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Except up.
Fear binding her in place, she lifted her head to see faceless figures staring down at her.
So far away. With her wrists tied so tight the skin sloughed off, there was no way to climb.
“Why have you come to Ithicana? What is your purpose? Are you a spy for your father?”
“To be queen.” Her throat burned, so dry. So thirsty. “To be a bride of peace. I am no spy.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not.”
Sand struck her in the face. Not just tiny grains, but chunks of rock that bruised and sliced. Forcing her to cringe. To grovel. Eleven shovels flung sand at her from all sides. Striking her. Hurting her. Filling the hole.
Burying her alive.
“Tell us the truth!”
“I am!” The sand was up to her chin.
“Liar!”
She couldn’t breathe.
She was seated on a chair, her wrists bound together. Her nails picked and scratched at the ropes, blood trickling down her palms. Fabric covered her eyes, but she could feel the heat of flames.
“They will do worse to you in Ithicana, Lara,” Serin’s voice crooned in her ear. “Far worse.” He whispered the horrors, and she screamed, needing to get away. Needing to escape.
“Worse things will be done to your sisters,” he sang, pulling off her hood.
There was fire in her eyes. Burning. Burning. Burning.
“You will not touch my sisters,” she screamed. “You cannot have them. You will not hurt them.”
Except it was Marylyn holding the coals to her feet, not Serin. Sarhina, tears running down her face, who tightened the noose.
And it was Lara who was burning. Her hair. Her clothes. Her flesh.
She could not breathe.
A hand was gripping her, shaking her. “Lara? Lara!”
Lara reached up, catching hold of the hilt of her knife, remembering herself just in time to stop from stabbing Aren in the face.
“You were having a nightmare. Eli fetched me when they heard you screaming.”
A nightmare.Lara took a deep breath, digging deep into her core for some semblance of calm. Only then did she see the door hanging crooked on its frame, the latch in pieces scattered across the floor. Aren wore the same clothes he had earlier, his hair damp and clinging to his forehead.
Tearing her eyes away, Lara reached for a water glass, her mouth tasting sour from too much brandy. “I can’t remember anything.” A lie, given the smell of burning hair still filled her nose. Nightmares that weren’t dreams, but memories of her training. Had she said anything incriminating? Had he realized she was reaching for the knife under her pillow?
Aren nodded, but his brow furrowed, suggesting that he didn’t quite believe her. The sweat-soaked sheets peeled off her skin as she leaned out of the bed to fill her glass with the water pitcher, knowing the nightgown she wore only barely covered her breasts and hoping the flash of skin would distract him.
“Who did that to you?”
Lara froze, certain in an instant that shehadshouted something damning while caught in her fugue state. Her eyes skipped to the open door, calculating her chances of escape, but then his fingers grazed the skin of her back, following a familiar pattern. Scars, which her sister Sarhina had rubbed oil into every night for years until they’d faded into thin white lines.
“Who did this?” The heat in his voice made her skin prickle.
