I felt my fingers reaching through the gaps of the bars involuntarily, startled and pleased to feel Faylinn’s fingertips just on the other side. As if she desired the same thing. As if she were waiting for me.
Neither of us said anything when our fingers connected. We simply laced them together as best we could between the walls of our cages. Her hands were small, fingers thin and long but warm and steady, with a few calluses along their lengths, as if she weren’t immune to work.
I held her fingers tight as I gave her my next truth.
“I do,” I admitted to Faylinn and the dark. “He rescued me and then condemned me to death. And, still, I would follow him to the ends of this earth and back.”
Faylinn brushed her thumb against my knuckles in a soothing motion.
“Do you love your parents? Do you blame them?” I asked when she didn’t respond to my confession.
She shrugged her shoulders, the motion causing the straw to rustle beneath her and pull her fingers a bit out of my grasp, though she continued to hold on as if I were a lifeline.
“Yes and no. To both,” she clarified. “I understand why they did what they did. But I don’t understand why it had to beme. Seven mouths is a lot to feed, especially in our little northern fishing village. But I didn’t ask to be born without an affinity. I didn’t ask to be different.” She whispered the last part, and I squeezed her fingers tightly, unable to find words of comfort for her confession. So I offered it in the only way I really knew how—through touch.
Neither of us said anything more, lost in our own thoughts and trauma.
But we clung to each other throughout the night through the bars of our cage.
Two souls lost and adrift, but tethered together by Fate or some other design.
Either way, I was glad to have her here with me. Even though I hated what we both would have to experience.
Chapter 81
Lex
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO
Weeks passed.
Or was it months?
Time was an arbitrary concept down here. There were no windows to see the passing of time. Just the bells and men in black robes who woke us, fed us, and tortured us.
For all I knew, our torture was in the middle of the night, our sleep during the day.
Their methods became increasingly barbaric and painful.
Fingers and toes broken and mended.
Ribs bruised and scraped by sharp daggers.
Blades plunged into flesh at various intervals.
Women sucking and fucking my cock.
Men fucking my asshole.
It was all the same.
I grew numb.
Some days, we were blindfolded so we couldn’t anticipate when their blades would strike.
Some days, the room was bathed in complete darkness.
Those days were the worst. Unable to see, but still able to hear the painful cries of despair, to smell when another subject died.
