Page 109 of Queen of Tempests and Sin

‘You’ll watch him break,’ the woman whispered, almost tender. ‘I’ll leave you alive until then, and you’ll understand what happens when gods play with mortals who bite back.’

Her laughter that followed was jagged, merciless, crawling under my skin. She leaned forward and her lips puckered on the final word, as if it tasted sour on her tongue. The motion was disgust and relish at once.

I spat at her boots, blood and venom and the last of my bravado. My jaw throbbed; my pulse hammered, but I met those hooded eyes and forced a smile sharp enough to cut. ‘Try it,’ I told her. ‘Break him, and I’ll make sure the last thing you see is slow, expensive regret.’

She paused—the first flicker of uncertainty in a minute that felt like an eternity—and for a breath I thought my insolence had found purchase… then she tilted her head and smiled that same cruel smile.

‘We shall see, little assassin,’ she said, and the hood swallowed her whole, laughter trailing after her like broken glass.

‘Let’s have some fun…’ Ajax actually smiled; it was creepy as shit. He hauled aside a tarpaulin and revealed a huge, black vat of water, the surface slick and oily in the torchlight.

Great. Waterboarding. Because of course. Why the hell had I not taken Si’s oath sooner? For fuck’s sake, drowning is a bitch.

He grabbed me by the hair and hauled my head over the edge. Cold hit my face first—water rolling over my mouth, my nose. The world narrowed to the sting of breath I couldn’t catch. He lifted my head momentarily, just enough time for me to catch a breath.

‘I’d call you a cunt,’ I spat through clenched teeth, because if I couldn’t keep my mouth from moving, I could at least aim it, ‘but I doubt you possess the depth and capacity to give pleasure.’

His laugh was a wet, ugly sound. Then a fist smashed into my gut. I doubled over, pain folding me in half, lungs screaming, but before I could even think to breathe, his hands shoved my head back under.

I couldn’t think. I was drowning. No air. I struggled like a trapped animal—claws raking for purchase that wasn’t there, body thrashing against invisible walls.

Panic keyed everything to white noise; my lungs convulsed. Pain blasted through me again and again; the world tasted of copper and salt. I let out a ragged breath that was more animal than human. The dunk burned into me—a brand, like molten iron poured into lungs, and mind-numbing, all-consuming agony wrapped itself around my nerves until there was nothing but the hollow ache.

The water closed over my face once more, and the vat became a black, terrible sky. My world was nothing but pressure and the stupid, insistent need to claw for air. I felt my heartbeat spool and fray; time broke into ragged slashes.

As terrible, white-hot agony ripped down my middle, the first instinct was brainless survival—panic snapping like electricity—until the next, darker instinct took over.

To feel would be to crawl into a hole and die.

To feel would be surrender.

My brain slammed on the brakes, and I shut down.

I slipped sideways into the safe place my training taught me: a thin, blank trance where pain became noise at the edge of nothing; something you observe, not something that owns you. I’d been here plenty of time. Drakos had tried to break me in every way he could think of, and still I stood. He’d never broken me, and neither would these bastards.

That mantra was a thread I clung to as the water blurred my vision.

Between gulps, I forced words out, ragged and raw. ‘You’re an absolute cock who’s got the IQ of a pork pie,’ I wheezed. If an insult could puncture their smug, I’d stab them with it.

He dunked me again, as my world reduced to rhythm—and somewhere, very far away, a part of me catalogued—breathe, count, survive; as cold and steady as a bone, and in that thin trance the terror dulled to a distant hum, and beneath it, a clean, hard promise: live; learn; wait. Payback comes later.

* * *

It had been hours. I was battered, bruised, cut, and racked with violent shudders from being cold and wet, but I wasn’t broken, and vengeance whispered to me on the still air.

I was fucking hell in razor-spiked heels, and that cock sucker would pay.

I crawled across the floor and grabbed one of my shoes which had been thrown into a corner, breaking off the stiletto heel; it would be as handy as any blade. Closing my eyes, I waited for Ajax to return.

He came back soft-footed, arrogance oozing like oil. He must’ve thought I’d be spent, scared, resigned… He was wrong.

‘Let’s have some fun with the chains and hooks,’ he said with hatred.

I found the heel of the stiletto under my palm and let the metal be an extension of thought. When he stepped close, I lashed out, because hesitation was a luxury I didn’t have. Pain sharpened everything—breath, sight, reflex. The first strike was a seamless surprise: the heel drove into the meat of his thigh, a hard, clean hit. He howled like a wounded dog, pistol clattering from his hand.

He recovered fast, rage and pride flaring. He lunged, sloppy with fury, and I met him—we collided like two linebackers—fists, kicks, the clack of stiletto on stone. He grabbed my wrist, tried to twist as I pivoted, sank an elbow into his ribs, and tasted copper on my own tongue. He countered with a haymaker that rocked my skull; stars flared. I went down—and rolled back up, because the only acceptable option was standing.

Everything condensed into motion. He wanted to dominate, to humiliate again, I wanted him to know the cost. I wanted to be back at Si’s side; that thought—Si, his voice, that stupid soft edge I’d come to crave—was a striker’s fuel; it landed in me like a flare and set me alight.