"So be it," he said, motioning, and the guards pushed her forward.
"I'm not getting on that fucking table!"She thrashed, wild and ugly, all elbows and desperation.Her heel caught someone's shin, and they cursed, but it didn't matter.There were two of them and only one of her, and she was losing.
They hauled her closer to the table.
"Let me go!Let me go!" Her voice rose to a shriek as they lifted her.She hit the cold metal surface, the impact knocking the air from her lungs.Before she could suck in a breath, the first restraint locked around her right wrist with a heavyclick.
"No—" She yanked hard, but the cuff didn't budge.Her left wrist was next, then her ankles, then the wide strap across her chest that pinned her flat."No, you can't do this.Let mego!"
The door slid open again.
A second man entered.Tall and gaunt, he didn't have the long hair she was used to seeing on a latharian.Instead, his head was shaved.His eyes were the same burning orange as Korrait's, but colder somehow.Without looking at her face, he crossed to the table, long dark robes swirling around his ankles.
He looked at the restraints instead.
His hands moved over them methodically, checking each of them.When he reached the strap across her chest, he tugged it tighter, and her breath hitched as the pressure increased.
"Be still, vessel."His voice was flat.Emotionless.
Vessel.
Not hostage.Not prisoner.
Vessel.
Emily had just gone from being someone's honoured guest to someone's equipment.
"This is Thraevan," Korrait said from somewhere behind her head."Our priest.He will oversee the sanctification."
Thraevan didn't acknowledge the introduction.He moved to the side of the table and pressed something on a panel she couldn't see.There was a mechanicalwhir, and her gaze snapped up toward it.
A mechanical arm unfolded from the ceiling.Its movement was smooth.Precise.At its tip was a pressurised injector—not medical-grade slick chrome like she'd seen in hospitals, but something older-looking.Military and brutal in its simplicity.
The cylinder was thick, industrial metal scored with scratches and dents as if it had been used over and over again.No sterile packaging.No reassuring beep of calibration.Just a vial of liquid locked into the chamber that glowed deep, shimmering purple… like someone had stuck a load of glitter in food dye.
For one lurching second, it reminded her of Raaevik's eyes.
"What is that?"Her voice cracked."What thefuckis that?"
Thraevan's fingers moved over a control interface, and the injector's tip angled down, lining up with the side of her neck.Right over her jugular.
"The sacred burns before it sanctifies."
She didn't think it was a warning.He said it like a prayer instead.
The injector lowered.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, her pulse so loud she could hear it in her skull, as the cold metal tip pressed against her skin.
"Raaevik!"She didn't mean to scream his name.It just tore out of her, raw and desperate."RAAEVIK!"
The injector fired, piercing her skin, and cold flooded her bloodstream.
Not the cold of ice.Not the cold of space.This waswrong.It spread from her neck in a wave.It felt like her veins were being filled with liquid metal, heavy and foreign andother.Every cell in her body screamed in protest, rejecting something that didn't belong inside a human body.
She arched against the restraints, her spine bowing, her mouth open in a soundless scream as the pain went on and on.Panic filled her.She couldn't survive this.No one could.
But she did.
