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“Okay.”
He sniffed the air. “Your back is infected again. You refuse to heal yourself.”
When I didn’t respond, he gripped me by the shoulder and forced me around so he could look at my back. I was wearing the same grimy, blood-soaked black clothes I’d been in for days, and the lack of bathing opportunities in here probably explained why it had become infected so quickly. I grunted as he tore at my shirt, exposing my infected shoulder.
“Do you mind?” I snapped. “You don’t have the best bedside manner.”
“And yet, there’s no one else here helping you, is there?” he said quietly.
I closed my eyes. If Torin were alive, he would help me. I swallowed the bitter thought as Morgant brushed his fingers over my infected skin. The pain made me wince, but in moments, Morgant’s soothing magic rushed over my skin, cleansing it like warm water.
Why was he healing me? What else did these people want of me?
When he finished, I rolled my shoulder, breathing deeply. I turned back to face him, my dirty hair hanging before my eyes. “Why are you here?” I asked.
“Eat your food,” he barked.
He picked up one of the metallic bowls from the floor, one filled with rice and vegetables, and shoved it at me. I stared down at it, nearly hysterical with the thought that these people took pride in being vegetarians while they clearly delighted in sadism.
This felt like another power play. He was ordering me to eat because I didn’t want to, and he simply wanted me to know that he was the one in control. I met his gaze, falling silent again.
“The Unseelie are not weak,” he said in a low voice.
I cocked my head. “And I’m not one of you. You people disgust me.”
It all happened in a flash, his powerful arm shooting out and gripping me by the neck. One moment, we were on the floor, and in the next, he stood, lifting me by the throat, choking me. “You have more power than you think, Lost One, and the only way for you to survive is to learn how to use it. I want you to survive.But strength only comes through pain. Do you understand?”
He dropped me on the floor, and I fell hard, the pain jolting up my tailbone.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
So, I’d been brutalized by a muscular fae Nietzsche.
“You stabbed the Seelie king,” he said. “You are one of us now. Every Unseelie has magic, but you are no good to us until you can summon yours.”
He turned. The door slammed behind him, and I heard the bolt slide shut. Did they really think I would be one of them? That I would lend my magic to their kingdom, even if I could summon it?
But a single thing Morgant had said burned in my mind. A little kernel of light in a landscape of shadows. A glimmer of meaning in my life.
Revenge.
People didn’t need comfort to thrive, or pleasure; they only needed to find meaning.
I closed my eyes, and the ghost of Torin’s voice whispered in my skull.
I don’t want to be without you any more than I have to.
His words were a light beaming from my chest.
When I opened my eyes again, the red leaves from the prison floor had risen into the air.
22
SHALINI
Iclutched a cup of cold tea in my gloved hands as I walked through the hall. By my side, Aeron exhaled deeply, and a cloud of frozen breath puffed around his head. He leaned closer to me, whispering, “I tried to ask about fixing Torin’s throne. Moria seemed remarkably uninterested in making that happen.”
“There’s something very wrong with her,” I said to Aeron through clenched teeth.
