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Digging her injured feet into the dirt, she screamed, “No!”
“Dramatics won’t change your circumstances,” he said, yanking her harder.
Tarley planted her feet and dropped down to her knees, but with her hands bound she couldn’t control anything. Four Tankards just dragged her through the loam anyway.
Hep rushed forward to help her.
“Leave her,” Four Tankards snapped, then yanked her to her feet, nearly pulling her arm from her socket as he did. “Calm the fuck down.”
She ignored the pain in her shoulder. “I won’t! I will make your life a living hell.” She spat the words with vehemence. “That’s a fucking promise.”
Four Tankards backhanded her, his thick, meaty hand catching her squarely across the face. There was a ring on one of his fingers, slicing her cheek. “You don’t fucking calm down, you’ll arrive at the convent ridden and broken.” The man pulled her through the flaps of the tent and shoved her so she fell face first in the dirt, everything on fire. “That’s a fucking promise.”
Having bitten her lip, she tasted copper and iron and spat bloody spittle into the dirt.
“Now. Let’s reacquaint ourselves.” He walked past her and poured himself a drink, then threw it back before pouring another. “We have unfinished business, you and me.”
She bit down a curse and spat more blood instead. She wanted to fight, but she didn’t have what she needed to win, and inflaming him might be worse for her if he was willing to hit her.Ridden and broken.Besides a horrific creature called a darkling, this was the worst-case scenario; it didn’t stop her from casting an angry look at him.
Four Tankards chuckled, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “What? Nothing to say?” He poured himself another drink. “That I highly doubt. I’ve met you.”
She ignored him, struggling to get to her knees. She needed to think, but it was difficult. She was panicked and hurt, blinking to correct the way she was suddenly seeing double. Tears stabbed her eyes — pain, but also frustration, wishing she could do more.
As she pushed off the ground, she wasn’t in the tent anymore, but on the forest floor, her hands in the soft loam of moss and leaves. The earth trembled around her, and she looked up to see horses rushing past her, carrying shadowed riders.
She shook her head, in the tent once more.
A vision.
Four Tankards stalked forward, grabbed her hair, and yanked her head back, forcing her to look up at him. “Exactly where you should be. On your knees.” He took a sip of the drink in his other hand. “No champion this time. I owe you for last time.”
Darkness blinded her, but she hadn’t moved. A horrible voice spoke to her from the pervasive gloom in her mind. “Azleah,” the unnatural voice hissed from the darkness. “I’m coming for you–”
She tried to pull away, only she was still in the tent, her hair in Four Tankard’s grip. Her scalp smarted as he wrenched her head.
The giant man bent forward so they were nearly nose to nose. “I can’t wait to fucking break that spirit.” Those words were a promise.
Tarley shivered.
Then she descended into another vision, falling against a wall, only it wasn’t a wall, but a chest, a breastplate stamped with a tree—the tree of Jast—but then the image faded into nothing. She tried to focus on the face it belonged to, but the vision drifted away just as quickly as it began.
She felt sick, suddenly and pressed her bound hands to her belly.
Four Tankards released her hair. “I reported you to the Sevens’ priest. You and your bodyguard. The acolyte tried to claim you were protected.” He took a few steps away to the table where the bottle of spirits sat, pouring himself another dram. “It makes me wonder why you’re here at all if that priest did his job.”
Tarley didn’t respond, sure it wasn’t really a question, swallowing her nausea.
He took another gulp of his drink. “That priest is probably corrupt. Which is what we’re fighting against.”
We’re?Tarley caught the word.
“Well?” Four Tankards asked.
“Oh. You were expecting an answer? How would I know? I’m just a woman.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “This is why we do what we do.” He pointed at her with his glass, then thought better of the passive action and stalked across the space to her, grabbing her face with his hand and squeezing her cheeks between his fingers. She tried to yank her face from his grasp, but couldn’t, the pressure of his grip biting into her skin and bones. “Keep you in your place. Like that bitch queen.” He pushed her face away, knocking her back to the ground.
His comment struck another note of familiarity, but Tarley wasn’t hearing the song yet. “The queen?” she asked, struggling back to her knees.
