AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her amber eyes go round. “What? Yes, of course I did. I read it word for word.” Her voice gains in volume. “Just like you asked me to!”
Shaking my head with disbelief, I pace. Something doesn’t add up.
“You think I inventedthis?”She brandishes the letter like a weapon. “Have someone else read it to you then!”
“How convenient for you,” I practically sneer, “that our scholar died last month.”
Setting her jaw, she slowly gets to her feet and stands tall in front of me despite her slight stature. “Take your letter,” she says, enunciating every word. “And get out.”
“This is my stronghold, woman.”
She shoves the letter into my chest. “Get! Out!”
Chapter 9
Rina
The gall of the man. Forcing me to read about my own torture, and then accusing me of fabricating it all? The sheer gall.
Watching his retreating figure, broad shoulders and firm backside included, doesn’t bring any satisfaction though. I’m once more alone, trapped within these four icy walls. That I already regret his leaving has a strangled cry forming in my gut. I have to fight to keep it in, but he won’t get anything from me. Not a thing.
Wretched man.
And now that he’s gone, Mattice Dulat rises like a serpent in my mind. No! Sweat breaks out on my brow. No. I mustn’t think of that. In a panic, I turn a circle and my attention catches on the chains that are still attached to the bed posts. Rushing forward, I take hold of the closest one and begin wrenching it up and down, back and forth with all my might. The clinking of the metal against the stones is my only focus. There are no memories of burning flesh or endless pain. No taunts or threats or terror. None of it.
When the spike embedded in the wood gives by a fraction, I pause in my efforts. It’s coming loose! I start up again, tugging harder.
Without warning, I fall back on my ass, staring at the chain in my hands. Jubilation crashes through me as I scramble to my feet and lug the heavy iron links to the window. Looking out, I can’t believe my luck as I spy the man himself, huddled with Noé and Eldon in the middle of the courtyard near the sundial.
“My deve!” I yell with as much sarcasm as I can muster. His head lifts, hunting for the source of the call. When he spots me, he pushes Noé aside and stalks closer. Planting his hands on his hips, he glares up at me, striking the most handsome picture of domineering arrogance I can possibly imagine.
“I have something for you!” I announce and fling the chain from the window.
He doesn’t even flinch when it lands with a loud, clanging thump against the cobbles not far from his boots. At first he only stares down at it, but then he throws his head back and laughs, a deep, raucous belly laugh that bounces off the walls of the courtyard, mocking me with its mirth.
“You’ll pay for that, princess,” he shouts, except his tone lacks any kind of rancor. He sounds amused rather than angry. Bewildered, I watch him turn on his heel and head for the stables.For the love of all that is sacred. Did he not just accuse me of being a liar? To my face?
The high of the moment starts to fade, my indignation burning itself out and leaving me with nothing but a depressing sense of resignation and four walls. The cold creeps up from the floor, weaving itself into the very bones of my bare feet. I retrieve my fur from the window ledge and limp around the brazier to the one on the floor. With no door, I can’t bear to sleep on the bed in the open, so this is my pallet. During the day, I usually relocate to the bed, but today, I had no energy for it and now I simply burrow myself between the furs where they lay.
To keep Mattice Dulat and the horrors of that terrible day at bay, I give my encounter with Luka free rein in my imagination. Yes, he’s infuriating and overbearing, but he’s never hurt me and I can’t deny that being in his arms has been my only real respite. There’s nowhere I feel safer than when he’s hauling me around . . . or holding me. And if I’m not mistaken, I felt his arousal against my stomach earlier. The idea that I affect him like he does me is intoxicating. I’m not a virgin, but somehow I doubt being with the deve would be anything like being with Roland. Roland, who in hindsight, abused his power over me. But the me of today doesn’t regret allowing him to take advantage of me any more than my nineteen-year-old self did two years ago.
The six years I spent at the remote outpost in the far south of D’heilar after my mother was hanged were formative. I arrived at thirteen as a grief-stricken, informal prisoner, but I gradually became a valued member of the domestic staff. I worked in the kitchen or the fields or the stables. I didn’t have any close friends there, but they became a kind of makeshift family that allowed me to heal somewhat after being orphaned. There weren’t many luxuries, but there was food to eat and books to read and the climate was pleasant.
I met Roland in my last year there. He was the new commander of the outpost garrison and double my age. I never loved him, but I didn’t mind his attentions. In exchange, he took me under his wing and taught me many useful things; to use a bow and arrow, to camp, and to start a fire with a flint rock. Besides my life as a very small child, my time with him was the happiest of my life.
It didn’t last of course. Word of our relationship got out and from one day to the next, Roland was gone. Not long after that, I was summoned to Salandar City in the north where I was promptly introduced to Mattice Dulat, and then held for a year in my chamber with very little interaction with anyone.
My hand presses to the burns on my side, and my mind again scrambles to avoid re-living the nightmare of Mattice Dulat’s one visit. He’d started out by announcing that I was being sold to a barbarian in marriage, and when I’d shown interest rather than fear, he’d upped the ante. After reading the letter, I realize he’d come to get a feel for my reaction to the marriage and myinteresthadn’t been acceptable. So he’d scarred me. To make me unattractive. My stomach turns. The way he’d stood back and considered my naked flesh as if I was a blank canvas still haunts me, not to mention the heated blade and the agonizing singeing of my flesh. Maybe I should count myself lucky he didn’t mutilate my face. But that sick fuck probably wanted it to be something that only Luka would discover.
I’d like to say I escaped with only the physical scars, but some days the lingering fear and paranoia overwhelm me, forcing me to curl into myself . . . like now as I stare blankly at the wall on the other side of the room through the tunnel created by the underside of the bed.
I have no idea how much time has passed when I startle at a hand nudging my shoulder. “Rina?”
Blinking away the past, I find Yvette looking down at me with concern.
“Why are you on the floor?”
“The door,” I mumble, almost rubbing my eyes but the smell of iron on my dirty hands stops me. She helps me into a sitting position and the cold slithers against my skin, making me shiver.
