By the Other, Demetri was alive.
A throbbing from the base of my neck to my temple drove all thoughts of him away. I nestled my head in my skirts, fighting against the spike of agony, and it was all I could do not to vomit. It warred with a burning sting in my right hand, and I cracked one eye, beholding the ruin of torn flesh and barely congealed blood. My mouth, gods… I swallowed, tasting only ash, my tongue dry and throat raw. Sluggish and stiff, I turned my head, searching for water, for anything that might ease the thirst.
Chains rattled and metal scraped.
“Finally, she wakes,” a familiar voice drawled from the corner.
Firelight faded to shadow, a towering form blocking its glow that loomed at the foot of the bed. Shrouded in darkness, there was still no mistaking the three-pointed helm that jutted towards the beams, nor the clinking of chainmail that masked his face.
What little heat remained in my cheeks drained, along with any hope of mercy from whoever had chained me here. Armour clanking with each slow step towards the bed, his knees struck its base.
“Nought to say for yourself?” he taunted, tilting that monstrous helm. “Rumour has it you have quite the mouth, laurel. I’d advise you to put it to good use and confess the truth about what happened this morn.”
The truth…?
What was the truth? All the truths and heresies that had once spilled from my lips dried to nothing, cremated by the blazing pain in my skull. I should bedead. My offering had come and gone. A plague should have consumed me alongside the rest. The details blurred, disjointed and intangible, like a distant memory rather than something that must have happened only a few turns ago.
“The Blood Tree,” I started, voice husked and cracked. “It—”
“There is no tree, not anymore. Only ash and dust,” the Butcher interrupted, metal-clad arms lifting to grasp the bed’s upper frame. “Reduced to cinders and blackened bark, the templum’s Cor Tower now but a quarry of rubble.”
“The tower?” I rasped, recalling the bodies of acolytes crushed like grapes under the debris. Something jolted my stomach, a little too rousing to be sorrow…or guilt.
“Come now.” He leaned forward, the bed creaking. “Don’t feign ignorance. I know you have more truths to give me. Youwere so eager to lay them bare before, so why not offer another? It’ll make what comes next a great deal easier.” He gripped both posts at the foot of the bed, the points of his helm scraping the canopy.
The scratch of metal pricked my awareness, the reality of where I actually was snapping into focus. I was chained to a bed.Hisbed, perhaps. And we were alone. There would be no running, no hiding, no fighting him off. I sucked in a breath, trying to tuck my ankles beneath me and keep my knees closed. If he came an inch closer, I could try to bite him, I supposed, blunt teeth be damned.
Hands releasing the frame as if it were hot iron, not wood, the Butcher jerked back. In the same odd gesture I’d witnessed before, one of his hands cupped the back of his neck.
“I’m not going to… This isn’t… The bed was the only thing immovable in the chamber to secure you to.” He cleared his throat, a rumble from under the metal. “I am not going to hurt you.” I blinked, surprised by the earnestness of his tone. “Not in the way you are thinking. You are safe here, for now.”
My mouth watered with the urge to sink my teeth into something anyway.
“Safe?” I scoffed, the words clawing up my throat unbidden. “If I dared to chain you to a bed with no way to defend yourself and told you the same, wouldyoufeel safe?” I reasoned all wisdom had been knocked from my skull by whatever had struck me out cold. That, or thirst had driven me mad—my dreams certainly suggested as much.
His hand left the back of his neck to toy with his veil, twisting and pulling the chain. “I might feel a great many things if you tied me to a bed, laurel.” He wiggled both wrists, jostling invisible shackles. “Though I’d like to see you try.”
I blinked. “What kind of druid are you?” I asked, voice like gravel. “To speak as such, like a—wait, where are you going?”Before I could, ill-advisedly, call him every name I was thinking, he strode beyond my line of sight, disappearing somewhere behind the bed. The glugging of water had my mouth parting, lips near cracking as they widened.
The mattress dipped with a boulderous weight, my chains the only thing keeping me from rolling into it.
“What kind of druid am I?” he repeated, holding something aloft. “The impatient kind. Now, drink.” With that, he shoved a chalice to the seam of my lips.
Without question, I gulped it down, lapping with all the grace of a dog, a small, niggling doubt that it might be laced with poison not enough to stop me. Gasping for air, I lifted my gaze to meet his metal, searching for a gleam of eyes beneath the veiled shroud. Were they warm, like Demetri’s? The colour of moss, like mine? Or black, like Esioul’s, bottomless pits without beginning or end.
A cough.
“All of it. Drink.” Giving me little choice, he tilted the cup, letting the water funnel down my throat. I swallowed again, and again, shivering as the coolness slid its way down, coating my empty stomach. Chest heaving, I struggled to catch my breath, having nearly drowned myself in the haste to swallow every last drop.
“Enough?” he asked, pulling the cup away. I tracked it with the subtlety of a fox in a henhouse. He left the bed and returned with a fresh supply. This time, I drank slower, sipping rather than choking it down, flushing at the curious intimacy of having a druid water me like potted myrtle. With a final slurp, I nodded, releasing my lips from its rim. The pounding in my head lingered, but my throat was soothed, the rawness eased.
“Thank you,” I said, quieter than I meant to.
Helm dipping towards the now empty cup, he laughed. “Dog, indeed.”
Whatever gratitude I had felt for the druid vanished at once.
“Only an animal thanks its master for scraps,” he explained, tossing the chalice aside, its clatter softened by the linens. “There is no need to thank me; I am merely ensuring you do not die before what must be done.” Rising from the bed, he moved towards the hearth, unstrapping his gauntlets.
