He ignored the look she gave him.
The scar on his back ached—the phantom sting of it, as though Azul were pressing a jagged rock to it once more.In his memories, Azul's eyes cold and unfeeling.Rain battering the trees above them.Her hands worked mercilessly in the dark, pulling the thing from beneath his skin inch by inch while he screamed, while she held him still, while the storm came down around them both.
He had hated her for it.
He could not lie to himself about the rest.
She saved him from the path of a dead man.Pushed him—through sheer, furious contempt—onto something else.After she vanished from the forest, he had looked for her for a long time.And when the palace discovered he'd been sneaking out, the punishment had been severe enough to keep him bedridden for the better part of a year.
Perhaps she had—in her rage, without meaning to—made him understand something.
The life he had been living, abandoned and nameless, was worse than death.
Borji.
She had said it to mock him.A child speaking the common tongue she'd picked up from passing villagers, pointing at him, finding his self-pity irritating.It was not a name anyone had given him.It was a sound she had made to diminish him.
He had kept it anyway.
It was the only name he had.
No one else had ever offered him one.
He wouldn't forget that night.Thunder, rain, the creature coming free of his skin and her standing over him in the storm, soaked through, cold-eyed—and then she said:
You, who do not know your enemies, dare to try and kill me?Look—in your back, you have been poisoned, and you did not even know it.
The last night he saw her.
And when they met again, she called him a stranger.
Ragnar knelt shirtless before his bed, the cold air raising goosebumps on skin already marred by old scars.He held a length of heavy, braided horsehair cord, one used to manoeuvre horses: a whip.
His breath fogged in the cold air; his jaw clenched as pain wracked his body.
"Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates, grant me clarity," he prayed.He brought the cord down across his own shoulders."Let not…" he flinched as he whipped himself once more, "distraction cloud purpose."
Distraction.The word was a meek shadow for what haunted him.
Ragnar Valthorne was a religious man and so followed the basic principles of his faith.Should he sin, he must smite himself before his god should smite him.
And this time, his sin was too great.
"Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates, grant me mercy."
The cord fell again."The flesh is weak; my will is lacking."
The door to his chamber swung open without ceremony.
General Thane stood framed in the doorway, his bo? pushed below his chin, his expression set in disapproval.His eyes took in the scene—the Khan on his knees, the red marks stark against his skin, the cord in his hand.A muscle twitched in Thane’s jaw.
"Did you find the girl?"Ragnar asked.
"No."Thane was quick to reply."We've looked everywhere; she cannot possibly be in this palace."
"Then why are you here?"
"You wish to wed a viper," Thane growled, dispensing with any title or preamble.His voice was low and deeply seething."A scheming, vile creature.Every moment we linger here, we are drawn deeper into a nest of serpents that is not our fight."
