He wheezed, every breath a struggle, and I relented my grasp, lest his suffering end too swiftly.
Her smile, if possible, grew.
“Oh.” She took a deep breath, blowing it out between rounded lips. “Painfully, I fancy.”
“Then it shall be done.”
I slammed him against the wall, his head bouncing off the stone with a crunch. “In a moment, maybe two, you will die, Pietr. How you behave in the next few breaths will determine just how painful it is. Say another word about her, and I’ll slice off your cock and shove it down your throat. Let your tonsils bear the bruising whilst I allow her to tear you into a thousand tiny pieces.”
He gulped, the thick bob of it rolling under my palm. Ashara clapped her fists together, one still clutched around the glass. Blood dribbled down her wrist.
“Give me the shard. I have something better.”
I ripped at the hem of my shirt with my unburdened hand. “Don’t move,” I spat at the worm, allowing him a few lungfuls of air.
She dropped the shard into my open palm, and I tossed it onto the cot. I spat on the strip of it, wrapping it around her hand before tying it into a knot. My lips thinned as I surveyed her other injuries; they would need proper attention—stitches as well as my blessing.
“His death needs to be as efficient as it is painful, Seamstress,” I instructed, thumbing the bandage. “Fortuitously, I am equipped for such.” Unstrapping a blade at my thigh, I presentedher with a small, curved dagger, carved like a crescent moon. She accepted with a delighted squeal.
“Do you want me to show you how to sever a nerve?”
“Yes,” she breathed, eyes dancing over the sharp edge of the blade.
My heart jumped.
Pietr whimpered, eyes dipping to his belt. In one slice, I cut the hemp, flinging his iron-spiked knot across the room. It embedded with a squelch in the back of a dead acolyte’s head.
“Here.” I grabbed her hand, careful to manipulate her hold around its handle so as not to disturb the bandaging. She grasped it with confidence, and I sucked in a breath, the floral notes still enough to water my eyes. My hand guided her towards the cervical nerves at his neck, whilst I kept him still with the other.
She laughed through her nose, swaying slightly like one does after too much mead.
“Concentrate,” I chastised through a smile.
Before I could aid her in making the incision, she pulled back her arm and mine with it, near jumping with excitement. “The cot! The cot! Put him on the cot.”
I paused, hand still wrapped around hers. “The cot it is.”
Releasing her, I grabbed Pietr, his flailing akin to wrestling a twig. In a few heartbeats, I had him lashed to the bed with the rest of his belt.
“Open his legs,” she crooned.
“Ashara—”
“Open. His. Legs.”
He writhed, like most do in the end. But I acquiesced.
“No, Your Holiness. Please, no. Mercy, mercy, I beg of ye, have mercy!”
My chuckle was a deep, monstrous thing. I shook my helm, nudging it towards Ashara.
“Look at her, acolyte, not at me. It is she who can afford you as such. I am merely here toassist.”
“You would take orders from a laurel?” He gaped at me. “What blasphemy is this?”
“The sort that feels better than a prayer.”
With his hands bound, I took each of his ankles, lashing them to the posts of the foot of the cot and prying open his legs, as was demanded of me.
