AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I just stared at him. It seemed pointless to say anything. They’d already proved to me once that they’d never believe a single word that passed my lips. Even if I told them I had been plotting with the Beasts, they probably would’ve assumed I was lying about that, too.
Then he took a small knife from his pocket, and sliced the entire little braid away. I vaguely reached up to touch the short tuft of hair he’d left behind, and the Father held the pale, beaded string up to the light.
Then he threw it in the fire. The braid turned black and frizzled, the ivory beads browning rapidly.
“Take her to the basement and put her in the stocks. With iron, this time. You, there—help him.”
I felt myself lifted from the floor, and couldn’t feel surprise when I saw Freya looking back at me. I only wondered muzzily if the Father had replaced me in the brief time I’d been gone.
Oleg and the other man dragged me to the basement, and the Augur locked me in with iron chains. I moved one arm, rattling the new bracelets.
“Salem.” Freya’s face was white, her voice strained. “What happened to you?”
I raised my head and looked at her.
“Where have you been?”
She reached out and clasped my hands. Mine felt like ice, but so did hers.
“I was in heaven,” I said slowly.
She drew back, shock on her face, but her hands didn’t leave mine. “You were in the Wood, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “Heaven. There was freedom, no hunger, no fear…”
“But the Beasts,” she whispered. “What did they do? Did they hunt you?”
It felt like a monumental effort just to shake my head. “They cared for me.”
My eyes had filled with tears and I hadn’t even realized it. I despised the numbness. I wanted to die just to escape it.
Freya’s hands tightened convulsively, but she remained crouched in front of me, staring me in the face. Finally, she exhaled. “Are you telling me the truth, Salem?”
I only nodded again. Words were too hard to form. All I could do was drift on this numb, endless sea and wait for the pain to eventually come back.
And when it did, I would be caged in iron, the monster within me just as helpless.
Freya’s lips thinned to white lines. “Just hang on, Salem. You have to hang on, alright? I’ll be back.”
I didn’t believe her, but didn’t bother telling her. What would it matter?
No matter how far I ran, Vostok would catch up, and spread its poison to us all. It would be a lifetime of endless poison to end in fire.
I wasn’t even aware when Freya left me.
Chapter Sixteen
They didn’t allowthe numbing effects of the tea to wear off.
Hours later, when some small amount of clarity had returned to me, along with the growing pain from Oleg’s beating, the door to the basement creaked open and footsteps descended the stairs.
I looked up into the Augur’s rheumy eyes.
“Time to take your medicine,” he said, giving me that gap-toothed grin.
I thought about resisting, but I knew another beating might kill me. And in the clarity I possessed now, I was sure that I didn’t want to die.
I loathed the poison tea, but if I could just hold out… I would find a way back to the Wood. I had to hold onto that thought through the numbness.
