Page 53
… and stepped into the light.
Bile splashed at the back of Sinadim’s throat, but he made himself look without so much as a blink.
It was a grizzly sight.
Gruesome. Enough that, for a moment, the prince didn’t realize Sickle was nude. Couldn’t see much else besides the horror of what had been done to him.
For the space of three breaths, Sinadim cataloged the damage.
But he didn’t say a word.
Didn’t bother to ask.
There was no need.
No reason to force Sickle to relive the torment Varjim had inflicted upon him when the story was written so plainly across inked and torn skin. A mosaic painted in colorful bruises spanning weeks of abuse. In the lacerations scrawled across naked hips in hideous wounds left by gripping, clutching, greedy claws.
“Sickle… he… he glittered until they stripped him of his jewels…”
Sinadim shivered.
Just the once.
Just enough to send a shower of heated musk off his shoulders and broadcast the precise brand of doom rushing to feast on Varjim Zaganos’ innards.
Sinadim’s neck twisted in a slow revolution, a seamless glide of vertebrae that didn’t hitch until he found Varjim kneeling in the muck that had been his personal guard only minutes before.
Balkazar removed the gag.
“M-My prince,” the vermin scum began, pulling a diplomat’s skin over his pinched, rat face. Offering a grotesque smile that displayed rotting, brown teeth and bleeding gums. “The boy was a gift!” he gasped. “A p-peace offering sanctioned by the Sultan himself.”
… the poison you seek to extinguish runs thick in Karahmet blood, sweet prince…
Disgust rippled through Sinadim’s spine. Something that echoed in the marrow. Deep enough to hurt.
Varjim reached for Sinadim’s fetid boots. “I-I can give you the secrets of Tengit—”
“Tengit belongs to me,” Sinadim snapped, shaking him off. “Her citizens already draped in my colors. But you,” he breathed, deadly soft, “Varjim, shall be the night terror of every Anhur from the coast, to the wall, and beyond.” Taking a breath, Sinadim allowed a terrible slow grin to slide across his face. Taunting and cruel, the Firstborn son of the Karahmet sultanate looked down his nose, and said, “See, I owe your father a debt. I promised him I’d have you shamed before the citizens you betrayed. Afforded the chance to die begging for a worthless life.”
Some muffled protest squealed between Varjim’s teeth. Misting the air with spittle as the doomed male tried to speak and was denied the privilege when Balkazar stuffed the gag between his molars once more.
Sinadim ignored him. “But I’m afraid that’s one promise I won’t be able to keep,” he sighed, deep and gusty. Collecting a generous length of rope from his provisions. “Alas… such is the burden of those born to rule, I suppose. Instead, you’ll have to be content with dying exactly as you lived. String him up,” he added, jerking his chin toward the gates of the Summer Palace. And turning, he tossed a flippant command to strip Varjim of any last shred of dignity, and said, “Naked.”
The prince retreated to watch as the Razie did his bidding. Standing with the Hathorians, arms crossed over his chest. Pristine. His armor absent any speckle of gore, and yet… he stood apart. Marked by an innate confidence that spoke volumes.
When it was done, when Varjim Zaganos was stretched wide as he might go, suspended by wrists and ankles to the four winds as if prepared to embrace the desert, Sinadim moved at last.
Inspecting their work, he clicked his tongue. Eyes narrowed as he considered the lewd stretch that saw Varjim’s genitals dangling at eye level to an Anhur.
“Sickle,” the prince called, summoning the dainty male with a click of his claws. “Tell me, boy,” he said. “What do you think?”
The Hathorian male tried to hurry to the prince’s side, despite the gruesome injuries speckling his body. And, panting, he said, “My prince… I-I don’t think I understand.”
Sinadim gestured with a sweep of his right hand. As if it were obvious. “Something’s missing.”
Joining them, Balkazar chimed in. “It’s a decent punishment if your goal is merely to humiliate the wretched cur.”
Humming, Sinadim touched his lips with the point of one claw. “Being nude is indeed humiliating for a Zaganos male,” he drawled, squinting at the shrunken package trembling with every frantic thump of Varjim’s cowardly heart. “But is it enough to atone for his crimes?”
