“Clearly you are no scholar, but I thought a seasoned seamstress would understand that a needle has uses beyond mere embroidery.”
I eyed his hand, ready to bite it again should it veer any closer. “The last time I saw a needle, Druid, it was not to hem a pretty dress, but to summon a plague and butcher my hand.”
“Your Holiness,” he corrected, setting the needle down on a clean strip of gauze. “Or have you so soon forgotten how to address a loyal servant of the Blood God in the last few turns?” He picked up the boiled thread, unravelling a yard of it. “The offering has always been brutal, if not”—he seemed to hunt for the word—“necessary. Though…” He draped the thread across the length of the table and reached for the ring of keys at his belt, nestled beside an embroidered pouch and a small dagger. I eyed them both, wondering if he stashed poison in the bag or if the blade posed the greater threat. A ghost of pressure on my forearm heralded the click of a shackle opening; my ruined hand now unbound. “This was rather uncalled for.”
My eyebrows leapt to my hairline.
“Hmm.” A small sound slipped from the back of my throat, too quick to swallow.
“It surprises you I do not condone this?” he asked, taking my hand. Another sound threatened to escape at the feel of him, of his bare fingers looping around mine, but I caught it, burying it deep within the pits of me. The touch of a Dendralis was never a kind one.
“I supposed you cherished cruelty, not condemned it.”
Careful not to touch the ravaged flesh, he rotated my hand, placing the back of it on the warmth of his knee. “What have I told you about butchers and mercy?” I repressed another shudder at the contact, but tensed, trying not to rest the full weight of my hand on him, though the motion sent fresh bolts of pain up my arm.
“Resistance will only cause more pain. Relax your hand, let it lie on me.”
I pushed out a breath, trying to loosen the tension coiled tight within me, though it resisted all the same.
“Seamstress,” he warned.
I closed my eyes, willing my heart to stop battering my ribs. It calmed after a moment, the keen burn of my wound incentive enough.
“Better.”
His praise sent a spike of heat searing through my middle, and I went to pull away. In the same breath, he pinned my hand with the vast expanse of his own, lowering his helm to where they met. Pooling on my forearm, his veil brushed my skin, the chain as finely woven as silk. A soft, wet sensation traced from the base of my palm to my fingers, and I quivered, tingles scattering through me like thrown marbles. It took a moment to comprehend what had just happened, what he had done.
“You… Did you justlickme?”
Chapter twenty-one
Ashara
The Truth
“What hast thou done?” The voice of blood crieth unto me from the ground. -4:10–11 - The Book of Dendralis
He had licked me.Waslicking me.
Face twisting, I tried to yank my hand, trapped beneath his veil, but his grip was unyielding. My other wrist, still chained, clattered against the bedpost, ringing against the wood like templum bells. I kicked and twisted, attempting to wrench myself free, only to snare my legs further as the linens wound around them. The scent of hearthfire and jasmine billowed from the mattress, so dense I thought I might choke on it.
“What in the pits are you doing?” I cried. “Release me!”
He did not answer. Still, he licked. Licked and licked whilst I thrashed and screamed.
At last, his grip loosened. Seizing the opportunity, I reclaimed my hand from under his mesh, holding it up to the light. Saliva gleamed along my palm, mingled with fresh blood where the beginnings of a scab had been torn away.
A shudder ran through me as I stared, fingers spread, disgust mingling with something I hadn’t the courage to name. Intrigue, perhaps, though more likely horror. My gaze flickered between the split in my skin and the Butcher. Shoulders slack, he settled back into the chair as though he had done nothing at all. As though a prophet of Dendralis had not just put his tongue to my flesh.
“You licked me,” I said, mouth dry.
He regarded me in silence, helm fixed upon my face for a heartbeat. Then he shrugged.Shrugged.
“Why?” I demanded, curling my hand to my chest. “What sort of creature licks an open wound?”
My fist curled tighter at his silence as I kicked myself free of the linens, wriggling loose like a silkworm shedding its cocoon.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” I pressed, my tone blasphemous in its bite. “No confession? Notruthto offer as to why you would taste me like a godsdamned animal?”
