Page 111 of Golden Queen
The smell of their dark magic was strong—metallic, acrid, and thick. It burned the inside of my nose with an almost cold sensation that left me on the verge of sneezing.
I felt cold hands on my knees, pressing my legs down, and the feeling of something metallic sliding between them.
I bucked and jerked, struggling to close my legs.
"What are you doing?" I cried, desperation and anger making my voice hoarse. "Stop it," I commanded. It came out as a humiliating sob. "Please stop," I begged, my voice breaking so that it ended in a shattered whisper.
"Sh," Mordred's voice crooned in my ear. "It will all be over soon. You will not even remember what has been done. Your mind will be at peace soon."
That cloth ran back down my brow and across my neck as I felt a fullness inside me, cold metal pressing into me. Pressure, harsh and unrelenting unfurled in me, and my body jerked. There were too many hands on me to move. They held my legs, my arms, even my midsection as I tried to arch off the table.
I was jostled by the rough movement of the metal inside me and the hands that fumbled between my legs.
I could not stand it. It was too much. The intrusion was too much. I choked as vomit filled my mouth.
A hand turned my face to the side so that it poured out in a hot acidic stream that ran down my cheek.
I wanted to die—wanted it to just end. I would take the unknown afterlife—or even the burning fires of Chronus, over this helpless humiliation—over what they might be doing inside of me.
I lay there, waiting for death, welcoming it, holding my breath in hopes that my tortured body might just fade away.
But then in the midst of it all, I saw an image of his face—that smile—the one that had fire behind it. The eyes, so endless that they reminded me of the night sky.
I let myself drift into a darkness made up of that depthless sky instead of the nothingness behind my eyelids. I ran headlong into that void filled with the memory of his voice.
I thought about your eyes—like swirling bits of fog trapped behind glass.
I think you are capable of anything, Sera.
You were born to fly.
I can sleep when you are with me.
You will not stand alone, Sera
You would not need to ask. Sera. Sera. Sera.
Eventually his voice died away, and that endless field of burning stars began to fade back to the nothingness of my closed eyes. I began to feel pain where there had been only pressure before. They were doing something to my abdomen and both of my arms, and it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
It began as sharp pokes and cuts, and then transitioned to full-blown agony.
I screamed as pain tore through me. They were ripping me apart—digging deeply into my chest and my stomach.
I threatened them, screaming the words I would make true as soon as I was free. When that did nothing, I begged them in a harsh, choking voice, “Stop. Please stop. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything. Just please, stop.”
"Shut her up."
"I am trying!" Mordred hissed, in an altogether different voice. "She keeps unraveling it, and I have to do the spell again and again! I could not even keep her eyes closed," he hissed. "I had to stitch them shut so that she did not look at me with those cold, empty things."
The fact that my eyes were sewn shut barely registered in the new agony of my existence. All I knew was the pain of my body being sliced apart by the hands beneath my skin tearing and ripping flesh.
Each time I fell silent, I could hear the wet, horrible sound of their work—the sound of my unmaking. So I screamed and screamed and screamed.
And then a hand pressed over my mouth, and I heard an urgent hiss in my ear. "You need to stop fighting, you stupid girl!" Mordred seethed. "I am trying to make this painless for you, but you are undoing all my work withyour incessant struggling. We are giving you a chance to reclaim your honor, your purity. Relax and let us finish so that the pain can end. We will heal you, and it will be as though you are untouched."
His words made the anger surge in me again. "No," I groaned. I leaned my head back so that my teeth were against the hand over my mouth. I bit down with as much force as I could manage, jerking my head to the side to rip his skin apart.
I tasted blood and felt the revolting feeling of flesh in my mouth as Mordred screamed.
