Drowning.
I’m drowning.
Voices speak, and I’m outside.
“…orders to throw him in a cell—”
“He will be dealt with.”
“But, sir—”
“He will be dealt with. You question us?”
A crack—a fist, maybe? A strike. Then the jingle of coins hitting the ground.
“For your silence.”
I’m limp, choking on each breath, fighting to stop breathing entirely.
I want it to take me. The water. The crushing weight of it.
But I’m so aware of my heart thumping heavily in my chest, and it just goes on and on, taunting me.
Why’d I have to wake up? Why couldn’t this time have been the one when the blackout just took me permanently?
My ropes are removed, and before I can complain about that—don’t release me, don’t let me free—I’m tossed into someplace dark. A cell, likely. But I still smell the outside, so we’re not back in the castle, and it rocks a bit—a wagon?
The coins. The argument. It was Darnley.
Two benches sit opposite each other on either side of where I crouch on the floor, the whole interior done up in something that shimmers in the dull moonlight. Silk? Velvet? A carriage.
I’m thinking all this, but everything’s still numb. Just filling lungs. Crushing weight.
I stabbed Alyth.
I tried to kill her.
And worse, worse than everything—I remember it.
I never remembered other blackouts. Because they weren’t against anyone I cared for? Because they happened so quick?
Because this one was forced on me under Darnley’s controlling spell?
I remember wanting Alyth’s blood like it was the cure for all ails. I wanted to flay her rib cage and stand drenched in her life force and soar. The visions I had of what I’d do to her are so visceral, I might as well have done it. They’re living images, thoughts that race across my head and back again with sights, sounds, smells—
She was right. About me, about everything. She was right not to trust me. She was right to try to kill me.
She was right.
I don’t move on the floor of the carriage. I stay perfectly still and will myself to go under fully.
After a while—hours? minutes?—a door opens and shuts, and the frame rocks again. Horses whinny, and then the wagon’s in motion, moving forward.
A boot nudges me. “You’re awake.” Darnley. It isn’t a question.
It’s nearly total blackness, with hazy moonlight illuminating the space. I shift upright, still on the floor, and just barely make out Darnley’s scowl before pain explodes in my cheek.
Instinct has me lifting my hand, in defense or attack, I don’t know—but Darnley’s quick to start reciting that spell I both can’t understand and hear too much, the one that makes pain lance through my head and pushes me toward a subservient blackout.
