canings were infrequent at the schools I attended, but I did get my share of them as well—none bad enough to leave scars or dampen my spirits.
I suspect this flogging will be different.
The guards hustle me along corridors I haven’t yet seen, down some uneven stone steps, through a dank tunnel. They shove me into a large cell with wooden stocks in the center, force me to my knees, and latch my arms into the wrist holes. The wood is worn smooth from use, stained dark in a few spots.
I wait on my knees, arms immobilized, my chest heaving with sick anticipation.
“This is a delight,” says one of the guards, a stocky man about my age. “An honor, you might say, gettin’ to flog the Princess’s pretty toy. An enemy captain of Yurstin, no less. Your people have killed dozens of good men and women—people I knew. People I grew up with.” His boot slams into my rear.
“I was stationed at the border for a while,” says the other guard. He’s older, his hair and beard flecked with white. “I saw what your kind does to prisoners from our side. If you ask me, you got it way too easy. Does that Princess of yours torture you like you deserve? ’Cause it don’t look like it.”
When I stay silent, he kicks upward, into my belly. Thank the gods I see it coming and tighten my stomach. The impact still hurts.
“Get the flogger,” says the older guard. “The nasty one.”
Metal scrapes against the wall, and there’s a swish of leather through air. I barely have time to brace myself before my back explodes into a dozen screaming stripes of pain.
I yell, and the older guard bends down, hooting gleefully. “Ah, we got a screamer! I love it when they scream. Again!”
Agony rips through my flesh. This is no standard leather flogger—there’s something embedded in the strips—glass, rocks, metal—I roar again as the third blow descends. I’ve felt pain from battle wounds and broken bones, pain from Ruelle’s knife, pain that left a scar on my chest, but I have never endured this kind of merciless flaying.
My mind is a haze of agony by the end of it, and my throat is raw from screaming. I’m panting, my head hanging as I stare blearily at the straw scattered over the floor.
Someone unlatches the stocks. Drags me from the room by my wrists, my stomach scraping over the stones.
