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Through swollen eyes, Rupert looks. Sees me stretched naked on the table, my head turned toward him. With sweet pain I remember lying on the kitchen table and letting him coat me with frosting.
“Don’t do this.” Rupert’s voice is a raw scrape through his throat. “Let her go, please.”
“Tell me your true name, and I will.”
“Very well.” Rupert clears his throat. “It’s Shaelevarthra.”
The King nearly chokes on his rage. “Don’t speak it where everyone can hear, you fool! You will tell it only to me, or I’ll have to kill anyone who overhears it. Lucky for everyone in this room, you told me a lie just now. And before you continue spouting more lies, know that Lady Kessalif began doing research on your kind the moment she suspected an Elf was involved. We weren’t sure if you were full-blooded or half, so we made a contingency plan for both scenarios.”
The King sounds like a warrior now, like a general. A man of battle and brawn, but a politician as well. A dangerous combination.
“So you know everything about my people, and about true names?” Rupert asks hoarsely. “I thought you humans had erased Elvish lore from your books, your schools, and your libraries. Our history and habits aren’t interesting enough or important enough to be included, yes? That’s the view your father and grandfather took, anyway.”
To my surprise, the King’s shoulders stiffen, and he clears his throat as if he’s buying himself time to answer. “We still have some records.”
“Then you know that a Half-Elf, bound by their true name, must obey any command given by their master. They may not speak their own name to anyone once they are bound. And the only way to break such a bond is for another person to speak the Half-Elf’s true name in the presence of both the Half-Elf and the master, whereupon ownership transfers to the new master, and the old one may not reclaim it, no matter how many times he says the name.”
“Yes, yes,” says the King impatiently.
“And you know,” continues Rupert, his voice thin and cracked, “that if the master of a bound Half-Elf dies, the Half-Elf will perish as well.”
I hold my breath for a long moment, shocked by this revelation.
Once Rupert is bound to King Falron, even if I manage to kill the King, Rupert will die, too.
“Don’t do it!” I cry out desperately. “Whatever they do to me, don’t give them your—”
“Silence her!” barks the King.
The next second my jaws are pried apart by rough hands, and a wad of cloth is wedged into my mouth. I try to spit it out, but they place a gag over my lips and knot it at the back of my skull, so all I can do is vent muffled screams through the coarse fabric.
I had no idea the true names of Half-Elves were so dangerous—which makes me even more heartsick because I think Rupert was on the verge of giving me his true name at least once. The mere idea that he would trust me with that much power over him makes me want to cry.
“She’s yours, Magden,” the King says.
A man steps forward from the shadowy corner of the torture chamber. His face has been painted thickly in greasy streaks of black and red, and he holds a thin, crooked blade in his hand. The guards who bound and gagged me withdraw quickly, as if they’re wary of him.
At a nod from the King, the torturer steps forward and sets the toothlike tip of the blade to my breastbone.
“Stop,” Rupert gasps again. “I’ll tell you, I swear.”
“Given your first attempt at deception just moments ago, I think I should demonstrate how serious I am about this,” the King replies smoothly. “Continue, Magden.”
The blade carves a jagged line down my sternum, then swings around to slit the heavy flesh along the underside of my left breast. I breathe through the pain—breathe and breathe, but I do not scream. I refuse to scream.
The torturer’s painted face tilts, as if my tenacity surprises him. But before I have a chance to steel myself, he sidesteps, seize my right hand, and digs the flat tip of the knife under the nail of my little finger.
I start to scream—but I catch myself and I shut down my throat, screaming inside my head rather than letting the sound burst through the gag. I scream numbers, counting to calm myself as the pain spikes, then ebbs a little. I can’t see Rupert now, I’m staring at the ceiling, focused on the dark stone high above my face.
There’s a clank of metal being discarded, the scrape of another tool being picked up. The torturer clamps my smallest fingernail in the grip of the new tool, and with a wrenching pull, he yanks the nail out of its bed.
It feels as if my finger has been torn apart.
I can’t hold back any longer.
I scream.
Rupert is roaring at the King, or trying to, even though his voice is still hoarse and weak.
