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I crawled, squirmed.
A hand grabbed my ankle.
I glanced back.
No, not a hand.
Gray and brittle, a bracelet of bone anchored me to the ground. I kicked it with the heel of my shoe. Once. Twice. The third kick shattered it, and I pushed myself back into a run, arms flailing for balance as I headed toward the bridge.
Any bridge.
More bone roped around my calves, but the force of my thrusts shattered them all. To my left, the King strolled toward me, letting a sense of dread spread through my core. Worse was how he suddenly stopped, a cruel twitch coming over his upper lip.
“You’ll never leave me, little one,” he said as his smirk sobered into a grim line. “Now stop, or I’ll have to make you.”
He could try. “Never.”
Another step.
Crack! Crack!
Pain shot into my legs.
I staggered for an excruciating step, and another, as if on bowlegged stilts someone had set aflame. I fell to the ground, palms sliding over the porous bone, chafing me raw. What had he done? I looked at my legs, feeling my lungs deflate and die in my chest. No, I would run nowhere.
Because he had broken my legs.
They gnarled behind the blur of tears covering my eyes, taking on the crooked shape of a dog’s hind-legs, even as the pain slowly eased away. It shouldn’t. With my legs this badly broken, shouldn’t I scream in pain?
“There, there.” Strong arms lifted me, pressing me against an even stronger chest. “Look what you made me do, little one. No king should chase his runaway servant, and certainly not into lands he hasn’t stepped on for nearly two centuries.”
I didn’t want it to, but my face fell into the crook of his neck, letting tears run down his collarbone. “You broke my legs.”
“Twisted,” he corrected, as if it made a difference. He carried me over another bridge and from there, into a dark corridor. “Behave, and I’ll straighten them.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To bathe, as my woman requested.”
Gray bone turned into what appeared to be actual stone, dark like slate, which opened into some sort of cavern. Traces of mildew clung to the humid air the deeper we ventured until wafts of steam settled damp on my cheeks. They billowed from the surface of what had to be a hot spring, the water gently bubbling against the stone edge that surrounded it.
Beside it stood Orlaigh, her chin pressed to her chest, hands fumbling with the cotton of her dress as she mumbled, “Nothing good would’ve come of it, lass.”
My head ached at my foolishness and a knot formed in my stomach for this betrayal. “So you ratted me out.”
“Ach, lass, ye cannae ken—”
“Leave us,” the King commanded as he lowered me to the ground, steadying me on my disfigured legs. “What a mess you made of yourself, little one.”
I stared behind Orlaigh as she left, if only to keep my eyes from how the King let his breeches thud to the ground. My chemise went next, which he carefully tugged over my head as I swayed on unreliable legs, before he let the fabric pool between us.
Lifting me once more, he wiggled my crooked feet until the shoes slipped off, then he climbed into the water. “You’ll never see the outside world again.”
Oh, but I would. “Never is a long time.”
Heat encapsulated me as he lowered us into the water, the way he gently wet my hair so unlike the beast who’d broken my legs. He let his hand run over my body with no restraint, washing me clean.
“You’re mine, Ada.” His dark whisper against my ear pebbled my skin. “My servant, my plaything, my woman. I’ll never let you go.”
